I think one of the major points of the column is that John Wayne was not an established star. His career was just starting. It seems to me that Cecil is probably right. He took the easy way out at the start, to keep his career going. And then, of course, as coaches and Star Wars movies have ever proclaimed, once you start down the dark path, you aren’t coming back.
Were there any actors or actresses in a similar position to John Wayne during WWII who became stars?
Yes, John Wayne wanted to establish a career in Hollywood and didn’t want WWII to be an inconvenient stumbling block to be put in his way.
That’s terrific, but what about a great many people (not necessarily movie stars) who were working on establishing their careers in other fields but nonetheless served in WWII? How many of those people sacrificed those careers and possibly their lives?
Do you folks see why my opinion of John Wayne is something less than spectacular?
I’m 33 and have never served in the military.
I absolutely love about four of John Wayne’s films (The Searchers, Liberty Valance, The Shootist, The Longest Day) but don’t really have much use for the rest.
My dad, on the other hand, was a huge fan of John Wayne.
I wouldn’t say I’m bitter about Wayne’s lack of military service; thousands of others accepted similarly borderline deferrments, for reasons no more or less valid. The only thing that makes me bitter (and it really isn’t “bitterness” so much as “rolleyes the size of Rhode Island”) is the fact that he’s still held up as possibly the quintessential icon of American toughness and patriotism. The fact that his toughness and patriotism are largely due to his on-screen persona and his (later) interviews, but not borne out by what he actually did when the chips were down, makes me sound a little bitter.
Yeah, but… so? John Wayne’s first war movie was made in 1942. While the war was on, he made only two other war-related pictures — and twelve others that weren’t.
Most of the WWII movies that made him famous as a so-called “war hero”, such as Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), Operation Pacific (1951), The Flying Leathernecks (1951), The Longest Day (1962), were made after the war was over.
The biggest pro-war movie, arguably, was The Green Berets in 1968, and that was thirty years after the beginning of WWII. It’s hard for me to understand why you might so bitterly hold a man accountable for holding different views at 61 than he held at 32, especially when the “John Wayne is a big war hero” thing was probably not of his own making.
Heck, if an actor can make his own fame and imagine for himself a huge Hollywood career doing anything he wants, then where do I sign up?
So Fish, by your own admission, you state that the morale excuse for keeping John Wayne stateside is bullshit. (He made very few war-related movies during WWII).
Incidentally, were you of draft age during the Vietnam War? Perhaps your opinion of the Duke would be different if you were.
And I sure as Hell agree with OneCentStamp about John Wayne being the ideal of phony American macho heroism. Why don’t you read about this guy? Audie Murphy
I don’t know if Wikipedia is the most reliable of sources but it states in the trivia section at the bottom of that article:
Is that damned insulting or what? Yeah they should have cast John Wayne in the Audie Murphy role. :mad:
As I said, Wikipedia might not be the most reliable source but if that Eisenhower story is true, it shows how screwed-up evryone is about appearance. I’m 5’3" as I said previously.
I made no statements whatsoever about the moral arguments. I said that at the time when he was eligible to go, he was not at that time a big war-movie gung-ho American star — he was a Western star, mostly. The gung-ho war-guy thing was later.
I was born in 1971, so no. I simply don’t want to give John Wayne undue credit for his image under the Hollywood system of the time. How much control do you think he had over what people thought he was, and how much blame should he get for what other people think of him?
It sounds like what you’re saying is, “George thinks John is a hero. I know John isn’t a hero. Therefore, I’m blaming John.” I don’t get it.
It’s easy enough for me to imagine, in view of the obvious fact that it’s awfully convenient to become a hawk after you’re too old to go fight yourself.
I admit that it’s convenient. Does convenience mandate intent?
We of a certain (draftable back when it counted) age resented the HELL out of John Wayne’s willingness, no, EAGERNESS, to send US into combat when he had gone to great pains to avoid it himself. Had he expressed any public regret that he had not heeded his country’s repeated call it might have helped but he did not. So yeah, maybe our despising the Duke isn’t entirely rational but I hope it’s understandable.
