Behind the Bastards - Part Two: John Wayne: A Dude Who Sucked

Episode Date: April 28, 2022

Robert is joined again by Francesca Fiorentini for part two of our three part series on John Wayne. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Talking about John Wayne, who is about to get his first, he's just had his first roll on screen, and he's about to get his first cowboy job. So he gets on a gig on a film as a prop boy yet again with his dude, Raoul Walsh, this director. And apparently the thing that gets him his first cowboy job is Walsh catches a glimpse of Marion while he's carrying furniture across the soundstage. He's again, he's huge and very strong. So he has this reputation of he'll just pick up a couch when it needs to be moved and just walk it on his own across the stage or something. And so Raoul sees this big chode of a dude, just kind of manhandling furniture. And he feels that Marion has a warm and wholesome expression on his face.

Quote, I stopped and watched, I noticed the fine physique of the boy, his careless strength and the grace of his movement. Is this another Ford situation? No, this seems to be genuine. He's ogling for sure. Are we grooming? Hashtag Disney grooming. I think what you've got here is a dude whose job it is, like any director, this obviously gets problematic a lot of the time. As a director, you should be able to like, you should be looking and appreciating the way people move and look.

That is part of like your gig is to be like, oh, I like the way that motherfucker moves. I just appreciate the human form. Yeah, there's a creepy way for that. But in this case, it doesn't seem to be creepy. Although I should state John Wayne's opinion is that this is not the first time Walsh saw him and decided like he looked good. John Wayne's later opinion is that Walsh saw him at a Fox company picnic when he was super hungover and engaged in a walking contest, which he barely won because everybody was still pretty drunk. Whatever the case, Raoul Walsh. Why did he always has to make these like back stories of like, no, actually like I beat him at arm wrestling.

That's how we first met. I kicked his ass and then he gave me a part and I was like, this part sucks. It is one of those things. He's a liar. So I wouldn't be surprised about that, although I don't feel like barely won a walking contest while drunk is particularly cool either. That's true. That's true. So who knows?

But his story is very much tall privilege. Yeah. He can't be a 6'3 brawny man hanging around a film set. Short King is not going to get noticed doing any of the same stuff. No. No. He is, again, like being a tall white guy is the easy mode of life. There's so many things you can get out of just by being a tall white dude.

It's incredible. So Marion, Walsh is like, I like to look at this kid. I want to make him a cowboy star. And he puts Marion through screen testing, which is like where they put you on camera to decide if you actually do look good on camera. And he does. So they cast him as the star of an upcoming film, which more than doubles his pay overnight. But it's clear, however, that he's going to need a new name. Marion Morrison, definitely not a cowboy actor name.

Duke is better. No, that's a starlet name, though. Like that's a. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Marion Morrison. Yeah, absolutely.

A great leading female name, but not good for a cowboy actor in the 20s. Morrison still not cutting it. They decide not. They decide he needs an even better name than Duke Morrison. And I'm going to quote from Scott Eiman here. Roll Walsh claimed that he came up with the name Wayne and that she had, who's another person involved in the film's production, added John, but Duke said that the whole thing was she hands idea. She had was a fan of mad Anthony Wayne, the Revolutionary War General, because he had been tough and a nonconformist. And one of the things Wayne will later say that I think is true is that it kind of works as a single thing. You call him like John Wayne is a single name on its own.

Like it's not something you split up in your head. And that's part of why it's so it became so iconic. So obviously they picked this name for him, which is I think objectively a good decision. You can't argue with the results. What about Wayne John? Wayne John's? No, you'd call him Wayne or John's, but you wouldn't call him Wayne John's. Yeah.

Wayne John fails. Wayne John can't lift a couch. Terrible name. Absolutely not. No, no. Wayne John is not a chode. John Wayne hardcore chode. I love your interpretation of chode because it's very different than I think what my understanding of the word chode is, which is like a short squat dick. I have chosen, I have taken it from the show, I think you should leave.

As I do every single thing I say. Look, I love that. So Fox, you know, they change this guy's name and when they do their press releases and stuff for the movie, he's going to be in the big trail. They have to like come up with a backstory for him and they just lie all the time in these, right? Like they don't give a shit what your actual backstory is. Fox is going to make up whatever it seems best. So they decide to say that his birth name was Wayne Morrison, which for whatever reason sounded better for them than the truth. And John's fine with this. He doesn't fight back. His museum states, quote, it was okay with him if the people paying his salary wanted to spruce up his name, which is reasonable as a poor kid.

If somebody's like, hey, we can make you rich and famous, but you got to pick a different. Fuck it. I don't give a shit. Call me whatever you can call me iced tea. I hate my mom. Yeah. So please take that name away from. She took the only good name I had. She gave the good name to my fucking brother. But that's crazy that you not only inventing like a stage name, but you're like, even your given name is not tough enough. You can't let people know you were ever called Marion.

You're not going to buy that. Absolutely not. So the big trail is not a good shoot. It's what you might call a problem. I don't know. You know, you've been on some sets, Francesca. Probably more than me. Certainly more than me, I'm going to guess. So you tell me how normal this all sounds. I mean, I've ogled them. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I guess I've been on like a set or two. What's up? Yeah. So the cast and crew had to travel out to Yuma, Arizona in Duke.

Now John Wayne shows up on set drunk and he stays that way for days. He gets horrible diarrhea instantly. He gets sick from the water and he can barely function. He's almost immediately like both so sick that he can't walk and still drinking. This is his first starring role. This is his first starring role. Shows up hammered and then starts shitting himself. Amazing. Incredible. Unbelievable. Is that where he gets his actual cowboy walk? Not only the lean, but sort of the wide leg. Like I just shat my pants.

I don't want to smear this too much. I'm barely holding it. Yeah. So Iron Eyes Cody, the Italian man who pretended to be a Native American person, takes care of John Wayne during this period when he's got deadly diarrhea. And Jensen, the biographer claims, quote, gave him various Indian remedies for diarrhea. Now, again, Iron Eyes Cody, not an indigenous person. God only knows. He's just spoon feeding him pasta. No, it's just limoncello. Just a little shot of limoncello.

This is a classic food of the plains. Un po di grappa. Grappa settles the stomach. Every time. It's like, oh, that's some... I don't understand your ancient magic, but thank you, Cody. He just smacked him. He's literally just cooking a pizza in an oven and everybody is like, oh, my God, look at his... He's not eating in a week.

His Cherokee wisdom. Whiskey is not a meal. So after, in Cody's words, quote, puking and crapping blood for a week, the director of the film, Walsh, is forced to shoot the movie around his star, who is actively dying at this point. He loses like 18 pounds in a couple of weeks. So again, despite the fact that he is pooping himself to death, he does not quit drinking all day every day.

Jensen writes that this was partly a factor of him wanting to show up all of the other drunk people on set, quote, he had to show these self-important actors that he was as manly as they were. He drank like crazy, which prolonged his dysentery. Nothing more manly than shitting your pants on a set. That is what shows you're tough. Pooping yourself to death because you drink so much. I mean, that's how Johnny Depp got into character for Pirates of the Caribbean. That is actually accurate, yes.

It is also how Johnny Depp got into character for being Johnny Depp. Yes. Every day. It's just rings and shitting his pants. Yeah, exactly. That's really all he needs. So Iron Eyes Cody recalled that one night the drinking got completely out of hand. The Apaches hired to work on the film got really wasted and decided to attack the settlers.

They raced into location set on their horses, drunkenly firing arrows into the wagons, the town set, and even the tents in which some of the cast and crew were sleeping. Oh, I love this. And by the way, I have no idea if any of these guys were actually Apache or if they're just cast that way. It's probably a mix. They're probably like Cody, just like Italian dude, like who knows?

It is Hollywood in the 20s. So Cody wakes John Wayne up to warn him that like, hey, a bunch of the crew were shooting arrows at other people. Like it's kind of a big mess. As a heads up, there's like an arrow fight going on on set. And he sees that Duke is like too drunk to like know what's going on. So Cody sees these actors on horses coming and he decides, well, I might as well join them. So he gets on his horse and just starts shooting arrows at the set.

And apparently Duke just keeps lying down and drinking the entire time. So that's fun. It sounds like a fun filming set to do. Oh, the golden years of Hollywood. Like this guy can't even get up. No, no, like totally useless. Half the set is like drunk and pretending to be indigenous and shooting arrows at the other half of the set.

And then the star is drunk and shitting his pants on the floor. So it's just grown up cowboys and Indians. Yeah. Or like grown up seems like too strong a term. Yeah. Yeah. It's a bunch of seven year olds with access to liquor and real arrows. Yeah.

Yeah. So the studio is not psyched with their big star. This is not a great first performance, you know, even in the 30s, you wanted a guy who, for example, could hold off on the being an alcoholic long enough to make the movie. Wayne does eventually dry out enough to become functional. And it's because another actor sits down to drink with him. And instead of giving him normal whiskey, gives him what moonshine it basically pure ever clear. And so John Wayne drinks like essentially 180 proof ever clear with a stomach bug,

which makes him so sick that he stops drinking for a while. Is there anything alcohol can't do? You just have to jangle keys in front of his face. But like, yeah, like worse alcohol for him. Yeah. So the big trail flops, not agree. It doesn't do super well as a movie. Although people today will claim it was a really good movie.

