John Wayne Western finish modified after tragic set demise left director ‘devastated’ | Films | Entertainment | EUROtoday

Back in 1959, John Wayne teamed up together with his longtime collaborator and fellow Hollywood conservative John Ford on what can be the filmmaker’s solely full American Civil War film.

Duke and his The Horse Soldiers co-star William Holden negotiated a whopping $775,000 (nearly $8 million at the moment) every, plus 20 per cent of the general earnings.

This was an unheard-of sum on the time, but there can be not one of the latter to share because the film was a field workplace bomb with a “lacklustre” response from the critics and viewers. What made this failure much more painful was simply how extremely robust the movie had been to make.

Not solely have been Holden and Ford consistently arguing, however there have been value overruns, severe accidents and even a tragic demise. All the whereas, the alcoholic director had been compelled by his physician to go sober or danger perishing from the unintended effects of his heavy boozing.

This made the notoriously cantankerous and uncompromising filmmaker all of the extra insufferable for Wayne, who was on the finish of his tether.

Ford, who infamously baited his solid to get higher performances out of them (together with consistently insulting Wayne for not serving throughout World War II) was even rougher on everybody than common. Despite Wayne not having to stop ingesting, Ford demanded that Duke do the identical on The Horse Soldiers set. In the tip, the star begged producer Martin Rackin to get him away from the director he referred to as Pappy only for a short time.

The producer agreed, outright mendacity to Ford that Wayne and Holden’s enamel have been developing yellow on movie so they should have whitening accomplished in New Orleans. As a end result, the three had a drunken evening out in Crescent City, returning to set to an enraged Ford who discovered by way of his spies simply what number of bars they’d visited. Wayne had actually wanted the escapism in the course of the shoot as a result of private disaster he was going through together with his spouse Pilar.

Pilar had develop into hooked on barbiturates, however Wayne had refused to confess her to a personal sanitarium, believing he might assist her overcome it on location in Louisiana. However, throughout filming, his spouse started hallucinating and even slashed her wrists with a razor. At this level, Duke realised he wanted to confess her to the hospital again in Encino, California. Incredibly, this incident was stored out of the newspapers.

Meanwhile, again on The Horse Soldiers set, three actors, together with Ford’s son Patrick, suffered damaged legs. But the final word tragedy got here when filming the film’s climactic battle scene.

Veteran stuntman Fred Kennedy carried out a horse fall for the film however broke his neck and died in the course of the try. According to biographer Joseph Malham: “Ford was completely devastated [as he] felt a deep responsibility for the lives of the men who served under him.” Following the tragic accident, capturing was instantly shut down and moved again to Hollywood. At this stage, the filmmaker had completely misplaced curiosity in filming the scripted ending with Wayne’s character Colonel John Marlowe and his forces arriving in Baton Rouge. In the tip, he merely concluded The Horse Soldiers with the lead’s farewell to Constance Towers’ Hannah Hunter earlier than crossing and blowing up a bridge to halt the Confederate advance.

Despite the nasty sides of Ford’s character, he was properly forward of his time in sticking up for Black actors within the segregated South the place they have been filming the film.

Ford had solid tennis champion Althea Gibson as Lukey to assist entice African-American viewers to see The Horse Soldiers. However, her dialogue was written in an offensive and stereotypical “Negro” dialect. As a end result, she asserted to the director that she wouldn’t ship the traces as they have been written. Despite the filmmaker’s common uncompromising nature for such calls for from his actors, he agreed, and the script was modified. Additionally, Ford additionally made certain that the Black extras on location in Louisiana and Mississippi have been paid the identical because the White ones, which angered members of the segregated states.