The role that was “a slap in the face” for John Wayne: “A real war hero”
In February 1945, John Wayne started work on a World War II epic set in the early months of America’s war in the Pacific.
Amazingly, the war wasn’t even finished yet, and it wouldn’t officially end until Japan surrendered in September 1945, but Hollywood had been making movies about the conflict since it began in ‘39.
These days, filmmakers usually wait out a few years after a national tragedy before making movies about it, but back then, Hollywood was determined and tied to the clock. Most of them were, at their core, propaganda exercises, but the fact they often starred war veterans, or were written and directed by men who had fought for their country, lent them added gravitas.
Depending on how you look at it, Wayne was either very lucky that he didn’t serve in the war or cursed by his decision not to flee, because it plagued him for the rest of his life. When war broke out, ‘The Duke’ applied for a deferment on grounds that he was the sole provider of four in his household. This was granted, but later rescinded, and the second time he was called to action, the movie industry leapt to his defence, arguing he should use his status to rally the troops, instead of actually joining their ranks.
While his contemporaries shipped off to war, Wayne stayed behind, churning out movies. Folks branded him a “draft dodger”, accusing him of leaning on his celebrity to dodge military service – a label that cut him deep. So much so, he spent the rest of his life doubling down on flag-waving patriotism. He couldn’t rewind the clock and enlist, but hell if he wasn’t going to make damn sure the world knew just how fiercely he loved America.
In truth, this pervasive guilt was likely why Wayne didn’t kick up a fuss when he signed up for They Were Expendable in a supporting role. At that time, he was a much bigger star than Robert Montgomery, the actor chosen to play the lead role of Lieutenant John Brickley, based on the real-life war hero John Bulkley, who commanded boats in the Pacific Theatre. Montgomery had something Wayne didn’t, though: real war experience. In fact, he fought bravely at the Normandy landings on D-Day and lived to tell the tale, something Wayne could never compete with.
“That was a slap in the face for ‘Duke’”, Wayne’s friend Paul Fix claimed in Michael Munn’s John Wayne: The Man Behind the Myth, adding, “Montgomery was not exactly a leading man, but he had served in the Navy and been awarded a Bronze Star.”
To director John Ford, this made Montgomery the man for the job. Ford had also served in the war as the head of the photographic unit in the Office of Strategic Services, and he considered Montgomery “a real war hero”. Though Ford had already directed Wayne twice by that point, in Stagecoach and The Long Voyage Home, he disliked his decision not to fight, and would never let him forget it.
In fact, he made Wayne’s life so miserable on They Were Expendable, constantly belittling him for not being a real serviceman, that Montgomery was forced to step in. “Don’t you ever speak like that to anyone again,” he reportedly told the director, who later apologised to Wayne.
Still, that feeling of regret, couple with a healthy dose of self-loathing, never quite left the man, so even though he and the director clashed on the movie, he still felt “delighted to be working with Ford again”. They went on to strike up one of the most fruitful actor/director partnerships in Hollywood history, despite routinely butting heads and fighting with each other while making their films.
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