Even very early in his career, Wayne was able to work with a talented and diverse group of co-stars, many of whom went on to enjoy prominent careers in motion pictures, such as Academy Award winners Walter Brennan, Loretta Young, Gary Cooper, Sophia Loren, and Jimmy Stewart.
Wayne outright condemned the evolution the Western genre underwent in the 1960s, refusing to star alongside Clint Eastwood even though Clint Eastwood was eager to work with him. Because the two subgenres of Wild West movies were never reconciled, it meant inevitably that Wayne and Eastwood would never be either.
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.
However, Bacall had a real issue with how Wayne couldn't stop spitting on the set, which really got on the actor's last nerve. Wayne personally recommended hiring Bacall for The Shootist after they worked together on 1955's Blood Alley.
Both Wayne and Hathaway had difficulties with Robert Duvall, with the director having constant shouting matches with his supporting actor, and Duvall and Wayne nearly coming to blows.
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.
By the 1920s, he had moved to Hollywood, and performed in the first of almost 350 movie and television appearances. In the 1930s, he became friends with John Wayne. He was Wayne's acting coach and eventually appeared as a featured player in about 27 of Wayne's films.
John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart seemed to get along just fine. While not particularly close, nor exactly what one would even think of as friends off-screen, they had a friendly and solid working relationship and appeared together in several films, including Wayne's last film, The Shootist.
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.
In essence, Wayne's films were used as a vessel to uphold his staunch conservative beliefs. From his perspective, Westerns are designed to appease the binary mentality of good vs. evil. Eastwood has never been interested in this shallow characterization and thematic structure, even with his most popular movies.
“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.
Did Robert Mitchum and John Wayne like each other?
“Despite the fact that John Wayne had fired Robert Mitchum from Blood Alley (1955) ten years earlier, he was happy to work with Mitchum again, and they became good friends.
He befriended countless co-stars and crew members as well as plenty of folks outside the film industry who were among the biggest and brightest stars of the era.
A controversial school of thought suggests they never actually met. The public wanted to believe the romantic notion of the famous lawman meeting the young Western actor, but it was also claimed Wayne learned about Earp's life second-hand from Ford and not in person.
The Duke once opened up about how he came to have specific preferences when it came to preferences in his partners. The first of Wayne's three marriages started with Josephine Alicia Saenz, who had a Spanish American background.
All that it cares about is providing Hepburn and Wayne with a half-dozen 'big scenes' together ... What few pleasures are contained in 'Rooster Cogburn' occur when Hepburn and Wayne simply and silently look at each other with affection.
It just so happens, that Eastwood incurred the displeasure of such a legendary cowboy—none other than John Wayne. Eastwood starred in the 1973 film High Plains Drifter which he also directed. Now a classic, the film was absolutely hated by John Wayne, an iconic figure in the western genre and Eastwood's senior.
Personal life. Wayne was married three times and divorced twice. His wives included one of Spanish American descent, Josephine Alicia Saenz, and two from Latin America, Esperanza Baur and Pilar Pallete.
She was a natural redhead who was known for playing passionate but sensible heroines, often in Westerns and adventure films. She worked with director John Ford and long-time friend John Wayne on numerous projects.
