John Wayne (22 page)

Wiping away a tear (1970)

Pilar and Aissa at home in Encino, taken by John himself (1962)

This photograph of Aissa waterskiing in Acapulco was framed on John's coffee table (1970)

The Waynes' Newport Beach home where John lived from 1966 until his death in 1979

John, Marissa, and Pat Stacy (his personal secretary and close friend) in Alaska on board the
Wild Goose
(1977)

John Wayne's seven children in 1982. He lived to see twenty-one grandchildren before his death

John Wayne's unmarked grave site in Newport Beach, California (1979)

In one respect that was accurate. For all its harsh notices,
The Green Berets
ranked tenth among 1968's most popular movies. While the critics railed, enough “people who go to the movies” made
The Green Berets
one of my father's top-grossing films. But bad reviews did bother my father, or he'd have never reacted with such emotion. “That son of a bitch,” he would howl after reading his work defiled in print. “I've been in this goddamn business for fifty years. He's never been in front of a camera in his life. What the hell does
he
know about acting?” Oddly enough, I never heard him berate
The New Yorker's
Pauline Kael, although perhaps no major critic ever panned my father so meanly or so persistently. Of
Rooster Cogburn
, my father's spinoff of
True Grit
, Ms. Kael observed, “The two principal subjects of the script's attempts at humor are Wayne's gut and (Katharine) Hepburn's age, which is to say that the the film tries to make jokes of what it can't hide.” Ms. Kael also wrote of my father, “It never Waynes, but it bores.” That famous and clever and nasty line must have stung him. I know it, even though he would never admit such a thing.

When the glowing early reviews came in for
True Grit
in the summer of 1969, only one year after the critical barrage on
The Green Berets
, my father read every last one with elation. Vincent Canby of
The New York Times
called it one of “the year's best films, a major accomplishment.” In
The Village Voice
, Andrew Sarris, one of his biggest public admirers, wrote, “There is talk of an Oscar for Wayne after forty years of movie acting and after thirty years of damn good movie acting.” My dad loved the Sarris review—doubly so, I think, because it appeared in the left-leaning
Voice
—and felt very proud of his work in
True Grit
. But early on, and even after he won the nomination, he did not believe it would bring him an Oscar. I was sitting next to him when he saw
True Grit
in one of its earliest, roughest forms. Afterwards a man from Paramount told him, “Duke, this is the one. This one's gonna get you the award,” His eyes filled with old broken hopes, my dad only nodded his head as if to say thank you.

By playing Rooster Cogburn, an aging drunken lout whom Robert Duvall called “a one-eyed fat” man, and who'd bellowed back at Duvall, “Fill your hands, you son of a bitch!” my father poked humorous holes in both his professional and personal image. But even when the Eastern critics joined the applause, he felt fairly certain he'd wind up disappointed. He'd been nominated just once in his long career, for his stirring portrayal of Sergeant Stryker in
Sands of Iwo Jima
. On that night in 1949, my father lost to Broderick Crawford for
All the King's Men
. Twenty years and no nominations later, he predicted he'd once again play bridesmaid.

Along with him, Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight were nominated for
Midnight Cowboy;
Peter O'Toole for
The Lion in Winter;
and Richard Burton for
Anne of the Thousand Days
. “At least I keep damn fine company,” my father said. “But one of them is bound to win.” After screening the other three movies at our home, he started leaning toward Dustin Hoffman. “His performance was so big, so brilliant,” he said. “It's not my kind of picture, but I know a great actor when I see one.” With its explicit violence and homosexuality, it really wasn't his kind of picture. Normally my father would never have seen it, or else stomped out on it very early. Typically, if my father screened a movie he began to perceive as “perverted”—he once told
Playboy
both
Midnight Cowboy
and
Easy Rider
fit this bill—he would storm out at the first scene he found offensive. “Why can't we get a decent movie?” my father would growl. “How can that son of a bitch make this type of crap!” It always felt clumsy for his guests and family, but at least my father never shut off the projector. Instead of playing Hollywood dictator, he'd just leave the room, allowing the rest of us to judge the movie ourselves. Most of the time, that is. When we screened
Last Tango in Paris
, my father made sure he dragged me out with him. To see the rest of that one I had to sneak out to the theatre.

Oscar night came that year on April 13, 1970. After our limo crawled its way through the black line of stretch limousines bound for the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, I stepped
outside with my family but felt the urge to dive back in. Flocks of deafening fans started shrieking and whistling the instant they spotted John Wayne. “DUKE, DUKE, DUKE, DUKE!” “I LOVE YOU DUKE.” “HEY, DUKE, OVER HERE!” Safely inside the auditorium, Ethan and I were seated toward the back of the hall with our older brothers and sisters, while my parents were escorted to front center seats for the nominees and spouses. Looking around at the beautiful people milling inside, I recall feeling horribly embarrassed by my appearance. The Hollywood crowd all looked so exotically sexy. In dreadful contrast, I looked that night as if I were thirteen going on grandmother.

Oscar night was my first formal affair, and at first my mother said I could pick out my dress with my girlfriends. But my father overheard and overruled. “What do you mean you're going with your girlfriends? I can't believe this. I always thought I would be the one to go with you to pick out your first formal dress. I'm your father.”
Precisely the point
, I thought.
You're the last person I want to go shopping for a dress with. I'm nearly fourteen. I'd like to go with my girlfriends
.