Read Online John Wayne: The Life and Legend by Scott Eyman - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Scott Eyman
Tags: nonfiction, Biography & Autobiography, Retail, Entertainment & Performing Arts, actor, movie star
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set, after which he would throw some maple leaves in front of a fan to blow past the doorway. After the take, Morrison would sweep up the leaves and wait for the next take.
After several takes, Duke’s concentration wandered and he lost track of the order of his duties. He started to sweep up the leaves, then looked up and saw two cameras staring right at him. The cameras were turning. “And looking at me are the cameraman, and John Ford, and the wife of the man who was head of the studio then. Shit, there I was! I just threw down my goddamn broom and started to walk off.”
Once again, Ford was amused by the young man’s earnestness, his boyishness. The studio musicians played some martial music and marched Morrison over to the heir of the Archduke Leopold, who was working on the picture, and who pinned a medal on him. Then they marched him back to Ford. Morrison bent over and received a kick in the ass from the director.
That would have been the end of it, but he eventually had to leave the set because Margaret Mann—the actress playing the mother of the four sons—kept breaking up every time she saw him. “I was never so goddamn embarrassed in my life,” said Wayne.
Ford decided that the boy’s handsome face and eager, gauche quality might make him screen material, and he gave him a nice bit in his picture
Hangman’s House
, a moody, beautiful film about the Irish Troubles that started production in January 1928. The scene is a steeplechase, and young Duke Morrison is unbilled but clearly visible as a spectator who eventually stomps down a picket fence—not the last time Ford would seize on the young man’s enthusiasm.
Morrison was in another scene that didn’t make it out of the cutting room. He was playing a poor Irish boy brought before a hanging judge, who pronounced sentence upon him. The judge was played by the splendid old ham Hobart Bosworth, and he intoned his lines: “You shall hang by the neck until you are dead, dead, dead.” Morrison thought it was a pretty corny line reading, even if it was a silent film. He blurted out “AAAAMEN!”
“There had been a lot of noise,” he remembered. “Suddenly there was silence.” Ford made a loud, emphatic pronouncement: “Get that son of a bitch out of the prisoner’s box! Get him off the stage! Get him off the goddamned lot! I don’t
ever
want to see him again.”
For neither the first nor the last time, Duke thought his movie career was over, but propman Lefty Hough came up and told him to just get out of sight, that Ford only wanted him out of the way in case he had angered Bosworth. Morrison’s banishment lasted no more than a couple of days.
Since he had joined the circus, Morrison decided to check out the other tents. Warner Bros. was making a picture called
Noah’s Ark
that, naturally enough, featured a spectacular flood sequence. The call went out for extras over six feet tall willing to work for $15 a day. The job entailed risking their lives while rivers of water and, just for good measure, a temple, washed over them.
Duke Morrison was one of the extras, as was a young man named Andy Devine, even though he was under six feet. “Another fella and I were standing together,” Wayne remembered in later years, “and Andy came up beside me and he says, ‘Hey, give me a hand, will you?’ And he put a hand on my shoulder and a hand on this other guy’s shoulder, and . . . he’s the first one they picked, you know.”
Devine was also standing on a couple of bricks that he’d brought in order to make himself look taller.
After two summers of working at Fox, Duke Morrison had saved $500—a fortune as far as the Morrison family was concerned. Besides propping, he was a general dogsbody around the Fox lot; one of his more demeaning jobs involved pasting labels for premium booze on bottles that actually contained cheap bootleg hooch for Fox executives who wanted to impress their girlfriends.
One night, Wayne and Josie were
After several takes, Duke’s concentration wandered and he lost track of the order of his duties. He started to sweep up the leaves, then looked up and saw two cameras staring right at him. The cameras were turning. “And looking at me are the cameraman, and John Ford, and the wife of the man who was head of the studio then. Shit, there I was! I just threw down my goddamn broom and started to walk off.”
Once again, Ford was amused by the young man’s earnestness, his boyishness. The studio musicians played some martial music and marched Morrison over to the heir of the Archduke Leopold, who was working on the picture, and who pinned a medal on him. Then they marched him back to Ford. Morrison bent over and received a kick in the ass from the director.
That would have been the end of it, but he eventually had to leave the set because Margaret Mann—the actress playing the mother of the four sons—kept breaking up every time she saw him. “I was never so goddamn embarrassed in my life,” said Wayne.
Ford decided that the boy’s handsome face and eager, gauche quality might make him screen material, and he gave him a nice bit in his picture
Hangman’s House
, a moody, beautiful film about the Irish Troubles that started production in January 1928. The scene is a steeplechase, and young Duke Morrison is unbilled but clearly visible as a spectator who eventually stomps down a picket fence—not the last time Ford would seize on the young man’s enthusiasm.
Morrison was in another scene that didn’t make it out of the cutting room. He was playing a poor Irish boy brought before a hanging judge, who pronounced sentence upon him. The judge was played by the splendid old ham Hobart Bosworth, and he intoned his lines: “You shall hang by the neck until you are dead, dead, dead.” Morrison thought it was a pretty corny line reading, even if it was a silent film. He blurted out “AAAAMEN!”
“There had been a lot of noise,” he remembered. “Suddenly there was silence.” Ford made a loud, emphatic pronouncement: “Get that son of a bitch out of the prisoner’s box! Get him off the stage! Get him off the goddamned lot! I don’t
ever
want to see him again.”
For neither the first nor the last time, Duke thought his movie career was over, but propman Lefty Hough came up and told him to just get out of sight, that Ford only wanted him out of the way in case he had angered Bosworth. Morrison’s banishment lasted no more than a couple of days.
Since he had joined the circus, Morrison decided to check out the other tents. Warner Bros. was making a picture called
Noah’s Ark
that, naturally enough, featured a spectacular flood sequence. The call went out for extras over six feet tall willing to work for $15 a day. The job entailed risking their lives while rivers of water and, just for good measure, a temple, washed over them.
Duke Morrison was one of the extras, as was a young man named Andy Devine, even though he was under six feet. “Another fella and I were standing together,” Wayne remembered in later years, “and Andy came up beside me and he says, ‘Hey, give me a hand, will you?’ And he put a hand on my shoulder and a hand on this other guy’s shoulder, and . . . he’s the first one they picked, you know.”
Devine was also standing on a couple of bricks that he’d brought in order to make himself look taller.
After two summers of working at Fox, Duke Morrison had saved $500—a fortune as far as the Morrison family was concerned. Besides propping, he was a general dogsbody around the Fox lot; one of his more demeaning jobs involved pasting labels for premium booze on bottles that actually contained cheap bootleg hooch for Fox executives who wanted to impress their girlfriends.
One night, Wayne and Josie were
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