The 1972 movie that “humiliated” John Wayne and the director who almost paid the price: “One call and I was gone”
As one of his era’s most confident, cocksure, and indominatable actors, it wasn’t easy to leave John Wayne feeling humiliated, but wounding his pride was about the easiest way to do it.
John Ford made a habit of belittling his most famous collaborator, whether he was lambasting ‘The Duke’ for his lack of acting ability or calling him out in front of everyone for having never served in the military, but as his mentor and father figure, Wayne could bring himself to let the man he called ‘Pappy’ get away with it.
Anyone else who tried to swing their figurative dick in front of the ‘Golden Age’ icon wouldn’t be as fortunate, with Wayne known for ruling his productions with an iron fist. It didn’t matter who the director or the screenwriter was: if they were working on a John Wayne movie, only one man called the shots.
Poor Stuart Millar discovered that to his detriment when his only picture with ‘The Duke’ saw him fail miserably at trying to establish his authority, and he spent the rest of his filmmaking career in TV. Mark Rydell was slightly more experienced, albeit not by much, but he tried to pull rank on the star anyway.
His third feature, 1972’s The Cowboys, saw Wayne playing a veteran cattle rancher who recruits a band of youngsters to assist him, only for the motley crew to run afoul of Bruce Dern’s bandit. Obviously, several cattle-driving sequences were required, and Rydell wasn’t in the mood for being ghost-directed.
“I didn’t want to waste a lot of film by rolling before the cattle started moving,” the director explained. “But Wayne was impatient and had decided that it was time to go. He called for the camera to start, and I just lost it, and started screaming: ‘Don’t you ever do that! I haven’t rolled the cameras! I’ll tell you when to go!'”
He was well within his rights, since he was in charge, but he immediately realised he’d fucked up. “It was not a wise thing to do,” Rydell confessed. “Everybody was there, everybody was watching, and he was humiliated.” They shot the scene as intended, after which ‘The Duke’ got in his car and disappeared, convincing the crew, and the filmmaker, that his days were numbered.
“As the camera crane came down, the crew filed by me and shook my hand, as if they were saying goodbye,” he recalled. “I may have been producing and directing, but he was John Wayne: one call to Warners, and I was gone.” He had nothing to worry about, though, since standing up to the leading man was a tried and trusted method of earning his respect.
‘The Duke’ informed Rydell that John Ford was the only other person who’d ever spoken to him like that on a set, and even though he did what few directors had the stones to do and bollocked Wayne in front of everyone, he admired him for it, with any fears of losing his job proving to be unfounded.
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