It just isn't like a huge hit at the time. It kind of is not seen as very successful. But it's people will argue it's a pretty good movie. Those people are fucking lying. Like, I don't know. It seems maybe it was good. Like who knows. I would watch the behind the scenes once again.

Sure. Yeah. Like the documentary about the making of the Isle of Dr. Moreau. Like. Haven't seen it, but believe you. Oh, it's the director, initial director of the film was a wizard who went crazy and got fired and decided to live in the jungle and sneak onto set in costume every day while they were trying to make the movie.

Oh, that's fucking amazing. It's fucking awesome. It's such a fun story. Just saying. Okay. Can I just butt in and say that Iron Eyes Cody's real name was Espera Oscar Decorti. Yes. But also like a really effeminate name Espera.

That is a fun name. Yeah. So no wonder he and Marion got along. Yeah. No, it's very funny. I do like the image of him like feeding lasagna to John Wayne and pretending it's like an ancient Apache remedy for diarrhea. I can't figure out what he's doing. And all of the other Italians in costume are like, yeah, no, that's an ancient remedy.

Oh, Hollywood was pretty racist. Still is. The big trail, you know, it doesn't kill his career entirely because a lot of people do see it as a pretty decent movie. But it doesn't, it does like poorly enough that he spends most of the next decade kind of just hanging in there as an actor. He's, he's, he's moved up solidly from prop boy, but he's also kind of a side character. He's like Ronald Reagan, right?

He's not unknown, but nobody in this period really considers themselves a John Wayne fan, you know, like they've got a career. They're doing okay, but they're also not like, they're never like top build usually, right? They're not, they're not going to move a lot of butts into seats. And Westerns are pretty much all this out there, correct? There's a lot, no, there's a lot of gangster movies. There's a lot of romance flicks. There's some like war pictures and stuff like, but Westerns are, they're like the Marvel

movies of the day, broadly speaking, right? Like they're the most number one. What tends to get like, not like, they're kind of the most consistent way people are making a bunch of money. They're like superhero films, broader than Marvel. Cause there's cheap ones too, cause you can make them pretty cheap sometimes. Right. This is the Fast and the Furious franchise.

Yeah. There's elements of that. I don't know. Right. Like in Mission Impossible. These are a lot of your action films, right? This is what puts butts in seats. These are the popcorn flicks, right?

Yeah. Kind of for a decade is sort of a side character in those sort of movies, right? He's rarely going to be a particularly big kick cause he's not a big draw, you know? This changes in 1939 when John gets finally cast in a John Ford cowboy film called Stagecoach. If you have ever, whenever you are watching like a movie or a TV show that mentions John Wayne or cowboy movies, you will see the same clip from the movie Stagecoach and it is John Wayne with a lever action gun that he flips over and over in his hand as he fires while walking onto screen and it like slowly zooms on in his face.

It is one of the most iconic scenes in Western cinema, among other things. It's entirely why Terminator 2, the action scenes initially are shot the way. It's why Arnold in that movie gets a lever action shotgun that he can flip around and fire. It's a really iconic moment that makes its way into a bunch of modern pop culture, right? And that is the moment, that moment when John Wayne walks on scene in Stagecoach that makes him as a star. And I'm going to quote from a Buzzfeed right up by Anna Helen Peterson.

Stagecoach was intended as an ensemble picture. Wayne doesn't even show up until 15 minutes into the film. But when he does, it's with a hero's intro. Wayne twirls his rifle as if it were a pistol as the camera zooms into a glorious close-up of Wayne's face. It's become one of the most iconic scenes in classic cinema and Wayne's way out of quicky Western purgatory. Gradually, Wayne became something of a leading man.

He was in Ford's next picture, the Long Voyage Home, as a Swedish fisherman and played a Navy officer opposite Marlene Dietrich in Seven Sinners. Wayne's westernness was treated as a matter of fact. He was, in photo plays words, the typical Western American, open-faced and open-minded. But the press also emphasized that he enjoyed the finer things. Wayne, dressed with meticulous care like any well-capped businessman, looks divine and tucks her tails and doesn't wang a guitar or sing sad pieces about Western skies either. He lived in an exquisitely furnished home in the swankiest section of Hollywood and has

no yin for horses off-screen. So he becomes huge after this, right? Stagecoach makes him into a leading man and he kind of immediately takes off in Hollywood. Part of it is that he's been in film 20 years at this point. He's like 40. He's old enough to get... He's one of these guys who doesn't look right until he gets kind of grizzled. And so he gets very popular for that.

And he doesn't just get cast as the stead in Westerns. And he's kind of the first cowboy actor who's more actor than cowboy. Because the previous generation, guys like John Mix, are real cowboys, you know? That's how they learn to the shit that they do. Mix is the real deal. Wayne isn't really. He's got some of that in his background, right? Like he has some claim to it.

But he's kind of a... He's a fancy dandy boy. He wants to... He's just having a good time being a rich guy. And he grew up poor. So it's like, yeah, he's gonna want to not ride a horse to a drum set. Right, right. It's often framed as like he hated horses.

And he's like, no, he just had to do that as a kid. He probably doesn't want to do it anymore like he's ridden too many horses. But that's really interesting that like it takes, especially in the Westerns, and maybe in this time that like having an older hero was much more compelling than like, you know, you know, the Tom Holland's of today, like a little babyface Spider-Man. You're like, no, we want a grizzled guy who's killed many, many, many people. You want a guy who's like, looks like he's kind of seen some shit who can play that off a little bit.

And he doesn't even... This isn't really the height of his career because he's still kind of young at this point. Right. But yeah, this is the first time he gets his big break. I've seen some snakes. He's old enough to, you know, to look like he's been through some stuff. Yeah. Now, there's one last postscript to the story of Stagecoach.

While it ignited John Wayne's career by 1939, Tom Fix was largely out of work and desperate for a good job. He asked John Ford for a part on Stagecoach and Mix would allege until his death that John Wayne begged Ford not to give Mix the part. Sabotaged the guy who got him his first job. Right. Real piece of shit, you know? Son of a bitch. I know. You're like, oh my God, that's crazy.

Yeah. Cause it was supposed to be an ensemble cast or it is an ensemble cast. There's room for everybody. Yeah, but you know, if Mix is in there, maybe that's going to take some shine away from John Wayne. He's not going to, because Mix is a better cowboy actor. Maybe that's going to fuck with John Wayne's ability to, you know, shine on set. Right. Now, does he learn anything in these years?

Like, is he a better alcoholic? Number one. He's an incredible alcoholic. Okay, good. You got to give him credit for that. Yeah. He's really, honestly, this is a separate story, but when I do my podcast on the heroes of drunk driving, he's one of the most influential drunk drivers there ever, really invented a lot of modern drunk driving techniques.

Holding a beer in between his legs, screaming at his wife drunkenly from in the back seat while he drives, like all of those John Wayne originals. Peeing in the closet when you get to the bathroom. Nobody could piss in a closet like John Wayne. Absolutely not. Hell yeah. Oscar. You know what else is Oscar worthy?

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Yeah, yeah, that was back in the 1700s. That was back in the 1700s when mattress was better known as the East India Trading Company. They've moved on. Now they just ship people mattresses. It's fine. We've forgiven them. Yeah, you need to forgive them too. That's the message of our Oscar winning mattress ad. So in the Ford film Seven Sinners, John Wayne played opposite Marlena Dietrich and she's the real actress who inspired the fictional Bridget von Hammersmark and Inglorious Bastards. So in that movie, she is the German actress that Quentin Tarantino insisted on strangling on camera for very unclear reasons. Or maybe not so unclear reasons. I'm not enough of an expert on that, but it's weird, right?

We got to agree it's weird. It's kind of uncomfortable that he did that. Yeah, yeah, I'm remembering that. That's in the, yes, yes, yes. It's like the, yeah, it's, he wanted it to be his hands on, on camera that strangled her. Very weird. Jesus Christ. Real fucked up. But not before you see your feet. But not before you see your feet. Then I strangle her.

Fucking Quentin Tarantino. Such a weirdo. She's the real actress that that lady's based off of. She's quite a star, one of the most famous leading ladies ever. And certainly in this period, kind of top of the fucking female, you know, actor food chain. Now, in real life, Wayne and Dietrich started hooking up immediately. She is way more experienced than him. Sexually? Oh yeah, yeah, she is Marlene Dietrich and he is this an awkward boy who spends most of his time drunk with a bunch of dudes on a yacht.

So one of the things that like he, obviously he gets super into this thing. He's also kind of insecure with her and around her because she's more experienced than him and more famous than him. So a few things are going on here. This is kind of a complex relationship. Although I think for Marlene, she just likes fucking hot actors, you know. He's the one who starts developing some complexes around this. Hey boy, boy, lift that couch over there. Yeah, oh, absolutely. Hang on, let me pour some oil on your back. That's right. Keep doing that.

