John Wayne informed a fellow Western legend his movie was a ‘piece of sh*t’
John Wayne was the undisputed High Sheriff of American Western motion pictures for thirty years.
From his breakthrough star-making 1939’s Stagecoach he rode throughout the silver display screen all the way in which to 1969’s Oscar-winning function in True Grit.
The Duke stood for all of the basic tropes of the ‘American Way’, profoundly conservative with immutable views about what made the suitable kind of film hero.
But the Sixties and Nineteen Seventies launched a brand new breed of star, bringing sophisticated, shaded and sometimes anti-hero perfomances all the way in which to the wild frontiers of the Western.
Wayne was not comfortable about it and railed publicly and privately in regards to the worst offenders.
Although Clint Eastwood was primarily working in tv on the western Rawhide from 1959 to 1966, there was a golden alternative for the pair to work collectively in 1973. By then, the youthful star was an acclaimed film star, due to The Good, The Bad and The Ugly franchise.
Five years later, Eastwood directed his first movie, Play Misty For Me, and in addition launched the Dirty Harry saga. He was scorching Hollywood property and in 1973 directed his first western, High Plains Drifter.
Wayne had truly been supplied 1971’s Dirty Harry first. He turned it down, one thing he later regretted, admitting, “I made a mistake with that one.”
But he had no hesitation in turning Eastwood down flat when the youthful star supplied a co-starring function in his newest script.
Through the Sixties and into the next decade, Wayne felt just like the final defence in opposition to the degradation of his beloved Westerns.
Opposed to something and not using a clear ethical (in his view) code, he refused to shoot enemies within the again on display screen or do something to dishonour what he noticed because the heroic previous of his beloved nation.
The veteran star even blasted the ending of iconic Western High Noon as “the most un-American thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life.” Similarly, Wayne also famously turned down an offer from Steven Spielberg, blasting his struggle comedy 1941 as ‘Un-American drivel.
And he let rip with each barrels when confronted with Eastwood’s first Western as each star and director in 1973.
The similar 12 months as High Plains Drifter was launched, Eastwood despatched Wayne a brand new script for The Hostiles, a few youthful man who wins half of a ranch, owned by an older cowboy/rancher.
After Wayne rejected the script the primary time and was despatched a revised model, he replied with a private letter to Eastwood which clarified his rejection and in addition made some blunt criticisms of High Plains Drifter.
Eastwood later recalled: “John Wayne once wrote me a letter saying he didn’t like High Plains Drifter. He said it wasn’t really about the people who pioneered the West. I realized that there’s two different generations, and he wouldn’t understand what I was doing.”
Wayne was quoted as saying: “This kind of stuff is all they know how to write these days … someone like me and Eastwood ride into town, know everything, act the big guys, and everyone else is a bunch of idiots.”
But Eastwood was decided and despatched a 3rd model of the script for The Hostiles to Wayne one final time. Wayne’s son Mike handed it to him whereas they had been out crusing. The star merely grunted “This piece of sh** again,” and threw it overboard into the ocean.
CLINT EASTWOOD STARS IN PALE RIDER ON ITV4 AT 10.35PM TONIGHT