“It was a personal friendship”: what John Ford valued most about John Wayne
No discussion about cinema’s greatest actor/director partnerships is complete without John Ford and John Wayne, the dynamic duo who were every bit as close off-screen as they were inseparable when the cameras were rolling.
Creative bonds don’t necessarily need to involve the star and filmmaker in question hanging out during their downtime, but that familiarity certainly helps. Ford took Wayne under his wing long before he was ‘The Duke’, with the aspiring A-lister yet to prove himself as a leading man when they first worked together on 1939’s Stagecoach.
Of course, the film was so successful that it propelled Wayne to the level of stardom he’d maintain throughout his career, and they never went too long without collaborating after that. They made plenty of all-time great movies independently of each other, but there was always an extra layer of anticipation and excitement when they’d reunite.
Between Stagecoach and their last outing together on 1963’s Donovan’s Reef, the pair made 14 pictures together that gifted cinema with They Were Expendable, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Rio Grande, The Quiet Man, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, among others. However, most would be in firm agreement that The Searchers was their shared magnum opus.
Although ‘The Duke’ viewed Ford as a father figure and mentor who regularly steered him in the right direction, their kinship was closer to a brotherhood than a father/son dynamic. When Dan Ford was asked what his grandfather “valued most” about Wayne in an interview with Box Office Mojo, it was not a shock to discover that it was their many similarities.
“What he liked about John Wayne was John Wayne. He was such an appealing, likeable, fun guy to be around; a man’s man,” he explained. “He was a sensational card player, like Ford, a big drinker, like Ford was, and they had a lot in common. They were outdoor guys, they both loved boats – they spent every nickel they had on their boats – and it was a personal friendship.”
Although Ford’s grandson admitted he “had similar relationships with Henry Fonda [and] George O’Brien,” Wayne was always the one he was closest to. Sometimes, that could be a negative, with the production of Stagecoach convincing its director that he needed to be extra hard on his protégé.
“John Wayne and other people told me that everybody on the movie knew that Wayne and Ford were friends, that they were fishing and drinking buddies,” he offered, revealing how “Ford rode Wayne because everybody knew Wayne was Ford’s friend, and Ford wanted to get the other actors on Duke’s side.”
Tough love was clearly a part of their friendship, too, even if Ford’s acerbic persona hardly gave off the impression he was one for playing favourites. If he was, though, then Wayne was the pinnacle.