No, no, I didn't say come yet. So obviously he's still married to Josie at this point, his wife. Of course, good old Josie. When they get married, when he and his guy get married, like their friends from the beginning are like, well, this isn't going to last. He is incapable of not cheating on you constantly and you are super Catholic. Now, heartbreakingly, Josie adores her husband. John mostly seems to be distracted and frustrated by her. She feels like his acting, like her attitude is, I just got to put up with this for a little while.

Nobody is enacting very long. Eventually it'll get too old. It'll be a short fling for him and then he'll figure out something more serious to do with his life. John Wayne kind of use his wife and children the same way. Right. This ain't even my whole thing, you know. So he would later complain to friends that he and Josie only had sex four times during their marriage. Yo, what the fuck?

Probably a lie, but like a gross one. So mean, so cruel. What the fuck, dude? He's just so angry that... Like, what does that say about you too? That obviously doesn't look good on you, bro. Maybe she would want to fuck you more if she didn't feel like you were fucking every single other person in town because she's not into that shit. Maybe your behavior is having an impact on the things you don't like about your marriage, John Wayne.

No, he's not going to have that thought. I'm not even really into my wife, you know what I'm saying? Like those kids, four nuts, honestly, that was it. That was it. In and out. Five pumps, four nuts, I mean, really. Five pumps. She's not even that hot. Like my wife's not as hot as Marlene.

Wow, you are just quoting directly from his autobiography. The story of a chode, the tale of John Wayne. So initially, some people will say it was kind of morally conflicted about all the sleeping around he was doing, but by the time he's an actual star, it becomes just like totally... It becomes just like so routine to him that he stops trying to hide it. So everyone in Hollywood knows that John Wayne and Marlene Dietrich are sleeping with each other. They are out in public together at events while Josie is eight months pregnant, which doesn't do... She's not happy, you know?

That's not great. That's not a great position to put someone in. So she confronts him over it, but she's also too Catholic to divorce him, right? Like you don't do that. So she's... Yeah, it's grody. Like his parents got divorced. Yeah, like his parents. And it's interesting...

20 years earlier or whatever. That he doesn't push for divorce, because he could have. And Jensen, one of his biographers, suspects that this is because he's still too possessive and insecure about her. He's actually the piece of shit in the relationship. Oh, for sure! Absolutely, he's the piece of shit in this relationship. I don't know much about Josie, but I know that John Wayne is the bad guy in this relationship. I'm going to read a quote about him as a husband and a father from Jensen's book.

So he makes bizarre rules for his family. He screams at them if they put hats on beds. Can't do that around John. If you spill salt, you have to toss it over your shoulder, which is not an uncommon thing in this day. Umbrellas can only be opened outside. No one can hand him a salt shaker. You don't hand John Wayne a salt shaker! Do you know what's really funny about that is that I lived in Latin America for a while and the same thing, just the superstition, you put the salt on the table, then you can pick it up.

Yeah, there's a lot. He didn't invent this. It's not only to him. Maybe the no hats on beds thing. I haven't heard that before. That's kind of weird. But is he like, you know, look me in the eyes when we toast, otherwise seven years of bad luck. That one's true. Yeah, like seven years of bad sex or whatever it is. Even though I've only done it with your mom four times. Four times? He says at the dinner table after screaming about salt.

What does it mean, professor love? Like just every day? Yeah, you got to tell dad that he's a good dad before he goes out to fuck Marlene Dietrich. Yeah. On rodeo drive out in public. But he doesn't start it like it can't be him to say I love you first. That is unclear, but he does not strike me as a say I love you first kind of dude. I don't know, maybe. So he's also like this around his friends. He's got these card playing buddies that he plays cards with. And if somebody sets a card on the table face up by accident, they have to get up and circle their chair three times in order to avoid bad luck.

So he's, you know, again, this is not, I think people might be want to say this is like OCD. I don't know, maybe I'm not going to diagnose him, but these are all like superstitions that exist at the time. And he's just, this is not an uncommon thing with people who like grow up in desperate situations where they get super paranoid about not wanting to do anything that could make shit go wrong for them. Because they understand how fragile success is and how shitty it is when you're dirt poor. I get it, you know, not that it's good, but I understand what's going on in his head here, I think. So while he's keeping a tight eye on his wife and kids, he escalates his relationship with Dietrich. She later claimed that she more or less directed their affair as the more experienced partner. Quote, what pleased me most was he wasn't vain or arrogant, far from it.

He was insecure as an actor, worried about his talent or what he felt was a lack of it. As a man, he was a little insecure and vulnerable. I was able to help in both respects. We had a small affair, a small friendship, which we both enjoyed. Now that's to her again, Marlene Dietrich, huge star. He, it's a bigger thing for him and it's definitely a bigger thing for his wife, for whom this is devastating, right? Marlene's just like, yeah, you know, he was young, he needed somebody to show him the ropes and like make him feel better about himself. I did that, it's whatever, then I went on and... He was fun. I liked that he was insecure.

Yeah, I enjoyed that he didn't know how to talk back to me. Oh, his poor little wife, how cute, eight months pregnant, she's fat. Four children, yes. But that's really interesting that, I mean, it might, I'm curious to how this ends, because I feel like it's foreboding, like she clearly, he was clearly obsessed with her. Oh, there's some voting going on. Well, that's an interesting part here. So John Wayne was actually in Mexico partying with Dietrich while his wife, Josie, delivers their fourth child and second daughter, Melinda. So their relationship continued for some time and while Wayne definitely got along better with Dietrich than he did with his wife,

it was also a tempestuous relationship and I'm going to read a real rough quote from the true life of John Wayne here. Duke handled her the way he handled every woman in his life. When she provoked him, he punched her and it didn't matter if it was in public. On location for the spoilers in Lake Arrowhead, California, Duke and Marlene were rehearsing a scene for the film. Duke suggested one way to play the scene and Marlene suggested another. Duke pressed his point and Marlene finally shot back. That's a dumb idea. Duke's face turned to stone and his eyes burned with suppressed rage. As the camera was about to roll, Duke angrily retied his bandana, which he'd loosened between takes.

Duke tied a bigger than normal knot and Marlene saw it and told him, you don't even know how to tie a bandana. Suddenly, Duke exploded. He swung a huge fist in a roundhouse right and hit Marlene right in the face. She went flying, landing hard in the rough dirt. Marlene lay sprawled on the ground for a moment, gathering her senses. She didn't cry. No, she was on the ground and straight up, when she came to, she lit a cigarette. Well, it's actually more uncomfortable than that, Francesca, because according to Jensen, whose source here is the actress Margaret Lindsay, who is there on set when this happens, she looks up at him with intense arousal, gets up and gives him what is described by this other actress as a love punch,

and then they start making out. So I don't know what you want to do with this information, how you want to parse that all out, but that's what someone else who was there says went down. I've been waiting for you to do that since the moment I met you. He will be repeatedly physically abusive to people, to women specifically throughout his life. It is unclear to me if that's what's going on here, or if they just had kind of a thing where that, I really don't know, I don't know what's going on with these two. I mean, it's interesting though, because even though she did that,

you got to think about being a star like her in that time, you're on set, this guy who you're sleeping with, who's younger, more inexperienced, hits you. What are you going to do, like cry or be mad or whatever? That shows so much vulnerability, you're going to get up and be like, no, I liked it, it's great, whatever. That is much more a position of strength when you've got to protect your image. That's right, and that's a huge, probably part of what's like, I mean, I don't know these people obviously, but that seems really plausible to me.

Yeah, how fucking embarrassing otherwise. And again, a number of people through the years in other circumstances, see John Wayne hit women in public with his fists, not that like a slap is okay either, but like specifically like punching them. It's just like a thing John Wayne does, like his mentor, John Ford. Cool dudes. Learned it from the best. So yeah, it is also, yeah.

So Duke's relationship with Marlene fell apart for the same reason so many of his relationships did. He started fucking a teenaged girl in Mexico. Yeah, so that's why this doesn't work out. She may have been working as a prostitute at the time. Her exact background is kind of unclear. Some sources will say her mother ran a brothel that was very popular with the actors, and that's where John Wayne meets her.

But we know that he definitely at age 34, I think, starts fucking at the oldest. She's like 17 at this point. Her name is Esperanza Bauer. She goes by Chata. Biographer Randy Roberts writes in his book John Wayne American quote, Chata's life before 1941 is a mystery. She was never accepted in Hollywood and rumors circulated at the time that she met John Wayne, that she was working as a high-priced call girl and a bit actress in the Mexican film industry.

Pilar Wayne later wrote that Chata was born in the slums of Mexico City and became a prostitute to escape poverty. Others said that when Chata and Duke met, she was married to a Mexican student named Eugenio Morrison. We really don't know what her background is, but we know she is a teenager and possibly a sex worker. Hard to say. Robert Chata.

