Blind Item #4 - Reader Blind Item - Old Hollywood
This permanently A list immediately recognizable Oscar winning actor was not a good person. He was a bully, a blowhard, and a racist. He was also a coward who dodged military service in World War II. In the early 1960’s, he received his comeuppance while working on a movie with this also recognizable Oscar winning actor who's war record in the Pacific theatre is the stuff of legend. One of the few men in his company to survive combat, he was gravely injured and received several decorations and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. The director on this movie was also a multiple Oscar winner and also had distinguished military service including a purple heart. The war hero actor and the director spent the whole time on set mocking the war record or lack of one of the blowhard actor but he couldn’t do anything as either man would have easily beaten the crap out of him. Phony tough guy meets real life tough guys.
John Wayne
ReplyDeletejohn wayne also was a self-hating bisexual. frottage between him and montgomery clift, theres a blind about it on here.
ReplyDeleteThere's also a blind about him and Humphrey Bogart having a foursome with a guy and a girl.
Delete*frottage
DeleteI never thought I'd see that word here. Well done @notthisagain
https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1055/was-john-wayne-a-draft-dodger/
ReplyDeleteCharlton Heston?
ReplyDeleteCharlton Heston did serve during WWII.
DeleteIt can’t be John Wayne. Military does not allow 50yr olds to join in war during the 60’s. He’s too old. And I’m sick of people calling Heston a racist when he had done more for blacks equality than Jessie Jackson has ever. He marched right next to MLK. He rallied for black actors to be paid equally. He’s a good man. Not perfect but he’s better than most.
DeleteThe Second World War was in the Thirties and Forties, not the Sixties.
DeleteJohn Wayne on the set of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance with Jimmy Stewart and John Ford.
ReplyDeleteI would have paid real money to watch Jimmy Stewart and John Ford beat the shit out of John Wayne.
DeleteHaha Stewart alone kicking his ass would be fantastic.
DeleteJimmy Stewart's air force service was in Europe.
DeleteJohn Wayne for the coward. Lee Marvin and John Ford for the other two. Lee Marvin is buried in Arlington. The film is Donovan's Reef?
ReplyDeleteJohn Wayne & Lee Marvin were in 4 movies together. I dont see that John Ford is in any of them.
Delete@Baby Face, John Ford was the director.
DeleteJust leaving this here. It isn't old Hollywood, it's recent.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.thewashingtonpundit.com/blank-1/2018/06/11/Robert-de-Niro-Linked-to-Child-Sex-Trafficking-Ring-According-to-Court-Records
Remember Geeljire's DeNiro Synagogue Adventure during, say, oh, a couple days before some pagan holiday on May 1?
Deletei like that guess, ghost.
ReplyDeleteI was going to guess Audie Murphy.
ReplyDeleteI was too, but I thought he was based in Europe.
DeleteJohn Wayne...The Man Who Shot Liberty Vance...Jimmy Stewart & Lee Marvin.
ReplyDeleteGhost got it.
ReplyDeleteJimmy Stewart is buried in Forest Lawn.
It IS Lee Marvin who joined the Marines at 18 for WW2 and was severely injured in 1944 during the battle of Saipan. Took him a year to recover from injuries. He did receive the Purple Heart and IS buried in Arlington National. I assume that John Wayne is the coward, alas, as I do like Wayne as an actor. Kind of goes to show that while war service is relatively brief, a lifetime as a coward is not necessarily a good price to pay to avoid it.
ReplyDeleteThere are 4 movie stars buried in Arlington: Lee Marvin, Audie Murphy, Jackie Cooper and Charles Durning. Durning died in 2012 and I don't remember hearing about this at the time. All the more evidence of the humility and patriotism of a good man (and wonderful character actor.)
ReplyDeleteThis story reminds me of the contrast between Trump and Robert Mueller. Just sayin'.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteJohn Wayne made 24 films with Ford, I doubt Ford would have put up with him that many times if they hated each other. He was also not a draft dodger, he volunteered, but the services wouldn't accept him.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the real reason Wayne wasn't excepted in the military was his gay tendencies? Also, while there is much to be said about Wayne's lack of character,Lee Marvin was a known woman beater.
ReplyDelete@Angela
ReplyDelete"He was also not a draft dodger, he volunteered, but the services wouldn't accept him. "
For what? Having the sexy walk of a street hooker (look at how Wayne moves closely next time you catch his movies.)
