Throughout his five decades in Hollywood, John Wayne carefully constructed his on-screen persona to be the hero that America wanted. Broad-shouldered, deep-voiced, and quick with a gun, he exuded traditional masculinity and helped perpetuate the mythology of the Old West.
With the help of directors like John Ford, Howard Hawks, and Henry Hathaway, Wayne became an icon early in his career and felt the need to uphold that status every time he appeared on screen. For Wayne, he always had to play the good guy. He needed to embody a certain integrity in his roles, and if a villain ever beat him, it had to be clear that he would have won in a fair fight.
As his career progressed, Wayne became more controlling over his image, even forming his own production company in 1952 to develop and star in projects that were carefully tailored to his persona. This could lead to friction with his directors, who didn’t always take kindly to unsolicited advice, even when it came from Duke. In one instance, Wayne himself came to recognise that he sometimes got it wrong, and was willing to own up to the fact.
In 1976, following several health scares, Wayne was back to work on The Shootist, a western directed by Don Siegel about a terminally ill gunslinger who is holed up in a boarding house and decides that he must find a way to die with dignity. The actor struggled during the production. A cancer diagnosis in the ‘60s had forced him to undergo an operation to remove a lung, and the high altitude of the desert location made it difficult for him to breathe. But he still found things to quibble over.
He kicked up a fuss over the casting (a young Ron Howard made the cut), made multiple script changes, and generally made a pest of himself. He and Siegel were frequently at odds, but when the actor erupted in anger at the cinematographer, Bruce Surtees, for taking too long to set up a shot, the director had had enough. Since Wayne had never seen a single second of footage of the film, Siegel angrily suggested that he watch the rushes later that day to see why Surtees was so painstaking in his preparation. When Wayne complied, the director was vindicated beyond his wildest dreams.
“Back at the hotel we went to the projection room and we ran the latest dailies which were of Duke and Ron,” the director remembered. “Bruce was there, looking pale.”
They played the footage from the day, and when the lights went up, the director turned to face Wayne. “He had tears streaming down his face,” Siegel said, “And he took Bruce in his arms and said, ‘That’s the best damn film of me I’ve ever seen. I love you and hope you’ll forgive me.’”
The Shootist was Wayne’s last film. His cancer returned shortly thereafter, and he died in 1979. As far as finales go, it was pretty flawless, a story about a terminally ill man confronting his past and choosing to face his final challenge with his head held high.