The Oscars snub that made John Wayne incandescent with rage: “Sour grapes? You bet”
There’s always been a distinction between an actor and a movie star, and history has shown that those who fall into the latter camp aren’t typically known for being Oscar-botherers. Stars haven’t come much bigger than John Wayne, and he almost epitomised the trend.
The way Hollywood tends to work is that unless the performer in question is one of the rare talents who keeps one foot planted in both worlds like a Jack Nicholson, Tom Hanks, or Denzel Washington, anyone who builds their career on big box office and crowd-pleasing hits isn’t a frequent contender at the Academy Awards, if they even get nominated at all.
Clint Eastwood? Four Oscars, two acting nods, no wins. Sylvester Stallone? Two acting nominations for playing the same character, no wins. Will Smith? Three acting nods, one win, and it torpedoed him. Tom Cruise? Three acting nominations, but none since 1999. Julia Roberts? Four nominations, one win. Harrison Ford? One nomination, and on it goes.
Generally speaking, the industry’s highest-profile stars and most bankable entities aren’t the ones regularly in the running for Oscars, which is true of ‘The Duke,’ who will always be remembered as one of the most iconic figures to ever grace the silver screen. He didn’t seem to mind, with one notable exception.
Despite his myriad of memorable movies, unmatched and decades-spanning stretch of box office success, and a persona that’s indelibly woven into the fabric of American cinema, he only earned two Oscar nominations for his on-camera prowess in 1949 and 1969, and his win for True Grit felt more like a reward for a lifetime on the mountaintop, because it’s a stretch to call it his finest performance.
That’s not what pissed him off, though. Instead, Wayne was indignant that The Alamo, the pricey period piece he produced, starred in, directed, developed for years, and risked his financial livelihood on, only won a solitary Oscar for ‘Best Sound’ from its seven noms, which didn’t include ‘The Duke’ making the ‘Best Director’ shortlist.
Daryl F Zanuck shot himself in the foot to the tune of $250,000 when he questioned Wayne’s intentions by saying, “What right has he to write, direct, and produce a motion picture?” Needless to say, the actor didn’t take it lying down: “I couldn’t believe that there was such a backlash even in the industry I loved,” he lamented to Michael Munn.
“There was a lot of jostling for the Oscars,” Wayne continued. “There always has been, and there always will be. But the only film that gets criticised for its Oscar campaign is The Alamo? Why is that? And which film won ‘Best Picture’ that year? The Apartment. A comedy about how funny it is to let your boss use your apartment to commit adultery.”
While he did technically direct an Oscar-winning film, ‘The Duke’ still wasn’t happy because “the people who thought like Zanuck got the last word because we won only for ‘Best Sound.'” Even if The Apartment were eliminated from the equation, would The Alamo have stood a chance at winning ‘Best Picture’?
The other three competitors were Richard Brooks’ Elmer Gantry, Jack Cardiff’s Sons and Lovers, and Fred Zinnemann’s The Sundowners, so maybe — even if it boggles the mind that Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho didn’t make the shortlist. Still, it was Billy Wilder’s winner that irritated Wayne the most.
“The Alamo was about courage, justice, and freedom,” he declared, unlike its adulterous counterpart. To put a final exclamation point on his incandescence, he even confessed to his jealousy: “Sour grapes? You bet.”
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