The ex-nemesis who called John Wayne his best friend in Hollywood: “A giant of our times”
John Wayne was loved by many. He was a symbol of an America that was dying out – of traditionalism and conservatism. Known for his performances in classic westerns, he became the hero, riding across screens without a care for anyone but the white American. He was a deeply problematic figure.
Wayne was horrifically racist, sexist, and homophobic, once spouting his belief in white supremacy during an infamous Playboy interview. It’s bizarre that he gained so much power in the industry when he was such a heinous person, but really, that shows you exactly what the climate was like back then. More than ever, men could get away with anything.
Most actors struggle with a sense of self, but Wayne an egotistical actor, and he thought incredibly highly of himself (God knows why). As a result, you could often find him spitting out vitriolic comments aimed at fellow actors, many of whom he believed to be inferior to himself.
Seriously, Wayne didn’t hold back, and in the book John Wayne My Father, his daughter, Aissa, highlighted some of the actors he hated most, like Gene Hackman. He “could never appear on-screen without my father skewering his performance,” she wrote, adding that Wayne called him “the worst actor in town.”
Meanwhile, he famously hated his western rival, Clint Eastwood, who represented a newer vision of America, imbuing the genre with a grittier sensibility that was less forgiving of the country’s troubled past. Wayne was not a fan, at all.
Then there was Frank Sinatra, whom he disliked for political reasons. When Sinatra hired Albert Maltz to write The Execution of Private Slovik, Wayne said, “I never thought Sinatra was a commie. But he hired a commie to write a screenplay the communists would have just loved.”
Their beef continued, with Wayne explaining, “The next time I saw Frank was at a charity benefit, and he’d been drinking heavily. He walked up to me, and he’s not exactly tall enough to see eye to eye with me, and he said, ‘You seem to disagree with me’. I told him, ‘Just take it easy, Frank. We can talk about this later’. And he said, ‘I want to talk about it right now’. It’s a good thing some of his friends pulled away because I’d sure hate to have flattened him.”
Clearly, the pair did not see eye to eye in any respect. Yet, strangely enough, when the book Duke: A Love Story by Pat Stacy and Beverly Linet was published in 1983, several years after Wayne’s death, a comment from Sinatra was plastered on the sleeve.
“A most warmly written book about a giant of our times. I cherish the memories of a good and decent man. There was—there is—no better friend,” he wrote. Despite the fact that Wayne had once said, in reference to Dirty Harry, that he wasn’t keen on being “offered Sinatra’s rejections,” it seems like by the end of Wayne’s life, the pair made up.
Sinatra even attended Wayne’s funeral and called the cowboy as he was dying to wish him farewell. At least they were able to reconcile, I guess.
