John Wayne remembers his final day with John Ford
Making up one of the most significant actor-director duos in the history of American cinema, the collaboration between John Ford and John Wayne is an artistic relationship that bubbled over into a deep and lasting friendship, leading to some of the best western movies ever made.
Together, Ford and Wayne made some of their most acclaimed movies, including Stagecoach, The Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. In Wayne, Ford had his star actor on whom he could depend, and Wayne knew the kind of acting style that his director demanded. The relationship was simply the stuff movie dreams are made of.
Wayne undoubtedly considered Ford to be something of a father figure, as well as a brother, an artistic mentor and simply, a best friend. The pair were often joined by a third figure, the actor Ward Bond. When Wayne spent his final day with Ford, it was Bond, who had died in 1960 of a heart attack, that they commemorated.
“We used to be a triumvirate – Ford and me and a guy named Ward Bond,” Wayne once noted. “The day I went to Palm Springs, Ford said, ‘Duke, do you ever think of Ward?’ ‘All the time,’ I said. ‘Well, let’s have a drink to Ward,’ he said. So I got out the brandy, gave him a sip, and took one for myself.”
It was 1973 that Ford died on February 1st, and by then, his health had greatly deteriorated, and he was being treated for stomach cancer. Wayne opened up about the final time he saw his dear friend, “‘All right, Duke,’ he said finally, ‘I think I’ll rest for a while.’ I went home, and that was Pappy Ford’s last day.”
Ford left behind a genuine legacy as one of the greatest American auteurs of all time. Directing a wildly impressive 140 films across a five-decade career and winning six Academy Awards for the likes of The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley and The Quiet Man, Ford is a true hero and auteur of American cinema.
Even despite Ford’s ill health towards the end of his life, Wayne believed that he would have been capable of directing movies. He told Roger Ebert in 1976, “Up until the very last years of his life… Pappy could have directed another picture and a damned good one. But they said Pappy was too old. Hell, he was never too old. In Hollywood these days, they don’t stand behind a fella. They’d rather make a goddamned legend out of him and be done with him.”
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.