Maybe even the worst, which is not a sex worker, but the daughter of someone on the brothel, was not actually working and then was preyed upon. We really do not know the precise details here. Other than that, it's for sure gross, right? It's for sure gross. It's for sure bad stuff. It's just the exact dimensions of like what precisely was going on is kind of unclear,

but it's for sure bad. And I should note here that like Roberts's book is way classier and it's description of Chata, the Jensen's book. Sure, it's called what American? John Wayne American. I mean, because Jensen is like the most negative book about John Wayne, but it's also written by a dude who was writing at least in a pretty gross time and I think was kind of gross himself,

because he describes Chata as quote, an underaged prostitute with a smoking body and amazing good looks. Oh my God. Holy shit, Jensen, what the fuck dude? And that's her biography. If you are describing someone as an underaged prostitute, whatever comes next should never include the phrase smoking body. Never.

You have just stated you're talking about a child, Richard Jensen. God. What a... Again, John Wayne biographer is probably only moderately less terrible than John Wayne. No, exactly. He's only a few gradations better on the Me Too creep predator scale. And again, I also, I am unclear as to how much we should, like there's a lot of people who argue of someone's underage.

We should always say sex trafficking victim rather than prostitute, but also this is a real different time. And I don't know the extent to which she has agency in her life. And 17 is, means a different thing in 1939 than it does today in some ways. Like I have no idea what's going on. I have no idea whether she's a victim of her mom or if she is pursuing a rich guy to get out of like Mexico and into the United States. Right.

Like who, I don't know what's happening. I mean from brothel to Hollywood, like I'll take the deal. Cause she's also trying to get a career in Hollywood, which John Wayne attempts to help her with. So like there's stuff going on here. It's certainly horrific behavior on John Wayne's part. But was there love? You know what I mean?

John Wayne falls in love, he says. He will for years call her his true love even after they have split up. And he punches her. Oh, he punches her a lot. Um, so whatever is going on in her background, Wayne falls in love immediately. He moves her to California where he has her tell people she's 24 years old. Um, so he knows this is growing.

Again, we just said like these are somewhat different times and some of this stuff is viewed differently. But John Wayne knows this is gross enough that he has to age her up. You know, like, so again, not that different. Yeah, even for Hollywood people like that's kind of young John. Um, he starts trying one of the things that's important to him. And again, we don't know how much it is that she wanted a career in movies. There's an argument to be made that he wanted her to be seen as having a career.

So it doesn't look like he just trafficked a girl from Mexico into Hollywood. Um, so whatever's going on here, again, super messy, uh, super messed up. Um, Marlena Dietrich, when she finds out that what he's doing, that he's set this girl up with an apartment in Hollywood and brought her into the country, she dumps him. She's like, uh, no, no, no, like that's, that's fucking weird, John. Yeah.

So, um, I don't know. Good for Marlene, I guess. Yeah, she's fine. He's still married to Josie at this point though. And if she wasn't happy with Marlene Dietrich, she's really not happy with, with this, um, not psyched about what, what John is doing. Um, now her parents are both high society Catholics.

And so he's called upon regularly to show up at events and functions. Um, and you know, he's certainly because he'd rather be fucking someone who is at the oldest now 19, right? They've been together a couple of points. So he just acts like a dick at all these parties. He goes to the events to cruise for like young Catholic girls. He goes to the events so that everyone knows how much he doesn't want to be there. Like he's sulks cause he'd rather be with his like teenage mistress in the,

the apartment that he makes the studio pay for her in Hollywood. Um, one of the family friends was like, and they did. And they did. Um, yeah. So he's like, not only is he cheating on his wife with a teenager, but he has to like make sure everybody knows how unfair he thinks it is that he has to show up at parties where adults are. Um, cool guy, John Wayne.

Um, what a dude. So. And Hollywood is helping bankroll sort of the, cause he's too big of a cash cow for them to like. He's making them a lot of money. Yeah. This is the early forties. He moves shot at a Hollywood in the spring of 43.

Some will argue that it was like part of what he was doing by having the studio pay for her apartment and pay for her to like, they would give her like money every month that it was partly like a tax dodge. Like that's how he received some of his salary so that it wasn't taxed. I don't know how to evaluate the truth of that, but it does sound like some movie star shit. Like not only are you like keeping a secret teenage mistress, but you're doing it as a tax dodge, you know, like.

Everyone's on board. Yeah. That's, that does sound very Hollywood and in the nows too. Like that's not just a forties thing. Um, so the two start seeing each other probably in 41. I think like 43 is when she moves to Hollywood. That's also the year 1941 that the United States helped long by our buddies in Japan decides to give this whole World War II thing a try, right?

Um, so this is our big old patriotic war, right? Everybody's got to go volunteer to fight. It is all but unthinkable for young leading men in the prime of their life. Action movie stars, right? You've got this war where absolutely every man who can is doing something. It's considered obscene by a lot of people that somebody capable of doing action like in the film, somebody like being a war hero in movies wouldn't go volunteer to fight to serve in some way, right? Jimmy Stewart tries to join the army.

He gets rejected as being under. He is just one like, I think an Academy Award. This is right after it's a wonderful life. He's one of the biggest stars in the world. He gets rejected for being underweight. He retires a personal trainer so he can bulk up and he joins the Army Air Corps and he flies 20 bomber missions over Europe. Holy shit.

One of the most dangerous jobs of the entire war, Jimmy Stewart. He retires as a general. How the fuck didn't I know? Yeah, Jimmy Stewart bombs like Europe repeatedly. He has an incredibly dangerous job. They didn't need all those bombs? Some of them, yes. Yeah, but it's also like undeniably as one of the biggest stars in the world.

He takes a job where like a huge percentage of men who do that job die doing it. Like it is incredibly dangerous. And there's a lot of famous actors who do similar things. Clark Gable, who was over 40 at the point and was old enough that he could have gotten out of serving, joins the Air Force. Some will say he was suicidal because his wife had just died, but he also flies bomber missions as an aerial gunner. Clark Gable is like crammed into a gun in the belly of a bomber,

like shooting at fighter planes. So even though it's not like all these movie stars were once action heroes or the detectives or anyone in real life, they become them because it's sort of still seen as serving your country and your role model. Even though a lot of these guys go on to be politically problematic, but they're all human enough to look at the Nazis and be like, oh, we should probably do something about that.

Right, right, right. Or just even like the idea that you would attempt to physically train to be able to, like Jimmy could have just like, you know, tried to put on a wing. Like I just can't do it. You know, he's got to stay. Yeah. Well, I just can't. But he committed.

Oh my God. Yeah. All right. And so Henry Fonda, who could have gotten out of the service because he had three kids and initially they weren't drafting like fathers, right? They were trying to keep families together. They were mainly drafting single men. Fonda could have gotten a deferment.

Instead, he enlists in the army air core and again, like serves his country at war. Now, a lot of big stars did not join the military. Gary Cooper doesn't join Bing Crosby, James Cagney, but they're also way over 40, I think at this point. Like they're old enough that like, well, I just can't, you know, I'm an old man. I'm just going to slow everybody down, right? Fair enough, you probably shouldn't be getting into that stuff if you're Bing Crosby and you have been chain smoking cigarettes since age eight.

You might not be helpful. But John Wayne was young enough to serve. He's in his mid 30s at this point, right? He is the prime of his life. He is a big strong man. Initially though, he qualifies for a deferment and he gets a deferment because he has a wife and kids, right? I got six kids.

Good old Josie. I'm going to keep saying good old Josie. Good old Josie. I got to stay with Josie and the kids, you know, I got to keep them. I got to keep them. You know, I got to, I want to go out there and fight the crowds. Don't get me wrong, but ah, this family, I'm so dedicated to my family. I've got a wife to sleep around on.

Yeah. Yeah. I've got a wife to sleep around on. I have kids to ignore. So he gets a deferment and his studio uses his family as an excuse for the fact that he's not serving with, because the press ask, right? Wayne's a big star. He's not what are you doing in the war, John Wayne, that everyone else is a part of.

Um, this excerpt from an article in modern screen is a good example of how they justified this quote. A man of 35 heading to a family of six has to think twice before leaving just the same. Big John Wayne is restless because like I said, he's a man's man who thinks straight and believes in action. It's a dilemma for a family man and an American gentleman who wants to make a personal appearance in the big scrap. So that's how they frame it is like, oh, he really wants to get in there, but ah, he's

just got it. He's got his family. Oh, he'd love to make a cameo. Yeah. He's fucking a teenager that he traffics into the United States. You know, I'm not sure if you've heard of the Alcoholics Yacht Club. Very important work that they're doing out there in Mexico. Really?

The most important branch of the Navy is the Alcoholic Yacht Club. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God. He'd so love to be there to help your little war effort. Yeah. Now it's very funny too, because while he's making these claims in 42 and 43, he has already moved Chata into Hollywood and asked his wife for a divorce.

They are separated when all of it, when he's claiming all of this shit to the press. Hang on. Not yet. Not yet, honey. Don't sign the papers. Not quite yet. Not quite yet. And now.

