The on-set troubles of John Wayne and John Ford
Cultivating one of the most iconic actor/director partnerships in history over more than a dozen features spanning decades, John Wayne and John Ford are unquestionably the defining creative collaborators of each other’s professional lives.
While the legendary filmmaker and iconic star made multiple movies with a number of different talents on either side of the camera, none of them have taken on the mythic status of their long-running partnership. They were friends, as close as family, and there was even an element of father/son and mentor/protégé about their dynamic, but that doesn’t mean it was smooth sailing from beginning to end.
Although Wayne and Ford regularly brought out the best in each other – as stone-cold classics Stagecoach, The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and The Quiet Man can attest – there were several notable disagreements along the way as tends to be the case in any friendship that endures for as long as theirs did.
Being one of his closest cohorts, Ford had the innate ability to get under the skin of ‘The Duke’ faster and more viciously than anyone else, which ended up with Wayne storming off the set when his lack of military service was called into question. It was a touchy subject for the actor, and when he was called out on it during production on war drama They Were Expendable, the leading man stormed off from set in a rage.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance may have been one of their greatest works together, but Wayne wasn’t entirely thrilled at playing second fiddle to James Stewart, even though they were also long-time friends who made a number of films together. As Ford’s grandson explained to Box Office Mojo, at the very least, it sounded like his pride was wounded.
“Look at him – he was playing the guy who doesn’t get the girl who becomes a drunk – in his mind he felt that he didn’t have the main part and he was John Wayne,” Dan Ford said. “The leading man was Jimmy Stewart, whom he respected as an actor immensely, who was really the money actor in it, though he’s by far the most important character and he had a much more interesting part. I don’t think Wayne appreciated that. It might have been financial, too.”
‘The Duke’ even convinced a producer to lie on his behalf to the man he called ‘Pappy’ when they were shooting The Horse Soldiers, which came at a time when Ford had been instructed to abandon his hard-drinking ways for the sake of his health. Wayne was under no such advice, and he felt himself struck by the urge to sink a few beverages.
The lack of alcohol made Ford even more cantankerous than usual, and Wayne wasn’t of the mind to go cold turkey despite the director’s insistence. Instead, Martin Rackin told the director Wayne and co-star William Holden had to leave the set for dental work, just so they could hit the tiles for a good old knees-up.
Unfortunately, Ford had spies everywhere, so the subterfuge didn’t go unnoticed. The tension between them was fleeting and short-lived compared to how long they remained in each other’s orbit, but it just goes to show that not even a bond as inseparable as Wayne and Ford’s was immune to bad blood and bitterness.
