How John Wayne got banned from the set of a movie he wasn’t even in: “One of us has to go home”
As one of the biggest, most powerful, and influential stars in Hollywood, John Wayne had no issues throwing his weight around on set whenever something wasn’t to his satisfaction.
A famously, or infamously, depending on who was on the receiving end, cantankerous personality, ‘The Duke’ battled with countless screenwriters, co-stars, crew members, and directors over the years, weaponising his status as a certified A-lister and box office draw to bend a production to his whims.
John Ford was about the only person in the business who was immune to Wayne’s occasional wrath, but his decades-long stint as a global superstar coincided with several notable run-ins that usually ended with the actor getting his way in the end. However, when he tried to exert his influence over a movie he wasn’t even in, he was exiled from the set for almost the entire duration of the shoot.
Like many of his ‘Golden Age’ peers, Wayne capitalised on a gradual shift away from the old studio system by founding a production company that would give him more influence over his projects. The imaginatively named Wayne/Fellows Productions was launched alongside Robert Fellows in the early 1950s, with 1952’s Big Jim McClain the outfit’s first picture.
The year prior, though, Wayne quietly achieved a major first when he backed a film that didn’t require him to play an on-camera role. Budd Boetticher’s romantic drama Bullfighter and the Lady was the first time ‘The Duke’ had produced anything where he didn’t appear onscreen, and he didn’t last long on the set.
In fact, he was gone by the end of the first day after getting a little too involved for the director’s liking. “Duke decided he’d be there on the first day of shooting, which I didn’t think would be a problem,” Boetticher told Michael Munn. “But on the first shot, he walked in front of the camera and grabbed Robert Stack and said, ‘Jesus Christ, Bob, if you’re gonna say the line, say it with some balls.'”
One shot into day one of principal photography, and Wayne had already intimidated Bullfighter and the Lady‘s leading man, with Boetticher admitting that “he almost scared Bob to death.” Undeterred, he did the exact same thing on the following five takes, after which the filmmaker knew he needed to act.
“I called him aside and said, ‘Duke, do you think you could direct this picture better than I can?'” he recalled. “With Duke, you have to let him know who’s the boss on set. We went back, and Duke confessed to the cast and crew that he’d been scolded by me and that I’d said, ‘One of us has to go home.'”
After telling everyone that “I’m leaving tonight and won’t see you until the end of the picture,” Wayne kept his word. He didn’t go home, but instead hung around the Mexico City location until the last day of shooting, where Boetticher remembered him turning up to the wrap party with a bottle of tequila and getting so drunk he fell off a veranda and into a bush. On the plus side, at least he didn’t interfere again between those two points.
Never Miss A Tale
The Far Out John Wayne Newsletter
All the latest stories about John Wayne from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.