Sounds like Wayne had his version of bone spurs or anal cysts for his generation.
I think flat feet was another factor. Lee Marvin was an SOB to his female partners but his military service was something else. And so was Eddie Albert. JW was a push in boots just like other draft Dodgers amongst us.
ReplyDeletePuss.
DeleteF*** yeah! lee marvin was one bad Mother****er.
ReplyDeletePlease cut out these kinds of blinds, which could be about no one at all but just want to use language like blowhard and racist and coward for partisan kicks.
ReplyDelete@Baby Face, Ford directed 24 films with Wayne. Unproven allegations about Wayne are just that unproven. No need to be assholes.
ReplyDeleteJohn Wayne was a serious coward
ReplyDeleteJohn Wayne wasn't a draft dodger per se, as an older man with children he was ineligible to be drafted but he could have volunteered like Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda, Clark Gable and many others. He didn't. John Ford was a a great director but a mean son of a bitch who liked torturing the actors on set. He spent a lot of time on the set of "Liberty Valance" busting Wayne's chops about not serving. He rationalized it as a way to get better performances out of everyone but it seemed he just enjoyed it. According to a recent biography of Ford he reduced Wayne to tears at one point.
ReplyDeleteThat's strange because my grandfather had 4 kids and was sent to Pacific theater. He was drafted along with my cousin
DeleteWas your grandfather almost 40 without any military background? Because John Wayne wasn’t age appropriate for
DeleteWw1 he was 7
Ww2 he was 37 and was drunk most his life.
He was too old for sure in the 60’s. So calm down find something else to hate him for.
No he was around the same age. I'm sure the studio pulled strings for him. You must be his frickin daughter to be so offended pocho
DeleteHard to believe we used to have movies made by military men. Now many are made by pedophiles and momma's-boy nerds.
ReplyDelete@just saying.
ReplyDeleteI think Durning was captured at the beaches at Normandy or msybe in the Ardennes and was about to be shot by his captors and somehow managed to beat his captors to death with a rock and free himself and his compatriots, or something similarly unbelievably badass like that.
Whatever it was he was not someone to fuck with
Impressive @lonely Bastard. This presence on screen reflected that! That's a real man!
DeleteHis
DeleteJimmy Stewart is not buried at Arlington. He is buried at Forest Lawn in Glendale.
ReplyDeleteI don’t know if John Wayne was draft dodger, but I had an aunt who knew him and said he would end up in bar fights all time because every drunk wanted to show their friends they could kick John Wayne’s ass. So I find it hard to characterize him as a coward.
ReplyDeleteDurning claimed a lot of things, some of which are true, some not. You can look up the articles, nobody said anything until he died, and then a bunch of journalists got hold of his records, and found that he was nowhere near Normandy on D day, didn't fight in the Ardennes or the Battle Of The Bulge, and was part of a replacement unit that would fill out existing units that took casualties. From what i recall, there's no record of him being taken captive, or suffering from bayonet wounds from a hand to hand fight with a German Soldier.
ReplyDeleteHis medals and such are legit, but his stories don't match his records. He did serve, he was wounded, and the surviving records show it. That's enough for me. That he needed to embellish? Eh. A lot of veterans did - they all wanted to claim a Normandy invasion, and being in the famous battles.
I don't see where Jimmy Stewart was in the Pacific theater.
ReplyDeleteJohn Wayne was not that big a star before the war. He ground out b movies and had a breakthrough in "Stagecoach". But as a box office draw he was like #10. When the war broke out and all the bigger stars enlisted he became #1. The studio heads might have let him know they would be displeased if he left also and they'd blacklist him when he came back if he enlisted.
ReplyDeleteProbably supposed to be Wayne, Marvin and Ford but also probably a lot of bs and gossip in this blind. Ford and Wayne were great friends that often took sailing trips on thier yachts.(not sure about his relationship with Marvin) Ford might have been a mean drunk and maybe the above sited anecdote about him making Wayne cry could even be true.) In any case, someone probably heard 'buddies' giving him light hearted ribbing about not serving and Voila! a dark rumor started by someone with an axe to grind or story to sell.
ReplyDeleteThe writer of this blind certainly seems to have an axe to grind with him given the flair of the last sentence.
ReplyDeleteJohn Wayne a racist? Really? His three wives were Hispanic.
