John Wayne _ The Man Behind the Myth - Michael Munn [7]
FROM MARION TO DUKE
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marital problems almost from the beginning. While Clyde was easygoing and trusting of others, Molly was a dominant woman and definitely the head of the household. She constantly nagged Clyde, which upset Marion who began to feel insecure listening to his parents’ constant arguments. It may well be that the incompatible couple had married in haste.
She wanted Clyde to progress in his work, and made sure that they saved enough money so he could buy his own store in nearby Earlham where the family made their new home. That’s where Robert was born, named after Molly’s father. Marion came to resent his mother’s devotion to his younger brother, feeling unloved by her. Consequently, this made him grow closer to his father who taught him how to play football. In turn, Molly became increasingly impatient with Marion who wanted little to do with Robert.
By most accounts, the store Clyde bought was a pharmacy. But according to Yakima Canutt, “Duke’s father’s store mainly sold paint and wallpaper, and it also sold patent medicine. I know that for a fact because Duke told me. But I also knew that Duke idolized his father and he felt that a pharmacist was a respectable profession and he preferred to remember his father as a pharmacist and not a seller of paint and wallpaper.”
Years later, when Marion Michael Morrison became famous as John Wayne, stories emerged, often made up by studio publicists, which delved into his past and made a few changes to the true story.
Young Marion, they said, discovered a great love of the countryside and would often go off on his own. “I hated the countryside when I was a kid,” he told me, however. “The only reason I’d go off on my own was to run away from home because there was . . . well, a lot of unhappiness back then.”
According to Canutt, “He ran away and was usually found and returned home. Other times he just came home on his own because he was hungry. And when he came home, it was back to a house where his parents were bickering. It was back to a town where the local bullies teased him about his name. What I believe is true—only this probably came about when he was a little older and not as a youngster of five or six as has been told—he enjoyed learning about 21184_ch01.qxd 12/18/03 1:42 PM Page 10
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JOHN WAYNE
the history of the old West. When we were working together on those early Westerns, he’d talk about the old West and of wagon trains and pioneers, of stagecoach robberies and heroic lawmen. And because his grandfather had fought in the Civil War, he immersed himself in the history of the war between the states.
“I reckon he must have been around ten or in his early teens when he discovered his love of American history. And it was good for him, because he learned what became so important to him and his image: the value of his country and the freedom it enjoyed. He was on his way to becoming an American patriot.”
But before he was old enough to learn all that, he had learned how to keep silent about his deepest feelings. “He never complained to his mother about the lack of love he felt from her,” said Canutt, “and he couldn’t bring himself to let his father know how much he appreciated the patience and understanding he always showed him.”
Wayne’s inability to reveal his feelings was a trait he would instill in his own children, with the exception of one emotion. “The one feeling Duke encouraged in his children was showing love,” said Canutt. “But he has never been able to abide people who bellyache and complain.”
In 1914 the Morrisons moved to California. The reason for this move is in question. Most accounts say that Clyde was unwell—
possibly with tuberculosis—and was told by his doctor to move to a much warmer and drier climate. But Wayne told me, “My father couldn’t make a living as a pharmacist so I guess he decided he’d try his hand at homesteading. I guess he failed in business just because he was too generous to his customers and allowed them credit, much to my mother’s displeasure, I may add. When much