The one and only director John Wayne was terrified of: “I was scared stiff”
Having worked with a few directors whose reputations ranged from the overbearing to the tyrannical, you wouldn’t expect a formidable force like John Wayne to be left scared shitless by a filmmaker.
After all, he made over a dozen movies with John Ford, who, by many accounts, could be a bit of a dick, which is putting it lightly. He also seemed to take great pleasure in belittling Wayne, too, but there was never any aspect of fear in their relationship, no matter how fractious things became between them.
‘The Duke’ even made a film with Otto Preminger and emerged unscathed, and the filmmaker didn’t earn his ‘Otto the Terrible’ nickname for nothing. Based on how many people had a miserable time on set with him, he’s in with a great shout at being named the most widely despised director in Hollywood history.
John Huston was another who didn’t suffer fools, but the actor wasn’t afraid of him, either. He fucking hated him, sure, and the feeling was entirely mutual, but at no point did the face of the ‘Golden Age’ western ever feel like he was walking on eggshells, and he was more likely to punch Huston than cower in terror.
There are exceptions to every rule, and few auteurs embraced their reputation for leaving their cast and crew members quaking in their boots like Josef von Sternberg, who revelled in it. Most directors who were subject to whispers that they were a nightmare to work under would have tried to distance themselves from those rumours to safeguard their chances of attracting top-tier talents.
Not von Sternberg, though, who boasted about it in his autobiography, Fun in a Chinese Laundry. “Affected by legends spread by some of those who worked for me, and in the expectation that something great, though horrifying, was in store, actors and actresses have fainted in the anteroom of my office even before they were ushered into the lion’s den,” he gleefully explained.
He seemed pretty pleased about that, and he was equally thrilled that one of cinema’s most iconic figures felt exactly the same way. “As an example, to quote John Wayne, who stands over six feet: ‘I was scared stiff,'” he wrote. “Another six-footer, who managed to survive meeting me, fled in terror after his first scene with me.”
The pair collaborated on 1957’s Jet Pilot, which ‘The Duke’ considered to be one of the worst movies he ever made. While he admitted that he was scared of von Sternberg, it would appear that his feelings eventually evolved into outright animosity. That’s what he suggested anyway, since it wouldn’t be very Wayne-like for the actor to admit that he was bricking it the entire time.
“Josef von Sternberg insisted on making us rehearse over and over, and he kept making remarks which I didn’t take kindly to,” he recalled. “I’d take them from Pappy, but not from him. I was ready to punch the son of a bitch in the mouth.” Scared, angry, or a combination of both? Either way, it can’t be a coincidence that the two never made a second film together.
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