Although actually I should say he really does want it. But she refuses to divorce him for a while, because you know, again, she's incredibly Catholic. And his mentor, patron John Ford, gives him hell too for trying to divorce her, because he's Catholic, right? Ford, who again, beats his wife relentlessly, believes that John Wayne should stay married because that's what God wants and just keep cheating on his wife. Oh yeah.

I mean. That's the John Ford way. But also trap them. You don't leave him, John. Come on. Yeah. So that's what a fucking like. So good on Clyde and Molly.

I just want to say that, you know, early pioneers nailed a lot of things trying to farm in the desert, but also getting a divorce. And one of those two things was successful. Being abusive, really very revolutionary that Molly was the one doing the abusing. Plus like incredible work. So it is worth emphasizing that John Wayne, while he dodged the draft in World War Two, justified it by needing to take care of his family. While he's doing this, he is living away from his wife in luxury at the Chateau Marmont and

fucking a girl who is at most 19, who he possibly illegally trafficked into the United States. That part's questionable. But um, yeah. Incredible stuff. He's a cool dude. He's like so on brand for hollow Christian masculinity, like, you know, emblem that he is. He doesn't actually, and kind of the shift of like, oh, no, no, no, that's the old way

is to actually put your money where your mouth is or do something like be a hero. This is like, it's all Hollywood. Yeah. Yeah. Matt Gaetz is playing from this playbook, you know? Exactly. He's thinking like, what if like Jenna Bush was sent to Iraq? Lol, like Jenna Bush is co-hosting Good Morning America.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I think we should send all of the children of elected leaders into war zones. I don't care which ones. They don't need to be supported or just send them. Just mail them there. You know what? Like in a shipping crate.

It's the today show. But yes, and they should all be sent there. I mean, retroactively, you could still go to Iraq. I like help rebuild, bro. Well, I don't think, look, I don't think the Iraqis need Jenna Bush's help. Why not? But you know, she could take somebody's place in a city getting shelled right now. Just move them into your house, Jenna.

Come on. Indeed. Do something. So Ford chastises John Wayne for quote, this is how he talks about John Wayne's teenage, I don't know what term to use here, but he says that he's playing with Mexican jumping beans, because again, everyone's very racist. Like these are like, this is for 1943, you know, but he also calls him a damn fool for breaking up his marriage.

According to biographer Roberts, Wayne wrote back that the marriage is over and he quote does not give a four letter word if I could see my kids. I don't give a shit if she takes the kids. Awesome. What a hero. So there are several things John Ford never forgave John Wayne for, and this is one of them. When the war started, Ford to his credit, well, I don't know if this to his credit before

joins the OSS, which is the precursor to the CIA, and he gets the rank of commander and he gets us to make like propaganda movies, right? That's what Reagan does during the war, right? A lot of guys who don't want to go fight because not everybody does the Jimmy Stewart thing, still join the military and they make propaganda reels about how not to get VD or whatever. So that's John Ford's job. There was some good stuff in those days.

There was some good stuff, some good VD, you mean? Yeah. Oh my God. The old time cephalus, this new shit cannot compete. No, the itch isn't the same. Nothing. Yeah, no. The burning pee, it just doesn't hold a candle.

You kids don't even know what it's like to have your pee burn. Unbelievable. Zoomers. Okay. So biographer Scott Eyman basically says, so again, Ford joins the OSS and starts calling John Wayne a coward for failing to serve and tries to push him to join. Now there's a couple of different versions of what Wayne wants to do in the OSS. Biographer Scott Eyman frames it as if John Wayne wanted to get like a special ops gig

suited for an action star. Yeah. So in Eyman's telling, he crafts his application to the OSS to make him look like an international man of mystery. Quote, swimming above average, small boat sailing, average football, played college ball at the University of Southern California, squash and tennis, fair, deep sea fishing, seven Marlin in two years, hunting, good field shot, horseback riding, have done falls and posse riding in pictures, not as easy as it sounds.

So that's the way like Eyman is like, he wants to try to get a job doing like, you know, secret agent kind of shit. Squash and tennis? Oh, fair. Okay. Look, it's basically throwing a grenade, you know? Fair. Yeah.

So Ford introduces John Wayne to Wild Bill Donovan, who's the head of the OSS and like will become the founder of the CIA. And Donovan suggests that Wayne might be good for what they call small boat work, which is running the German blockade to deliver weapons to partisans, which would be a pretty cool thing to do in World War Two. Okay. He really wants to get him a bit role in the war. In the war?

Well, if he'd done this, that's dope. Like that's literally fucking, what's his name's character in Casablanca? Oh God. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Bogart. Bogart's character. That's what he's doing. He's like running guns to rebels in like occupied Europe and shit.

So Iman says like, that's what John Wayne is trying to do. Wild Bill's like, oh yeah, you'd be perfect for this. John Wayne's like, I would love to run guns past the Nazi blockade. I just got to finish three more movies. Like give me three more movies, but then I'm going to be ready to get in, you know, I'm ready to get in. And friends of his at the time will note that he kind of always tells people, I just got to do one more movie.

I got to do two more movies and then I'm getting into the war effort. Don't worry guys. I'm almost there. I'll be right behind you. This is like Trump on January 6th. Just like you guys go, I'll be right there. There are versions of this story. One version is that he films his three pictures and he calls this officer at the OSS that

Donovan had set him up with. And that guy was like, dude, we sent you a letter, you know, did you not get it? We already filled that position. So John gets worried. He's like, oh no, I'm going to miss my chance to be in the OSS. And he sends John Ford a letter which states, dear Pappy, have you any suggestions on how I should get in? Can I get assigned to your outfit?

And if I could, would you want me? How about the Marines? You have Army and Navy men under you. Have you any Marines? Or how about a Seabee? Or what would you suggest? I just hate to ask favors, but for Christ's sake, you can suggest, can't you? Now, Iman's take here seems to be that John Wayne was perhaps unwilling to fight or willing

to serve, but not as like a simple soldier. Whatever he was going to do, he wanted it to be like a special position, one that matched his opinion of himself and something that would exclude him from the standard military chain of command. So like Jimmy Stewart, Gene Autry, Clark Gable, these guys are all fighting as normal soldiers, more or less. John Wayne does not want to do that. Scott Iman writes, quote, it's probable that Wayne was emotionally committed to working

under Ford's command, was embarrassed about Donovan shying away from him at the height of the war, and simply wasn't willing to enlist and take his chances. Certainly he had an image of himself as an officer under Ford. But as he would say, I would have had to go in as a private. I took a dim view of that. So the reality is unclear. And again, some people will say initially John Wayne was trying to get this gig running guns, others will say he only just wanted to be in Ford's unit making movies.

Like he never wanted to get close to the danger. Hard to say. The author of the Buzzfeed write up, I quoted earlier ads, quote, the truth of Wayne's hesitation was logical, if unspeakable. He'd worked for a decade to claw his way out of the quickies. If he left Hollywood then even to serve his country, he might not ever regain his momentum. So he stayed put, made a dozen films, two of which dealt with the war and allowed the press to rationalize his lack of service.

He doesn't want to fuck his career up, right? No, or his hair. Or whatever. That's the dominant theory. Now Richard Jensen has a third theory, which at least explains why Wayne was not accepted for the OSS. He argues that while John Ford was giving John Wayne shit for not serving and being like, why are you being in a coward?

Why aren't you willing to like man up and take part in this war? While he's doing that, Ford is also telling Wild Bill Donovan, don't hire this guy. Don't let him in. Don't bring this guy. Like he'd done before, you know? He does this like about roles in Hollywood. So friends. That's tracks.

Totally tracks. That's absolutely the guy John Ford is. Right, because he's already fallen out with him by this point. Well, they're in and out a bunch. They're close. Wayne will take care of him when he's sick and dying. They have a co-dependent kind of thing, right? Right.

It's totally a co-dependent relationship because Ford will want nothing to do with him and then want him back. Right. And yeah, they kissed that one time, but they were drunk. They were drunk. Then they were spooning. But it was cold. So, you know, John Ford kind of fucking, and he does this.

Like when he's not, when he's like shit shutting down Wayne's ability to get roles early on in his career, he's also constantly being like, no, you're not talented. So nobody's going to want you to act in their movies. Like you shitty at acting. You look like crap. Oh, God. You know? He's like the worst person.

His mom voice. Yeah. And of course, John Wayne loves him forever and takes care of him when he's sick and dying. But yeah. So friends speculated. Like this isn't Jensen who invents the speculation. People who are close to both of them speculate that Ford stops John Wayne from getting a job as the OSS. Some will say it's revenge for what he did with Chata that he like is divorcing his wife, you know,

that Ford is just angry that he's getting a divorce because he's super Catholic. Jensen notes that other speculated Ford didn't want John Wayne to get a chance to quote prove he was Ford's equal. So he just didn't want him to like, he wanted him to kind of look like shit for not being in the war. Because otherwise he might look good and then that's bad for Ford because it makes Ford less powerful in the relationship. I don't see why both can't be true. I think it seems like both are true and he wanted Wayne to think he was, he wanted him in the war. Yeah. And Wayne didn't even want to go.

