John Wayne _ The Man Behind the Myth - Michael Munn [42]
21184_ch01.qxd 12/18/03 1:42 PM Page 76
76
JOHN WAYNE
During filming on location at Big Bear, Marlene Dietrich stayed at a hotel by the lake to be close to Duke. Henry Hathaway told me,
“I didn’t like having her around because her ardor sometimes made him late, which was unlike Duke. One morning he came rushing in and hit a corner and turned over his station wagon.”
Hathaway would become one of Wayne’s closest friends, and one of his favorite directors. Like Ford, Hathaway was tough and didn’t think twice about bawling anyone out on the set if they didn’t do their job properly. He said of Wayne, “Duke was never an actor. By that, I mean he had to do everything real. There wasn’t anything in Duke that would allow him to pretend he was something. He couldn’t be French, he couldn’t have an accent, he couldn’t be Olivier. Whatever he was called to do in the script, he did. It wasn’t a question of acting, it was a question of reality.”
Wayne enjoyed making the film, and told me, “It was a great thrill for me to work with Harry Carey, and the way Hathaway shot and edited it, it was easily one of the finest pictures I’ve ever seen. But the studio took all the suspense out of the picture by reediting it and having me told that Carey was my father.”
Wayne went back to Republic to make two minor films in quick succession, A Man Betrayed, which was a contemporary drama in which he played a lawyer, and Lady from Louisiana, in which he again played a lawyer but this time in old Mississippi.
Despite Wayne’s marital problems, in December 1940, Josephine gave birth to Melinda. Duke confided to Paul Fix that he was spending most evenings at Dietrich’s house, pouring out his marital problems. Said Fix, “Duke was caught up in this incredible love affair with Marlene who really beguiled him with her vast experience as a lover. She introduced Duke to erotic pleasures he never knew existed. I said, ‘Duke, you gotta choose between being a husband and being Marlene’s toy because as sure as hell, she’s gonna dump you sooner or later.’ He’d say, ‘I know! I know! I was telling Marlene what a wonderful, religious woman and a great mother Josephine is, but our sex life is virtually nonexistent. Four times in ten years. That’s why we got four great kids.’ I told Duke he was an idiot. He said, ‘I know! I know!’ So he knew all right.”
A Man Betrayed and Lady from Louisiana were both released 21184_ch01.qxd 12/18/03 1:42 PM Page 77
DIETRICH AND DEMILLE
77
early in 1941, before The Shepherd of the Hills, which came out in the summer of 1941. None of these films did much to further Wayne’s career and, in 1941, he was back on the Republic lot making Lady for a Night with Joan Blondell. Once more it was set in Mississippi, but for Wayne it was an attempt at light comedy, which he enjoyed.
In April 1941, Wayne received another offer from Cecil B.
DeMille, and this time Wayne was wise enough not to turn it down.
The film was Reap the Wild Wind and, accepting an invitation to come to DeMille’s office, Wayne duly turned up and listened to the legendary director outline the character of Jack Martin, a sea captain who loses a ship when it is wrecked on the Key West shoals. As the story progresses, Martin tries to clear his name with the help of a lawyer, Steve Tolliver, and Loxi Claiborne, the owner of a Key West salvage schooner. There follow fights with pirates and a tug of love between Jack and Steve for Loxi. When Jack mistakenly believes Steve has double-crossed him, he purposely wrecks a steamboat and at his trial one of Jack’s rivals says that his sweetheart died in the wreck. Jack and Steve don divers’ suits and search the wreck where Steve discovers the dead girl’s scarf, evidence that could send Jack to the gallows. The climax of the film had not been properly worked out, but somehow Jack would die while saving Steve’s life.
DeMille announced that Ray Milland, under contract to Paramount where the film was to be made, would be