Oh, for a more dramatic telling of Murphy’s Medal of Honor experience: http://www.historynet.com/culture/people/3033636.html?featured=y&c=y
That’s a MENSCH! John Wayne? Not so much.
Well said dropzone
Hey - sorry I haven’t been back to this thread for awhile. I just want to thank all you guys for digging a little deeper into the resentment of John Wayne.
I’ll admit that I had never understood it before - but now I think I do. I think most of it stems from being of draft age during Vietnam. The Duke was a hawk even though he had done everything in his power not to go to WWII. That sort of hypocrisy or dichotomy or whatever you want to call it generates resentment. That makes sense to me, and I appreciate you guys helping me understand it.
Consider my ignorance fought.
Just came across this passage in the October 2006 issue of Naval History magazine. The article is “The Essential Naval History Film Library” by Eric Mills, and on p. 43, in the entry for the 1945 film “They Were Expendable,” Mills writes,
The story goes that [director John] Ford gave Wayne a relentlessly hard time during this film shoot. Wayne had opted out of the war, and Ford never let him forget it. Finally, [actor Robert] Montgomery took the director aside and told him to stop picking on his costar. Hearing the actor who did serve in the war stick up for the actor who didn’t brought the director to tears; he quit bothering Wayne after that.
Montgomery had been a PT skipper during WW2, and played one in the movie.
Montgomery may have done it because Ford and Wayne were screwing up his next paycheck or, because he had “seen the elephant,” he didn’t begrudge someone who had avoided the circus. The difference 25 years later was that Wayne was not willing to extend us the same courtesy.
Re: the Duke’s centennial - this article has a little bit about the controversy over Wayne’s lack of WW2 military service: http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Movies/05/23/film.johnwayne.ap/index.html
Elendil’s Heir
I was surprised to see the revival of this thread.
That CNN story treats the Duke’s lack of military service in a rather offhand style.
Well, I’ve stated my opinions earlier in this thread so you know how I feel.
Eisenhower is of a different generation. In the class behind mine at Navy OCS (which was hmmfhmmf years ago, but long after World War II or Vietnam) in Newport, there was a man who was five feet tall exactly–the minimum for men (it’s 4’8" for women). He’d come in from the fleet to attend OCS, and had the best military bearing of any other sailor I ever met. He was universally admired and respected, and indeed became the commander of the OC regiment when his class became the seniors.
He had to get a specially-made shorter sword for our Parade In Review drills, and he may even have had custom uniforms, but aside from minor things like that his height was a complete non-issue.
Notwithstanding that anecdote, I fail to see the relevance of anyone on Earth’s height to the question of whether John Wayne was a coward for not serving.
Mills tells basically the same story again in his profile “John Ford, USN” in the April 2013 issue of Naval History.
As a veteran of Iraq and a volunteer soldier (both in enlistment and in going to Iraq) I have to say I’m not all that much more impressed by folks who didn’t serve due to college deferments than I am with Mr Wayne’s attempts at draft dodging. I find it hilarious when Vietnam era folks attack other peoples deferrals but claim their own were perfectly justifiable. Fact is you didn’t go because you didn’t want to same as him. You allowed others to fight and die in your name. You made it clear that the only way you would do your duty to the republic was if they dragged you kicking and screaming.
It is hardly, in and of itself, a moral failing of Vietnam-era college students that the nation had decided, long before the war had even started, that keeping college students in school was a higher national priority.
drewder
Yes, I am one of those college deferment draft dodgers to whom you refer.
My main point is that I was not like John Wayne by stating that we were right to be fighting in Vietnam, the war was totally justified, etc. I think it is incredibly hypocritical for someone to be “pro-war” yet when it was their turn to serve, they took another route. Yes, it is so easy to send someone else off to war when they themselves did not get fired upon, shot, captured, etc. I knew many people my own age who were in favor of the Vietnam War but I’d always ask them “Oh, when are you going?”
As you say, there are deferments but sometimes you wonder if a person received one because of who they were. (Former Attorney General John Ashcroft got an occupational deferment for teaching law at Missouri State University.)