The only actor brave enough to punch John Wayne in the face: “You nearly broke my jaw”
Although John Wayne was beloved by many of his co-stars, he wasn’t the kind of actor you’d want to go punching in the face. For one thing, he was a big guy. At nearly six-foot-five inches, he would almost certainly be able to take out anyone who came at him. He was also, you know, one of the biggest movie stars in the world, and attacking someone with a rabid fan base just isn’t the sort of professional risk that most actors are eager to take.
Bruce Dern found this out the hard way when he played the villain in Mark Rydell’s 1972 western The Cowboys. In the film, he shoots Wayne’s character in the back, which is a low move for any character but a downright cinematic hate crime, according to some fans. Dern revealed that he still receives enraged letters from Wayne enthusiasts more than 40 years after the project was released and nearly as many decades since the Duke’s death.
There was, however, another actor who was willing to go to the mat with Wayne for the sake of a scene, fandom be damned. Luckily, that actor was more likely to receive love letters from her co-star’s fanbase rather than hate mail.
In John Ford’s 1952 drama The Quiet Man, the Duke plays against type as Sean Thornton, an American boxer who returns to the small village in Ireland where he was born in the hope of starting a new life. Maureen O’Hara plays Mary Kate Danaher, a local woman who lives under the oppressive authority of her brother but who is just as fiery as her red hair suggests. When she meets Sean, sparks fly, but she isn’t willing to succumb to their mutual attraction so quickly.
Early in the film, Sean tries to kiss her, and she responds with a slap. It was in the script, but O’Hara decided to go the extra mile. Speaking to Wayne’s biographer, Michael Munn, the actor remembered, “I got so mad at Duke that I felt ready to kill him, so I hauled off with all my strength and socked him in the jaw.”
Unfortunately for O’Hara, Wayne saw it coming and put his hand up to shield himself. This caused her to hit his jaw at the wrong angle, cracking a bone in her wrist. “I didn’t cry out,” she said. “I just hid my hand in the red skirt I was wearing, but the pain was just dreadful.” When Ford called cut, Wayne insisted on seeing her hand, saying, “You nearly broke my jaw!”
“I had to go to the hospital,” O’Hara revealed, “But it wasn’t too serious.” In the film, the characters eventually do get along and share a passionate romance. The next time they kiss (in a graveyard in a rainstorm, no less), punching is not on the menu.
The movie would become one of Wayne’s best and his most iconic pairing with O’Hara. Full of quirky small-town characters and gorgeous cinematography, it was a high point in the careers of all involved, even if O’Hara had to endure a trip to hospital.
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