He sure didn't. That seems really clear that John Wayne did not want to go to fucking war. And I mean, look, I don't blame him, but yes, it is I don't, I don't cling to this kind of masculinity. Yeah. So I don't have the same, but it does seem like a big ol oversight for those who are waving Wayne flags at rallies still. Yeah, it's, it's, that's exactly like right. And it's going to get grosser later. Like obviously, as a general rule, I am pro draft dodging.

I will say World War Two is the one war where you're kind of questionable if you're dodging it because like some shit did need to get done, you know. Yes. But generally speaking, I'm pro draft dodging, but not when you become like super pro war forever after that, then, then you're being scummy. If you draft dodging or like nobody should have to fight in a war, that's fine. That's perfectly consistent. That is not where John Wayne's going to go. Right. And your entire persona is crafted around sort of this American hero worship. Yes.

And you rely on that and you're winning these, you know, battles on the frontier, you're forming a nation. You are literally playing soldiers fighting in the battle of Iwo Jima, you know, that's like one of your iconic films. And like you, you didn't even, wouldn't even make, didn't even find out a way to make movies for the government during the war. Like, right? Let alone do the shit. And by the way, Jimmy Stewart, never a big action star. No. But fucking put up when it was time to put up, put his fucking money where his mouth was. Anyway, you know who else puts their money where their mouth is? Products and services who support this podcast, who also helped carry out the bombing of Fortress Europe.

Good on them. That's the, that's the one promise that our sponsors make is that they have bombed German cities. Absolutely. It's the Italian cities that have problems with, you know what I mean? They were already, it was over. Yeah. Dropping pasta on them. Just way too much bombing of Napoli. Yeah. It was a lot of pretty cities get pretty fucked up here. Look, it's, it's a messy war.

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We're back. So good shit. It's good stuff. John Wayne does volunteer, spends like three weeks visiting troops fighting in Guam. He does a little tour. He does some USO shit. But not much. Scott Eiman, who is like a very positive biographer, really likes John Wayne, even notes that like he didn't really do much in World War Two by the standards of other guys, even other guys who didn't join the military. He did less than them. He just visited troops and like flipped his pistol around a few times. And he doesn't visit a much like Bob Hope, right? Who sucks. Bad person. There's a lot of like horrible regressive politics, but Bob Hope cannot serve in this period and like spins like his whole all of his time going to field hospitals and doing shows.

Like there are guys who don't serve, but still like put a huge amount of time into like keeping morale up for troops. John Wayne does a bit of that, but he doesn't really want to take a break from his career to even do that. He would visit USO hospitals to talk to wounded soldiers who would often ask him, why aren't you in this war, Duke? And he would, he would be like, I have an old football injury. Yes, I knew he was going to say that shit. I threw him a back out, boy. You know, you ever heard of body surfing? Yeah.

That's the thing we used to do in the old West. Like every single soldier who landed at Normandy hadn't fucked themselves up playing football as a kid, right? Like they didn't have pads back then. All of them were dead shoulder and back injuries. No, you are dead and fodder. You need to go now. It's fine if your back hurts. It'll be over soon. God. So he, yeah, he sometimes would say that President Roosevelt had asked him to keep morale up by making more movies. This is super untrue, but he does make a lot of movies.

And obviously this works out great for him career wise, because all of the other leading men who might take roles from him are off fighting and in some cases dying. You know, brilliantly brilliant strategy. I love that. Have you seen Gone with the Wind? I have. You know the kid, the like fresh faced young kid who like marries Scarlett early in the movie and becomes like goes off to die and dies in the Confederate army? Yes, yes. He actually dies fighting in World War II. Oh, dear.

Like he dies in combat. Yeah. So this is again, a lot of times you have like soldiers, like especially nowadays and when Vietnam comes around like there'll be moments and stuff. And in Korea, like with Elvis where it's very performative. This is not performative for most of the celebrities who join in World War II. Right. People die. Yeah. Gable, Gable did Gable.

Wait. Shit. I'm mixing him up with the other one. You said Cooper didn't. Yeah. Cooper did not. Clark Gable does. Clark Gable is like a fucking a gunner like on a on a bomber plane, which is one of the most dangerous jobs in the whole war. You're like hanging in like a glass cockpit on the bottom of a plane exposed to gunfire with no armor.

And if you get shot, you just get the air sucked out of you and pulled to the ground. It's a horrible job. Brett Butler did that. Fuck. Yeah. He fucking. Yeah. He sure did.

Look, he's not, he's pretty right wing himself, but definitely hot. Like we could, we could be fair about that. We're comparing pieces of track. I mean, like that's what this show is. It is though. It is though funny that Brett Butler goes to war and like survives and the kid who dies and gone with the wind also dies fighting the Nazis. Little on the nose Hollywood. So if you're surprised that the man who dodged the draft in World War Two, which is the only war in which that's arguably unethical goes on to become a right wing icon, you should not be. What's interesting is that John Wayne himself would spend the rest of his life outraged by his own failure to serve.

Whether it was venal profit seeking or simple cowardice, he saw it as the ultimate strike against his machismo and Ford never lets him forget it. Oh God. Perhaps the first expression of this comes in 1944 when he helps to create the motion picture alliance for the preservation of American ideals or MPA. Now, with a name like that, you know, some fucked up culture war bullshit is about to drop and it sure did. Brown people will be killed in these films. Yeah. I mean, it's more that like these guys are hardcore anti-communist, which if you're an anti-communist in the U.S. World War Two, you kind of got to sit out a little bit.

Like you got to kind of keep quiet because the Soviet Union's our ally. You can't kind of, you cannot be as unhinged in your attacks against communism for four years or so. Right. Yeah. Because we kind of need them to do all of the dying. You got to put that on hold until they know it was win the war. Because we need like 20 million of them or so to die fighting. So 1944, they start this anti-communist organization kind of near the end of the war.

And John Wayne had not been political earlier in his career. He would later claim to have even had a socialist period. I don't know how true I think that is. It's kind of a right-wing thing to claim. He used to be a socialist in college. Then you saw the light. I think he's one of the first guys to do that. Absolutely.

This is, that is such a playbook. Yeah. His friend Henry Fonda later recalled quote, the Duke couldn't even spell politics in the 30s. So I think it's probable he just did not give a shit. But in the early 40s, again, he's got to do something to feel like a man. He's got to do something to like shore up his credentials as a tough guy. And being anti-communist seems like the best bet. So he gets elected head of the Screen Actors Guild in the early 40s.

And he claims that becoming the head of a union is the first time he starts to notice the deadly trend of on-rushing socialism. Oh, God. Yeah. Oh, that's so perfect. That's also just so peak, like right-wing icon idiot. Oh, yeah. It's beautiful. Thanks to this union, I realize unions are terrible. Yeah. Except for this one and the police.

Once you get union, once you get sensitized to it, he told an interviewer, you'd begin to be aware of cracks at our president, the flag, patriotism. He described the attitude of his colleagues towards traditional Americana as quote, a kind of sneering. Now, this is all. Shut the fuck up. I know, John, you fucking asshole. This is all shit he would claim later after he became a political figure. Film critic and historian, Emmanuel Levy, believes that guilt over his failure to serve in World War II,

drove Wayne to right-wing politics. There's ample evidence to suggest this. Friends of his, like Mary St. John, often gave telling anecdotes. Quote, he was not the kind of man to dwell on it or talk about it, but you knew he did. You could see it in his face whenever anyone asked him about his war record. He wouldn't tell them that he had not served and it made him feel like a hypocrite. That's so perfect. Of course, you're going to make up for your feeling that you didn't defend your country

by utilizing the most bullshit prop of so-called Americanism, which is defending yourself against communism. Yeah. And it's so perfect and it parallels again to today, to Trump's little bone spurs. I hate to bring his name up again, but just it's so clear. And the people who are the most vitriolic are also folks who would never in their fucking lives fight for any cause. Yeah. It's the same shit with George Bush getting a cushy family excuse not to actually fight in Vietnam.

Right. You know, it's this... But super willing to send other people to fight. What matters is the image. What you do doesn't matter. It's just like why you can pay for your daughter to have an abortion and also support ending the right to reproductive choice. Because it's not what you do that matters.

It's what you say in public and whether or not you have where the right hat. Ben Shapiro with his cowboy hat and his big black truck. That's exactly what it is. You've never towed Ben Shapiro. You don't know how to tow. You don't know how to set a fucking tow hitch. Like, by God, you would panic if you had to change lanes with a trailer. Like, but you're going to have a truck, obviously.

I would dispute that characterization. Yeah. Ben, haul like a fucking 10 foot little baby trailer. Just once, Ben. Show me you know how to use a truck for literally anything. Maybe they do tiny boat work. What is it? Small boat? Small boat work.

