Many of his principles may not have been too agreeable and have aged worse than a pint of milk catapulted directly into the sun, but it can’t be said that John Wayne didn’t stick to them throughout his life and career.
He hated those damned Commies, and he made sure everybody knew it. He despised the way Hollywood was heading as cinema evolved with the times and embraced modernity, which he didn’t intend to keep to himself, either. Women working as grips on a film set? Absolutely ridiculous behaviour they couldn’t possibly be qualified for, or so said ‘The Duke’.
Even from a professional point of view, Wayne maintained his principles. He turned down countless high-profile offers, including what would have been the ultimate against-type turn in Mel Brooks’ classic comedy Blazing Saddles, but the answer was always no because he didn’t think the people who followed him and turned up to see his starring roles wanted anything other than the standard John Wayne formula.
That formula usually unfolded in the western genre and required him to bring stoicism and gravitas to the part of a determined hero who battles against the odds and ultimately saves the day. An iconic 1950 picture followed that exact template, with the story tracing ageing sharpshooter Jimmy Ringo as he pitches up in a new town to reunite with his estranged family, only for old scores to be settled first.
It was right up Wayne’s street, and screenwriter William Bowers certainly thought so after penning The Gunfighter with ‘The Duke’ in mind and then offering him the part. Under normal circumstances, he would have accepted, especially when he was interested in headlining the production, but there was one insurmountable obstacle that he couldn’t overcome.
The rights to make The Gunfighter were scooped up by Columbia Pictures, which was run by Harry Cohn. Unfortunately for Bowers, Wayne absolutely fucking hated the studio boss with an intense and burning passion and had spent the previous two decades refusing to work with the company after the way he’d been treated when he was a contract player under Cohn’s watch in the early 1930s.
After first running afoul of Cohn during his debut with Columbia, Wayne explained that “he then humiliated me in my second picture” when he was ordered to play a dead body. “I just knew that was an order that had come down from Cohn to humiliate me,” he raged. “Because I knew damn well that a professional extra would have normally been used for that kind of work.”
If it had been any other studio, then Wayne would have led The Gunfighter at the expense of Gregory Peck, who was drafted in when ‘The Duke’ refused to compromise his beliefs by returning to work under the person in Hollywood he hated most.