John Wayne _ The Man Behind the Myth - Michael Munn [63]
Three Godfathers was a Western fable based somewhat loosely on the Nativity story. Three outlaws on the run discover a dying woman with a baby. They promise the dying mother that they will save the baby and, after burying the woman, they head across the desert for New Jerusalem, Arizona. Only one man survives, saving the baby and giving himself up to the law.
In September 1947, Harry Carey died after a long, agonizing battle with cancer. Ford was with him at the moment he died, and Wayne was in the next room taking care of Carey’s son, Harry Jr., who had played small roles in Red River and Pursued.
Wayne recalled, “It was a terrible day for us all, but especially for Olive and Dobe [Harry Jr.’s nickname because his hair was the color of adobe brick]. I gave Dobe a drink of whisky but he turned it down.
He told me that his father had told him, ‘You will work for John Ford one day. Not till after I’m dead, but you will.’
“Harry Carey had made a lot of pictures with Ford in the silent days [twenty-five films, altogether], but they kinda drifted apart and I was sorry that Pappy never gave Harry a part in any of his films after sound came along. But I was glad I made a few pictures with him. He was my idol when I was a boy.”
At Carey’s wake, Ford told Olive Carey that he was going to remake Three Godfathers as a tribute to Harry, and he told Harry Jr.
he was going to be in it, along with Wayne and Pedro Armendariz as the three outlaws. Ward Bond was to play the marshal who pursues them into the desert.
Ford told Harry Jr., “You’re going to hate me when this picture is over, but you’re going to give a great performance.”
Filming began in May 1948, in Death Valley. Ford had been right; Harry Jr. did come to hate the director who gave Carey the kind of 21184_ch01.qxd 12/18/03 1:43 PM Page 118
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treatment he had given Duke in Stagecoach. Wayne recalled, “I loved Pappy, but he could be a real son of a bitch. A number of times while filming Three Godfathers, he told Dobe to ‘assume the position’ and kicked him in the ass. I didn’t think that was so bad, but a few times he told me to kick poor Dobe, and I felt really bad about that, but when Pappy gave an order, it was carried out.”
Making Three Godfathers was, said Wayne, “damn hard.” “One of the most difficult locations I ever worked on. We were out in the desert sun in soaring temperatures for much of the time. We’d work from eight in the morning until eleven, and then break for a four-hour lunch during the hottest part of the day when it was impossible to work. Then back to work again until around six in the evening. I drank gallons of water to try to keep from getting dehydrated, but my lips still cracked and I got terribly sunburned. That wasn’t all makeup on my face.
“There was a scene where we had to walk through a sandstorm, and we had two huge airplane propellers blowing the sand up around us. It got in your eyes, your mouth, up your nose, in your ears. It took days to film that fucking scene.
“Pappy was in his worst mood when we were in the desert, but after, when we returned to the studio at MGM, he lightened up and there was a bit more pleasure in the process.
“You’ll recall that at the beginning of the film there’s a shot of a cowboy who was dressed like Harry Carey riding to the crest of a hill and looking into the sunset. That was Cliff Lyons, a great stuntman.
And Ford put over that shot the words, ‘To the memory of Harry Carey. Bright Star of the Early Western Sky.’ When Olive saw that, she just wept buckets. We all did.”
As soon as Wayne finished on Three Godfathers, he went to work at Republic again, to make Wake of the Red