Bottom line: Earp and Wayne never met. Anything Wayne knew about the real Earp came to him secondhand from Ford during their 25-year working relationship. Their encounter is only a charming Hollywood fable. Nonetheless, Earp and Wayne did share several qualities.
Who was JOHN WAYNE'S lifelong BUDDY AND BEST MAN, Ward Bond? A look into the great character actor and best friend of JOHN WAYNE, WARD BOND. How the friendship they shared was on a special level!
None of John Wayne's show-business friendships were as enduring, or as entertaining, as the kinship he forged with two men he met around the same time—character actor Ward Bond and director John Ford.
John Ford, who in his youth had known the real Wyatt Earp, claimed the way the OK Corral gunfight was staged in this film was the way it was explained to him by Earp himself, with a few exceptions. Ford met Earp through Harry Carey.
McLean, Bat Masterson, and Neal Brown. Masterson was a close friend of Wyatt and spent much time in Tombstone before returning to Kansas in 1882. Luke Short, another friend, and part-time lawman and part-time gambler, spent time in Tombstone and left a victim in Boothill.
Meeting Wyatt Earp Leaves a Lasting Impression on John Wayne
Who was Wyatt Earp's best friend?
John Henry Holliday (August 14, 1851 – November 8, 1887), better known as Doc Holliday, was a dentist and later a gambler, gunfighter, and a close friend and associate of lawman Wyatt Earp.
Once upon a time (circa 1928), in a Hollywood of our mythic imagination rather than historic reality, a 21-year-old aspiring actor named Marion Michael Morrison (later to become more well known as John Wayne) met 80-year-old former marshal Wyatt Earp.
John Wayne later told Hugh O'Brian that he based his Western lawman walk, talk and persona to his acquaintance with Wyatt Earp, who was good friends with Mix. "I knew him ... I often thought of Wyatt Earp when I played a film character.
Earp and Holliday became friends on the Texas gambling circuit in the late 1870s, and Doc participated in the gunfight at the OK Corral in 1881. Six years later, Holliday died of tuberculosis at age 36 in Glenwood Springs, Colorado.
John Wayne found Katharine Hepburn to be very feminine and called her “a man's woman”. They had a special on screen chemistry that was apparent to everyone. He called her Sister.
Bond and John Wayne, who had played tackle for USC in 1926 before an injury ended his career, became lifelong friends and colleagues. Bond, Wayne and the entire USC team were hired to appear in Salute (1929), a football film starring George O'Brien and directed by John Ford.
Caan declared: “He knew what he was doing, he was having a good time at my expense!” From then on they became good pals who would go out of their way to try and screw each other's scenes up. The Mississippi actor remembered putting off Wayne by mouthing “You snake!” at Duke, which made him laugh.
Who did John Wayne leave his money to when he died?
“John Wayne's will ensured that all seven of his children and his first wife (his second wife ԁıеԁ in 1961, per Find-a-Grave) received some compensation, either directly, or through trust funds, leaving them all with five and six-figure sums.
The pallbearers were Dr. Robert Egan; Jack Gordean, Wayne's agent; Chick Iverson; Louis Johnson, the actor's cattle ranch partner; McGowan and Ernest Saftig. No advance word of the funeral was released. Wayne's family considered several suggestions for his funeral but kept the plans secret until after the service.
Wayne wasn't yet a big star and was just shaping his famous persona. One biographer of Wayne said Canutt was a mentor and a model, an example of lanky macho without swagger. Wayne later wrote that he spent weeks studying the way Yakima Canutt walked and talked.
Learn about some of John's more famous gun fights and some of the famous good and bad guys that John knew personally like Wyatt Earp, John Clum, Johnny Ringo, Buckskin Frank Leslie, the Clanton's, and John Behan.
At Wyatt Earp's funeral, held the Tuesday after he died on January 13, 1929, his pallbearers were: (pictured above from left) attorney W.J. Hunsaker, Arizona Territory diarist George Parsons, former Tombstone mayor and newspaper editor John Clum, actor William S. Hart, playwright Wilson Mizner and actor Tom Mix.
According to Garry Wills, when Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev visited the US in 1959 at the height of the Cold War, he made two special requests. He wanted to visit Disneyland, and he wanted to meet John Wayne. He was tall (6'4”) and big (225 lbs), and it was obvious from the beginning he was leading man material.
Wayne was exempted from service due to his age (34 at the time of Pearl Harbor) and family status (classified as 3-A – family deferment). Wayne repeatedly wrote to John Ford saying he wanted to enlist, on one occasion inquiring whether he could get into Ford's military unit.
Wayne disapproved of Eastwood's revisionist Westerns, leading to off-screen tensions. Contrasting views on American storytelling divided Wayne and Eastwood amid changing times.
Neither James, Virgil, Wyatt, Morgan, or Warren had any sons. Actually, Virgil did have a daughter that he didn't know about for many years. Before going off to war he married a Dutch immigrant, Ellen Rymsdam, whose family wanted her to marry a Dutchman, disapproved. He was sixteen and she, seventeen.
Bonney, later known as Billy the Kid. It is evident that the two were friends, but how close has not been determined. Some say that Billy the Kid was the closest friend Garrett had at that time. Billy the Kid and his gang went on to become the most feared outlaws in the Southwest.
James Earp married Mary Sanders on June 20, 1818, in Lawrence County, Alabama. They were the parents of eleven children, the first eight of whom were born in Alabama.
