John Wayne, Lest We Forget

[charliechaplinfan]

Didn't he have an extensive collection of early American art? Or was that Gary Cooper?

I read a good book about Wayne, I think he covered up his intellectual pursuits. I've just been watching a documentary about John Ford, in which John Wayne was interviewed, he was very moving when talking about Ford, a man who balanced his genius with his tendency to bully. One can see that he looked up to Ford not only as a father figure but a mentor too.

[RedRiver]

He had a perfect eye for women's dress sizes

I think J. Edgar Hoover had the same gift.

[MissGoddess]

Red, you broke me up!

Moira...do you know where we can find that Barbara WaWa interview? I have looked for it on YouTube periodically for a long time, hoping someone might upload it. I've only seen about two minutes of it and was fascinated.

CCFan: I can only speculate that JW listed the Ford movies because he genuinely believed they were great, quite apart from his own contribution in them (or any false modesty for that matter).

[pvitari]

I avoid anything with Baba Wawa. She is extraordinarily annoying.

Somewhere around here I have something about Wayne and his kachina dolls, I'll try to find it. He donated his collection to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.

I don't know if he had an art collection, but George Montgomery did. Montgomery was a singularly skilled artist himself -- he painted and sculpted, but the skill he really honed was furniture building. He could make anything and he didn't even put the design down on paper. It was all in his head. He designed and constructed all kinds of furniture and many of his pieces ended up in the homes of Hollywood celebrities.

Vincent Price -- now there was a devoted art collector.

[pvitari]

I dug up that magazine with the article about Wayne's Kachina dolls. It's the Spring 1982 issue of Persimmon Hill and it has a cover story by Dean Krakel on Wayne and his Kachina collection, which he had donated to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage museum. The article has numerous gorgeous full-page photos of the dolls and I'll try to scan the whole thing in. But here is a passage which I think you will all enjoy and is relevant to the discussion:

In studying John Wayne's art collection and especially his library of books, one realizes that here is a widely-read man of tutored taste and intellectual strength. Mark Rydell, who directed Wayne in The Cowboys, summed up this little-known and little-appreciated side of Duke during an interview: "He's a literate, genuine, compassionate human being who spent hours discussing Shelley and Keats with Roscoe Lee Browne, a black actor well-known for his liberal, left-wing philosophy. I expected all kinds of clashes on the set, but Duke had everybody eating out of hand. As we got into the actual work, I found him articulate and sensitive and totally unselfish."

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I wish John Wayne could have played a Mr. Chips or an Atticus Finch kind of a role. I bet he'd have absolutely fabulous doing something like that.

[MissGoddess]

i can see him as "atticus".

[RedRiver]

You guys are right. Wayne might have explored that vein successfully. His Nathan Brittles is halfway there. Gentler, more reflective than most of his characters. This would have been nice.

[JackFavell]

On an auction website, I was reading some of Wayne's letters to Paul Newman, and Newman's back to Wayne. The two had very different political views.

I was VERY surprised by Wayne's writing style. The letters showed a great jocularity, thoughtfulness, and a warm caring relationship between the two men who both laughed about their opposing political opinions. Wayne seems to have been extremely thoughtful about what kind of nation we ought to be. The tone was a far cry from the hawkish way I remember him when I was a kid in the late sixties and early seventies. Maybe it was just the way he was portrayed by the liberals who my family was more in tune with. He seems to have been a man who actually worked out problems thoroughly to their natural conclusion, then made his decisions. I had always thought of him as very bombastic in his political views, but the letters I read showed he was very willing to accept and think about other people's opinions.

[pvitari]

Found time to use the oversize scanner today and scanned in the kachina article from Persimmon Hill. Here it is.

















However, I have the entire article in a much larger size scan and in order to share it with everyone, I created a John Wayne Memorabilia page which actually right now only has this article. I really don't have much John Wayne memorabilia, mostly just some old magazines plus some stuff I got during my trip to Winterset for the JW birthday celebration. But if you would like the big size scans, just go to http://JohnWayneMemorabilia.shutterfly.com and do the usual, sign in & download.

[knitwit45]

The article and photos of the Kachinas was really interesting. Sure wish I'd been his neighbor!
"mornin', Duke. Could I borrow a cup of anything???"

[MissGoddess]

What an interesting article, thank you for sharing that here, Paula. I prefer reading stuff like this than the standard interview material("what's your favorite movie..." etc). Very interesting.

[charliechaplinfan]

That's a great article Paula.

Reading about him there was far more to him than what was obvious to the public eye, the book I read John Wayne American got to the man rather than the public person but I still felt rather muddled about him. I can't see him playing Atticus Finch or Mr Chips, I just can't picture him, I haven't watched him in anything that convinced me he had a great range as an actor, he was very good in some of the movies he made but in these movies he seemed to play similar types.

[pvitari]

John Wayne's on the cover of another American Cowboy magazine special collector's edition. :) This one is called Legends of the West and it will be on the newsstand on October 4.

Sure hope Ben Johnson is included as a legend of the west.



You can preorder it now at http://horsebooksetc.com/products/Legen ... 67-71.html

[JackFavell]

Ben's always been "and MORE!" to me.

[MissGoddess]

Thank you, Paula! I have no idea where I might find that issue...I'll check two newstands I know of that carry most known and not so well known magazines when it comes out. If not, I'll see if I can order it. That one really looks like a keeper.