ReplyDeleteRacists are NEVER attracted to minority women, donja know.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, Thomas Jefferson...
Audie Murphy is the war hero! BIG time war hero. Jimmy Stewart. Not John Wayne who while pretending he only like women were, in fact, more of a trouser chaser!
ReplyDeleteYou really shouldn’t believe everything you read on this site Iv caught this blogger to be wrong, like Kirk Cameron. People can say Kirk isn’t a nice guy. They can even call him bigot. It’s not my definition of bigotry for someone to believe the Bible. But Kirk is definitely not gay. He flies constantly on my daughters best friends airlines he works for. I’ve heard he’s very nice to the gay staff but not one move. My daughter’s friend is drop dead gorgeous gay and he’s even said enty is making up gay rumors on Kirk because his stance on gay marriage.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes there’s times enty got it right yrs before things come out, like Charlie Sheen
John Wayne was a commie hunter for Joe Mccarthy. As late as 1977 Wayne said he never regretted running Carl Foreman out of the country. I knew there was a reason I never liked his movies.
ReplyDeleteA lot of stars volunteered to join the military, as others have noted. Ford made films for the Navy in the Pacific and, if I recall correctly, was injured during the Battle of Midway. I think one of Ford's biographies discusses his criticism of Wayne for not volunteering. However, Wayne did make films in support of the war effort (although not on the front lines, as Ford did), which Washington D.C. would have considered very desirable.
ReplyDeleteThis is an old story about John Wayne, Lee Marvin and Ford...I think I alluded to it myself a few years ago in a blind about Wayne,and I remember reading about it 15-20 years ago. I had believed it at the time, but it seems that Marvin and Morrison were actually quite friendly. There is even a story told by the son of Marvin’s friend who said his dad and Marvin went partying on Wayne’s yacht and when they pissed him off with his drunkenness he pitched them overboard.
ReplyDeleteI heard the late, great BBC reviewer Barry Norman describing meeting Wayne early on in his reviewing career, but Wayne was probably in his 70s. They took an instant dislike to each other, so much so that when Norman laughed at Wayne’s suggestion that the US should bomb Moscow, it got to a point that Wayne nearly had to be physically restrained.
(Being from the west of Ireland, my dad was a HUGE Marion Michael Morrison fan, so I have heard more about him than any human outside of his family needs)
Wouldn't Wayne be higher than A?
ReplyDeleteKIRK Cameron is a nice guy. It really is the end of the world! FFS.
ReplyDeleteJohn Wayne, he was just like those "tough guy" twitter accounts you see with the flag, bible, and pictures of military personnel, yet never served a day in their basement dwelling life.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely John Wayne, John Ford, and Lee Marvin. It's been documented that Ford used to berate Wayne on the set after returning from the war. He was never the same after his service.
ReplyDeleteAlso, lots of Hollywood leading men near 40 yrs old volunteered for WWII and served. It was an active plan that the Hollywood studios and the US government concocted to promote enlistment from civilians and support from Americans (before that, the popular opinion from Americans was to stay the hell out of it).
I am not 100% sure about the John Wayne blowhard/bully/racist thing! For some reason, I believe he demanded equal pay/treatment for Actors of Color, etc on his movies.
ReplyDeleteAs for "bully" in particular: Has anyone ever seen "The Quiet Man"?
Frankly, I think the blowhard/bully/racist is Donald Sutherland.
I don't know much about Lee Marvin at all but (given the comments above) could he have had PTSD after the war? It wasn't something that was talked about back then. Could explain the abuse (unless he was abusive before the war).
ReplyDeleteIn Netflix's 'Five Came Back', a three-episode documentary series about five directors (John Ford, William Wyler, John Huston, Frank Capra and George Stevens) who serve during the war based in Mark Harris's book 'Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War', this anecdote is mentioned. Also Trumbo (2015) with Bryan Cranston shows how shitty John Wayne and Hedda Hopper were.
ReplyDelete"This story reminds me of the contrast between Trump and Robert Mueller. Just sayin'."
ReplyDeleteOh you mean 9/11 Cover upper Mueller? Get educated.
@Picklet Who are you talking to? I scrolled through the comments and didn't come across a fit for your response.
ReplyDelete@David Howes - No you weren't. Because if you know anything about Audie Murphy, you probably know his story and where he is buried and what honors that fella received.
ReplyDelete