“What are you going to do?”: the 1956 co-star who called John Wayne a “big, dumb son of a bitch”
There were more than a few actors in Hollywood who thought John Wayne was a big, dumb son of a bitch, but there weren’t many with the stones to say it to his face.
If anything, the sonofabitch shoe was usually on the other foot. It was one of the ‘Golden Age’ legend’s favoured phrases, both as an insult and as a term of endearment, and on the occasion when it was used against him, it wasn’t born from a place of malice. Quite the opposite, in fact.
‘The Duke’ called Richard Widmark a son of a bitch, and he got on so infamously with his colleague on The Alamo that he also called him a “little shit.” Twice. Those were the same words he used to describe the financial advisor who almost ruined him, Bo Roos, the legendary Cecil B DeMille, and more.
The tables were turned when James Caan called him a son of a bitch, but that was because he was known for cheating at cards. Those four words had a funny habit of following Wayne wherever he went, and when they were unleashed upon him by an actor who was close enough to being family, he took them to heart.
He might have called his son too ugly to make it in Hollywood as a leading man, but the iconic star embraced the Careys as his surrogate family. Despite his harsh words toward Dobie Carey, he got on like a house on fire with his old man, Harry Carey, who was a foundational and inspirational figure.
Even after he passed away in 1947, Wayne remained close with Dobie and Carey’s widow, Olive. He even cast her in 1956’s The Searchers, 1957’s The Wings of Eagles, and The Alamo, while the former became a trusted part of the acting inner circle who tended to follow ‘The Duke’ between productions.
However, shortly after John Ford’s Stagecoach had finally catapulted Wayne toward the leading man status he’d so desperately craved, he fancied branching out. He fancied branching out so far that he was considering playing the lead in the adaptation of an Arthur Conan Doyle novel, only for Olive Carey to swiftly put the rising star back in his place.
“Well, Duke,” she asked him. “Now that you’re a big star after Stagecoach, what are you going to do?” In response, he suggested that “now that I can have a little more to say about the roles that I take, I might do something like The White Orchard.” In theory, that was a stupid idea, and she told him as much.
“You are a big, dumb son of a bitch,” Carey informed him. “The people have told you how they like you. They’re your audience. You give them what they want, not what you want.” Funnily enough, that’s exactly how ‘The Duke’ approached his career for the next four decades, making exactly the kind of movies his fans wanted to see. Did it all stem from that one exchange? It’s impossible to know, but given his closeness with the Careys, it can’t be ruled out.
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