John Wayne _ The Man Behind the Myth - Michael Munn [49]
21184_ch01.qxd 12/18/03 1:42 PM Page 89
THE WAR YEARS
89
While Wayne was in the South Pacific, The Fighting Seabees was released in January 1944 and was a box-office hit. Wayne was firmly established as the embodiment of the American fighting man in uniform. The American public didn’t care if he never actually fought in the war. They had their spirits lifted by the sight of Wayne killing the enemy.
Of his tour of the Pacific, Wayne said, “It became obvious to me that I could accomplish more by entertaining the troops and boosting their morale than I might have done if I’d been allowed to enlist. To them I was America. A lot of those guys had taken their sweethearts to the Saturday matinee and held hands through a John Wayne Western.”
When Wayne returned from his tour, he held a press conference to tell Americans to boost the troops’ morale with plenty of letters, snapshots, radios, and cigars. To celebrate his homecoming from the war zone, Republic arranged for a photo shoot of Duke and his four children for Screen Guide, but there was no mention that he was no longer living at home and trying for a divorce.
“Duke was anxious to get back to the troops,” said Fix, “because of the plans to invade Europe, but Yates saw to it he didn’t go. He filed for a 2-A deferment for Duke.” (A 2-A deferment meant
“deferred in support of national health, safety, or interest.”) Wayne was officially grounded and would never be able to do more for the war effort. “Although he did his best,” said Fix, “he always felt like a fraud for not getting in uniform, but that was never his fault, despite what some have said.”
In 1944 Wayne purchased a bungalow on Tyrone Street in Van Nuys, in the San Fernando Valley, just a short drive from the Republic studio. It was a modest home by Hollywood standards, with one large bedroom, a good-sized lounge, a dining room, a large bathroom, and two smaller rooms. Duke and Chata moved in, and from time to time Chata’s mother, Mrs. Ceballos, came to stay.
Paul Fix described the situation as such: “Duke liked Chata’s mother in the beginning. She could put a fair bit of alcohol away too.
But she kept coming to stay, and each stay got longer. Duke didn’t mind at first. The only problem was, Chata’s mother didn’t speak much English, and Duke only knew a little Spanish. She was actually 21184_ch01.qxd 12/18/03 1:42 PM Page 90
90
JOHN WAYNE
quite a beautiful woman, and she was only just a little less than ten years Duke’s senior, which I think made him feel uncomfortable.
“Chata was great for Duke, but it should only have been a short-term relationship. I tried to tell Duke that she was the kind of girl who liked to party. Others tried to tell him too: Ward Bond, Bo Roos, John Ford—they all said the same thing. But Duke was so happy, he wouldn’t listen. I think he wanted to enjoy that feeling of happiness, because when it came down to it, it helped to numb the guilt he felt about leaving Jo and the kids.”
That summer, Wayne was back at RKO for a Western, Tall in the Saddle. It was based on a magazine story he had read and he got Paul Fix to write a draft screenplay. “Duke had decided it was time to get more control over his films, and he formed a good working relationship with the film’s producer, Robert Fellows. He had a say in the casting, the script, everything, because he was already determined that he was going to produce his own films in the future.”
Today Tall in the Saddle is regarded as a minor classic, with Wayne as a woman-hating ranch foreman who falls for a fiery cattle owner, played by Ella Raines. Fix was also in the cast, as was Ward Bond. Before work on the film began, a meeting was arranged for Wayne, Fix, and Bond to meet Raines at a restaurant across the street from RKO. By telephone in 1979, Ella Raines recalled, “I adored Duke. I remember walking into the restaurant with Paul Fix where Duke and Ward Bond were waiting, and I heard Duke say to Bond,
‘Shall I use four-letter words in front of her?’ Anyway, we had lunch, and