The director John Wayne waited 14 years to screw over: “It was petty, it was small, it was mean”
In many cases, holding a grudge can be bad for an actor’s career, because they never know when it might come back to haunt them. Either nobody told John Wayne, or he didn’t care, though, since he willingly burned several bridges out of pride and spite, and occasionally both.
Chief among his nemeses was Herbert Yates, the founder and president of Republic Pictures. ‘The Duke’ had been badgering him to foot the bill for his passion project, The Alamo, but the ‘Golden Age’ mogul refused to budge. Taking it to heart, the face of the classic western severed all ties with the company.
Wayne had been under contract with Republic for 17 years at that point, but once he was informed that The Alamo wasn’t going to happen on Yates’ watch, he swore he’d never work with the outfit again. He didn’t, and the man who helped launch his career watched his biggest star walk away forever.
Another notable enemy was Harry Cohn, who tried to sabotage his career in the early 1930s. As soon as Wayne could get as far away from him as possible, he did, and decades later, he continued to tell anyone who’d listen how much he hated the man who did everything to ruin his dreams before he’d even had a chance to try and realise them.
‘The Duke’ also turned down a role that had been written specifically for him to play in The Gunfighter because Cohn was producing it, and he once made Otto Preminger wait for a meeting because he’d done the same thing to him years previously, so it’s clear that he had no issues letting bad blood stew for a long time. Even by his standards, taking 14 years to screw over Richard Fleischer set a new benchmark.
After his Academy Award-winning performance in True Grit, Wayne agreed to return for the sequel, 1975’s Rooster Cogburn, which saw him pit his wits against the legendary Katharine Hepburn for the one and only time. As was usually the case, he had directorial approval. Stuart Millar was ultimately given the gig, but producer Hal Wallis had already asked Fleischer, who was interested. However, because he’d backed out of helming North to Alaska a decade and a half beforehand after slating the script, he was vetoed.
That was only half the reason, too, since Wayne’s agent and North to Alaska producer, Charles Feldman, had told him that Fleischer never wanted to work with him in the first place. Whether it was true or not, he stored it away in his memory banks, patiently biding his time to exact retribution upon the unsuspecting filmmaker, and he seized the opportunity the first time it presented itself.
“John Wayne’s revenge; it had taken 14 years, but he got it,” Fleisher recalled in his memoir, Just Tell Me When To Cry. “I had broken an unwritten law: No varmint turns down a John Wayne picture. When you do that, partner, you’re hurting his feelings and wounding his pride. And there’s no forgiving that. Ever. I was the victim of a massive case of pique. It was petty. It was small. It was mean. It was Duke Wayne.”
“Once again, my life and my career had been influenced by this man I’d rarely seen and hardly knew,” he lamented. “My instincts about him had been right, though; this was not someone you wanted to offend.” Fleischer had, and even though it took 14 years, he paid the price eventually.
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