The “insecure” actor who made John Wayne’s life a misery: “She didn’t much like anything”
Unprofessionalism is one of the least desirable traits in Hollywood, especially in a John Wayne movie. It didn’t matter who was directing, producing, co-starring, or writing the script; whenever ‘The Duke’ stepped foot onto a set, his word was usually law.
The only exceptions came when John Ford was at the helm, since he was about the only person in the industry that Wayne wouldn’t dare try to overshadow, but for the most part, the icon made sure that, regardless of what he was making, things would be done his way. Unless, of course, there was someone or something he simply couldn’t control.
History had shown that the face of the ‘Golden Age’ western had no issues replacing filmmakers or performers when he decided they weren’t fit for purpose, and he almost added another name onto his shit list when filming 1955’s The Sea Chase, a jingoistic World War II drama that allowed ‘The Duke’ to indulge his patriotic side.
Keeping things in-house, Hondo director John Farrow reunited with the leading man, but the issues began with the screenplay, penned by John Twist and James Warner Bellah. The star and filmmaker “tried to get the script into shape because what they were giving us just wasn’t that good,” and despite enlisting Ford regular Frank Nugent for uncredited rewrites, “It never finished up any good.”
That was definitely a headache, but not as big as the one caused by Lana Turner, who’d been cast as Elsa Keller, the love interest for Wayne’s Karl Ehrlich. She was one of her era’s biggest stars and an Academy Award-nominated actor, but she conspired to bring her personal issues onto the film, which didn’t sit well with her onscreen paramour.
“It didn’t help that Lana Turner took an instant disliking to our director,” Wayne confessed to Michael Munn. “And she didn’t much like the rest of the cast. In fact, she didn’t much like anything. That’s not good for someone lie me, because it tends to throw me into the position of becoming defensive of all the things that I didn’t like about the film.”
While he acknowledged that she’d “led a troubled life and drank a lot,” he didn’t feel sorry for her. In fact, it was the opposite. “I might have had some sympathy for her, but she’d usually turn up late in the morning with a hangover,” ‘The Duke’ added. “In fact, for the first five days she didn’t turn up for three of them, and that’s enough to lose my sympathy vote.”
At one point, Farrow even “decided he’d had enough and fired her.” Turner went to Wayne to see if he could have a word with the director and save her job, and he “told her straight” that she’d “not behaved in a professional manner.” However, when she started crying, he admitted “that was enough to tug at my old heartstrings,” but not before an ultimatum was issued: turn up on time every day, or find a new job.
That wasn’t the end of the problems, though, with co-star and Wayne’s close friend, Paul Fix, sharing that she “seemed so insecure about her own talent,” focusing on her appearance to such an extent that she wouldn’t let him touch her hair in their scenes together. “Duke said, not to her, ‘How am I supposed to make love to a woman who won’t let me touch her?'” he recalled. The answer was simple; they had to shoot around her aversion to having her locks ruffled, which is why “the love scenes in that film look so false.”
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