Yeah. Motherfucker couldn't do small boat work. Fishing for Marlin. God damn it. Go run some guns, John Wayne. So, Levy, Emanuel Levy, the fucking film criticism, claims that like this sort of shame is what drives Wayne to the MPA in 1944. Like his blockbuster war movies,

doing this was a prominent and easily publicized way to frame himself as a warrior, struggling against a great evil when he had actually failed to do anything about the real great evil of the time. He served as the president of the organization starting in 1949. Now, the year before, at age 41, John Wayne was cast in a film called Red River. This would be the first movie to feature Wayne as he is now most famous to millions of Americans, as a gruff, hard-edged, late middle-aged cowboy.

Because again, he's aged like he looks like he's in his 50s in this. But also kind of the perfect American hero, sort of unwitting, like I don't want to be here, like protagonist, which is something that we love. We love a guy who's about to retire, but he gets drawn out of retirement because he's got to fucking kick ass. Yeah, it's like you're fucking John McClain. He's balding and divorced and he's exhausted, but then he's got to go murder some Germans, you know?

We love that shit. Bruce Willis did this perfectly. Yeah, he really did. He did everything right in his career. Also terrible politics. Probably. I've never wanted to know what Bruce Willis believes about politics. It seems like that wouldn't make me happy.

It's also changed in the last like 10 years, I feel like. Whereas like right-wingers, we would think we're more right-wing in Hollywood like 10 years ago or just like, hey, that guy's pretty good, you know? He's fine. Yeah, it's the Arnold Schwarzenegger thing where it's like you've suddenly gone from being like an arch-conservative to one of the least crazy people talking about politics in America because everything has lurched so far to the right.

It's great. It's fine. It's not going to cause any problems. So it's this John Wayne, this kind of tough older cowboy, this old hand who he's like one of the terms he's a begrudging tutor for younger cowboys, right? That's a big part of his appeal in these movies is he's taken some fresh-faced young book under his wing.

This is the John Wayne. He's a star at this point. This is the John Wayne that becomes an icon, right? Like this is the John Wayne whose face is still plastered all over fucking merch tables at gun shows to this day. So his career torpedoes forward at the same time as his anti-communist activism lurches forward. He serves three turns as president of the MPA until 1952.

Now, since this was the height of the second Red Scare, many of John Wayne's friends and many of the studio executives in particular, warned him that like, hey, you might not want to get into politics this much. It could kill you with the box office. Americans, whatever we feel about communists, may not want to see John Wayne cowboy hero wearing a suit talking to Congress about like your colleagues being socialists.

So John Wayne claimed like it's one of those things, the idea that like, this is probably not true. The idea that like, he got a lot of pushback saying he shouldn't get into right wing politics is probably a lie because John Wayne is the only one who claims it. And he only ever brings this up to point out that, but even then I became the biggest box office draw in Hollywood after, you know, I started doing all this stuff.

Like that's how he frames it as like, they didn't want me to start being anti-communist, but once I did, that just made me more popular. That's once again, trying to cancel me. Yeah, exactly. First they took Jenny, then they take my anti-communist activism. He is, by the way, married to Chata and has divorced Jenny

at this point, whether or not like his kids today will claim I should note that he was a good dad and like stayed in their lives. I don't know what the case is. Some biographers have claimed other things, but his kids are pretty positive about him. At one point they said that. I mean, maybe, I don't know.

I'm not gonna tell them what their lives were like. He's certainly like, I don't think they wanted for anything, right? Like he didn't like, like they benefited from the Wayne money, it seems like, so whatever. True, true, true. So Eugene Levy describes how he generally framed this to the press.

Wayne said that those who warned him must have meant it would ruin me with the Moscow fan clubs, because when I became president of the Alliance, I was 32nd on the box office polls, but last year I'd skid it up near the top. So it's very familiar right wing framing, right? They tried to cancel me, but I just, it just made me more popular, all that shit.

He's the perfect figurehead for not World War II, arguably the most righteous American war, but the Cold War, the most like. He is absolutely, exactly. Like unrighteous, like pillaging, you know, third world countries or global South countries under phantom threats. I'm not saying it didn't get real at a certain point,

but like it was such a propaganda war. We have this one war that is unquestionably necessary, and he's like, nah, that ain't me. But then we started invading these tiny little countries, and he's like, oh yeah, yeah, fuck them up. Sign me up. Fuck them up. Yeah, it's cool.

He invents being James Woods in a way. So the part of the second red scare that John Wayne was personally involved in was the backlash to the pro-Soviet movies that he made in the early 1940s. Members of the House Un-American Activities Committee, HUAC, were livid that studios like MGM had made films celebrating the Russian war effort. Suddenly Hollywood stars were being called up

to inform on their fellow celebs for left-wing sympathies. Levy writes, quote, it got to the point where Leela Rogers, Ginger's mother and vice president at RKO, was asked to examine all screenplays for questionable content. She was proud to declare that she had found a line in The Tender Comrade, which stated, share and share alike,

that's the meaning of democracy. Dalton Trumbo, who wrote the screenplay, later became one of the Hollywood tin. The friendly witnesses of HUAC included many Hollywood celebrities, such as Gary Cooper, who reportedly condemned communism because it was not on the level, whatever that meant. Or Adolf Menjoo, whose credo was that communism

could be expressed by players, by a look, by an inflection, by a change in voice. So... What? That's what literally like, Trumbo gets canceled for shit like that, for saying like, democracy is about sharing. Like, that's like the most canceled culture

America's ever gotten, is what HUAC does to fucking... Yeah, exactly. On American Activities, man, they want to bring that shit back, by the way. Oh, for sure. They're so horny to do this. Ronald Reagan was one of the guys who named the most names. He loved getting up in front of Congress and forming on his colleagues.

Now, to their credit, there were some very based fucking actors and actresses, including Catherine Hepburn, refuses to talk to the community. She's like, you can't make me do shit. I don't give a fuck. I'm Catherine Hepburn. What are you going to do? Cancel Catherine Hepburn? No, you're fucking not.

Yeah. And they don't. John Wayne, who is an avowed anti-communist, does nothing. So he does not get up in front of HUAC. This is not a principled stance. His biographer, Iman, claims that this was in part that because, like, well,

he wasn't really that judgmental about people. He wouldn't have wanted to cancel his colleagues, because if he liked you, he didn't care about your politics. You know, he's buddies with Orson Wells, who's pretty left-wing. That's one justification for why he doesn't get up in front of HUAC. Blacklisted screenwriter, Howard Koch,

who's one of the people who gets caught up in this, theorizes that it was not John Wayne's decision to stay out, but instead, studio meddling that kept him from testifying. In some cases, the heads of the studios made deals with the committee not to put a certain individual on the stand publicly. That was true not only of so-called suspects,

what they like to call the unfriendly witnesses, but also of friendly witnesses that the studio didn't want to have tainted by political publicity of any kind. Somebody like Wayne is a good example. How are you going to get people rushing in to see him shooting down the Apaches when they start thinking of him

as the guy wearing a suit and tie and saying, what a great job, all these 70-year-old politicians with their glasses and bow ties are doing defending America? Mixed message. So... I mean, money is number one in his life at this point.

And... Yeah. And obviously, cowardice is not going into World War II, but also potentially just wanting to keep making money. It is also... Here's the thing. And this is going to sound weird, but it's kind of also a condemnation of him that he doesn't testify in front of Huak,

because it shows he doesn't really believe... Doesn't believe in shit. Kerry Grant, who, again, goes in fights in World War II, also a right-wing shithead. Kerry Grant's studio goes, don't get up and testify in front of Huak. It's going to be bad for your image.

But Kerry Grant, again, this is not a good thing to do, but he does believe it because he gets up and says, fuck you to the studio and testifies against his colleagues and stuff. Right. Which is, again, we're getting into, like, murky moral territory,

but I guess I'm saying it's more respectable to be a right-wing shithead who believes enough to hurt your career by it than it is to only be a right-wing shithead when you think it's good for your career. I guess that's where I'm landing here. I feel you landing there. I land more in the, like,

I'm glad he didn't snitch. And... Yeah. Sure. You needed communism to fucking booster your career and go speak at some brunches. But, like, good for you. Good and bad aren't as meaningful here

as just the state that, like, Kerry Grant was a guy who believed in some things. Right. John Wayne didn't, right? No. That's more, because, like, obviously, yes, it's good to not testify. It just is a note of, like, how kind of empty he is.

He's still punching women, guys. Don't worry. Oh, I don't know. Kerry Grant probably, too, right? I don't know much about the guy. Everyone's still punching women. Maybe not Jimmy Stewart. I don't, I wouldn't believe he wouldn't,

but I don't know much about Jimmy Stewart. He did... That's for a different show. ...was part of the bombing of Korea. So, I don't know, some mixed stuff there, too. So, yeah, it's weird. As Scott Eiman writes, being seen as anti-communist

had real benefits for John Wayne in the blacklist years that followed. Quote, and so the blacklist era began. There would be more hearings in 1950. The result was that dozens were jailed. Hundreds lost their jobs. Hundreds more left the country.

