John Wayne _ The Man Behind the Myth - Michael Munn [66]
Because of his association with RKO, Wayne was able to ask Howard Hughes, who now owned the studio, for a loan, and with it he purchased a house in Encino, set on a small hill in a five-acre estate. The house had twenty-four rooms, a swimming pool, and stables.
Encino was then a relatively underdeveloped area in the San Fernando Valley. Around his estate, Wayne had erected a ten-foot-high brick wall with an electrically operated gate for added security.
He hoped the luxury Chata now found herself living in would make life easier. It didn’t. He said, “It finally dawned on me that Chata had married me for what I could do for her. That made me feel degraded.
I felt used. I’d do anything for anyone, but they have to be upfront about it.”
By this time, Wayne had committed himself fully to a new mission—the fight against Communism.
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Wayne’s Crusade for
Freedom
On 12 March 1947, President Truman declared America’s determination to take “immediate and resolute action” in support of any nation resisting Communist aggression. In what became known as the Truman Doctrine, he stated, “I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressures. I believe that we must assist free people to work out their own destinies in their own way.”
That same year, John Wayne joined the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. It was the year that President Harry S. Truman initiated a nationwide hunt for Communists. It was also the year the alliance invited the House Un-American Activities Committee to investigate Communism in the film industry. A number of actors, directors, and writers were summoned to Washington to appear before the committee headed by J. Parnell Thomas. Ten names became prominent as suspected Communists—producer-director Herbert Biberman, Edward Dmytryk, producer-writer Adrian Scott, and screenwriters Alvah Bessie, Lester Cole, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, and Dalton Trumbo. All ten cited the First 123
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Amendment (and its protection of the right to free speech and association) and were held in contempt of Congress for their refusal to divulge their political affiliations, past or present. This group became known as the Hollywood Ten, although there were others who were named as either Communists or Communist sympathizers, and whose careers suffered because of it.
Some actually admitted to being former members of the Communist party, and those who named names were generally pardoned. Those who didn’t found their careers cut short.
In 1948, the Hollywood Ten were summoned to Washington for trial and were subsequently imprisoned, not for being Communists, but for contempt. That was also the year Ward Bond and John Wayne were elected to the executive board of the Motion Picture Alliance.
Many in Hollywood denounced the Communist witch hunts, as they came to be known. A delegation headed for Washington, led by John Huston, Humphrey Bogart, and many other top names, to protest the treatment of the Hollywood Ten. But their protest had no impact.
There were many inside and outside the alliance who believed that the Hollywood Ten got what they deserved.
In 1949 John Wayne was elected as president of the Motion Picture Alliance—a position he held for three consecutive terms—
and he spoke out openly against Communism. He gave Senator Joseph McCarthy his full support in Congress’s new investigation into Communism in the entertainment business.
He was now in a position that brought much criticism for his right-wing views. He told me, “I never felt I needed to apologize for my patriotism. I felt that if there were Communists in the business—and I knew there were—then they