Some died. Every motion picture union, from the Screen Actors Guild to the Screen Directors Guild, ultimately capitulated to the blacklist. All this would be called by one writer, echoing Daniel Defoe, the plague years. Dalton Trumbo had another name for it,

the Time of the Toad. During this period, the right-wing press regularly ganged up on performers who had committed the terrible sin of not serving in the military during World War II. The Hearst columnist, Westbrook Pegler, used Danny Kay of not giving exactly his all

during the war, and then added the seasoning of anti-Semitism by mentioning Kay's real name, Kaminsky. Pegler neglected to mention that many conservatives hadn't served. John Wayne among them. By the way, don't come for my boy Danny Kay.

Don't you fucking come for my boy Danny Kay. Leave Danny Kay alone. Fuck you, Pegler. What the, why are you pulling? Oh God, pulling out the anti-Semitism. Oh for sure. Peace for not going and fighting in World War II. What are you talking about here?

Yeah, it's awesome. So again, and this is part of the point that people will make, is that by being super pro anti-communist, very right-wing, he deflects a lot of criticism for the fact that he doesn't do anything in the war. Right.

Yep. Well, he gets the pass because someone needs their Christian masculine identity. I mean, that's like, he's more of an emblem. He's a symbol. Yeah. Yeah, he's like Batman, but worse, a lot worse than Batman.

If Batman sees the bat signal, it's like, ugh. I gotta, gotta, sees the bat signal as he's like cuddling with the teenager he trafficked into the United States, and it's like, can someone else deal with that? Shut it off. So with his colleagues blacklisted,

John Wayne stars in an increasing series of right-wing films, including 1952's Big Jim McClane, in which he played a heroic Huac investigator. In 1954, he was cast in what would probably become the most shameful role of his career. Francesca, are you ready for this? This is my favorite John Wayne role. Genghis Khan.

Hell yeah. Just another white guy taking an Asian actor's role. It's amazing. Somebody's like, who are we gonna get to pay? Genghis Khan. You know who looks like a Mongolian warlord? John Wayne. John Wayne in Genghis Khan.

Middle-aged now kind of fat John Wayne. He looks so silly in this. It's amazing. It's almost beyond parody how racist this movie is. It's like, if you were joking about racism in this period, you would make up John Wayne being Genghis Khan as a gag, but no, they really did it. Hell yeah, they did.

Look at that mustache. Look at that mustache. With those blue eyes. Unbelievable. Everyone needs to look this up right now, and think we need to watch this high. Yeah, it's incredible that obviously the most famous white guy who racistly plays an Asian in this period is Mickey Rooney,

but boy howdy is John Wayne nipping at his fucking heels in terms of racist casting here. But also like Genghis is the good guy? Because like John Wayne is generally the hero? Yeah, it's more just that like he's impressive, right? I watched this years ago as a kid just because I heard about it. I think it's more of just like a historical epic. You're not trying to like, I don't know.

Also, here's another fun fact, the role was originally written for Marlon Brando. Oh, see. You'd rather see Brando as Genghis Khan. Imagine Brando as Genghis Khan. This is so funny to me. It's really funny. I mean maybe old Brando, like really old Brando I could see.

Yeah, fat Brando as Genghis Khan. Fat Brando not having to walk anywhere, just being like hauled places or like. Just sitting on a horse. Or just sitting on a horse. Just going around the whole time not moving. Kill him. Like I get that.

Just stroking a long sort of wispy white beard. That might have made sense. Watch the documentary about the making of the Isle of Dr. Moreau, which is also an incredible Marlon Brando documentary. Among other things, he decides that his character is secretly a dolphin and wears a bucket on his head the whole movie, but never explains it to anyone.

Fucking rules. Marlon Brando's like late career Brando is the greatest Hollywood actor there has ever been. Yeah, it's amazing. Just like when everyone wants your career to stay alive, except for you. Yeah, it's very funny. Nobody hated Hollywood more than Marlon Brando,

a man who only ever made his money as an actor. Also, he's going to be the hero of, well, one of the heroes of our third episode. Okay, okay. Good times. The Conqueror, John Wayne as Genghis Khan, not a good movie, as this excerpt from the Guardian's film blog makes clear.

The film opens with Temujin as Genghis was originally known, intercepting a wedding procession of Merkits. No, not Meerkats. The Merkit Lord has a tartar bride, Bortai, Jane Hayward, but not for long. I feel this tartar woman is for me in Tone's Temujin. My blood says, take her. Few actors could make lines like this sound good,

and John Wayne wasn't one of them. Writer Oscar Millard wanted to give the screenplay an archaic flourish, mindful of the fact that my story was nothing more than a tarted-up Western. I thought this would give it a certain cachet, and I left no lily unpainted, he said in 1981. It was a mistake I have never repeated.

Poor old John Wayne has to prance about saying things, things such as, I greet you, my mother, where normal people would say, hello, mom. This might be why he looks so miserable in every scene. You got to do something about these lines, he told Millard during filming.

I can't read them, it was too late. So, one of the worst movies of all time. Very cringe. But, Francesca, here's the good part. Do you believe in karma? A little bit. A little bit. This is a very karma moment,

because while they're filming this movie, they're in like Nevada in the desert, like making this thing, because I guess that's our best equivalent to Mongolia. Sure. While they're making this, they are 100 miles away from an atomic bomb testing site. So, they go to the government,

they're like, hey, we got John Wayne out here filming a movie. Is it safe to be this close to nuclear bombs going off? And the government's like, oh, absolutely. No, you guys are fine. It's totally far away, not going to be a problem. Not going to be a problem. So, it was a problem.

The entire cast and crew of the Conqueror get massive doses of radiation. Like, they're right next to nuclear bombs going off for days, you know, weeks as they film this. We can use this, guys. Don't worry, keep going. It's going to be good for the lighting. Yes.

Your burns look incredible, honey. That's great. What was the union doing at this point? Jesus. Yeah, it's been too gutted. They can't complain about getting nuked, or they'll get called out as being socialist. It's very funny that John Wayne gets nuked by the US government

and spoilers, it's what kills him. That's extremely funny. It's the funniest thing that could possibly have happened. Holy shit. He gets fucking nuked and irradiated while pretending to be Genghis Khan. That rules. That's incredibly funny.

That is kind of like the spirit of Genghis Khan. It is. Genghis Khan was smiling down from heaven like, yes. This is what I want. That is amazing. Now, it's okay. How much radiation are we talking? A fuckload, Francesca.

So again, recently it's become a story that a bunch of Russian soldiers probably got radiation sick because they dug trenches in Chernobyl. Chernobyl, a lot of radiation. Also a lot less than there was decades ago when it was new. These guys are standing downwind of nuclear bombs

as they go off. A lot of radiation. The cast and crew of the Conqueror as well as a startling number of Americans like them because the US government nukes a lot of American citizens. They get known as downwinders in the decades to come because they all get cancer. By 1981, this is filmed in 54,

by 1981, 96 of the 220 cast and crew on the set had developed cancer. 46 of them, including John Wayne, had died. It's pretty cool. Within what time period again? 30 years, little less than 30 years. Half of them have cancer and a quarter of them are dead from cancer, including John Wayne.

He gets a couple of cancers, right? First in 1964, so 10 years later, it's lung cancer, so maybe it was his smoking. I'm sure the nukes didn't help. He finally dies of like a horrible stomach cancer, so he probably dies in part at least as a result of getting nuked on the set of the Conqueror. Of all the sets, you know what I mean?

It wasn't going to be a good one. It had to be the Genghis Khan Conqueror. It is extremely funny though. At least the one redeeming thing I think about this doesn't sound like he did like a pigeon accent, like some sort of stereotypical Asian... I think he does a John Wayne. Yeah, I guess that's better.

I don't know that I want to like... I don't certainly want to be saying what's better or worse. It all seems pretty rough to me. No, I think we all agree. Everyone on that set deserved to get nuked. That's fine that this happened. It's totally fine. Good stuff.

That's going to be our part two, Francesca. We're going to have you back for part three. But for right now, you want to plug your plugables? Oh my God, you guys check out the Bituation Room podcast. I promise. Well, I don't know. Maybe we'll just watch Genghis Khan on our next episode. We might, baby.

Who knows? I'm excited for the third chapter and all the meat they find in his stomach. Oh, yeah. All the meat in his guts. All right, well, that's going to do us and everyone else, you know, until next time. Stand directly next to a nuclear blast

while the government says it's fine because you're John Wayne. You know the government's never going to lie to you. Oh my God. And in his heart, it's like a lot of guns. But are federal agents catching bad guys or creating them? He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time,

and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Did you know Lance Bass is a Russian trained astronaut? That he went through training in a secret facility outside Moscow, hoping to become the youngest person to go to space? Well, I ought to know because I'm Lance Bass. And I'm hosting a new podcast that tells my crazy story

and an even crazier story about a Russian astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. With the Soviet Union collapsing around him, he orbited the Earth for 313 days that changed the world. Listen to The Last Soviet on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.