For a very long time, John Wayne was angry about losing out on an Academy Award. Then, he lastly gained the Oscar for his efficiency as U.S. Marshal Reuben J. “Rooster” Cogburn in “True Grit,” including one more achievement to his already legendary profession. However the next yr, his repute took successful when he gave what grew to become an notorious Playboy interview wherein he stated some issues that haunted till his demise. These issues included criticizing the Civil Rights motion and claiming to assist “white supremacy,” earlier than labelling Native People egocentric for making an attempt to retain their land and “maintain it for themselves.” It isn’t arduous to see why this interview has lived in infamy ever since, and why it continues to recrudesce each few years, although the person himself handed away in 1979.
The yr after the interview was printed, Wayne seemingly allowed his legacy because the archetypal American hero to take one other blow, although this time it had nothing to do along with his politics. Wayne had been killed in films a number of occasions, perishing on the tentacles of an enormous squid in 1942’s “Reap The Wild Wind” and dying after being shot by a Japanese soldier in 1949’s “Sands of Iwo Jima.” Wayne even succumbed to being stabbed in “The Alamo,” wherein his Davy Crockett blows up a provide of gunpowder and takes a troop of Mexican troopers with him. However there was one thing undeniably distressing about his character’s demise in 1972’s “The Cowboys” — a movie he nearly lost out on due to his politics.
The person who took his life was Bruce Dern. Somewhat, Bruce Dern’s unhinged cattle rustler Asa Watts, who shoots Wayne’s rancher Will Andersen a number of occasions. For no matter motive, this specific on-screen demise struck a somber chord with audiences, who weren’t used to seeing the Duke felled in such a tragic, unfair, and violent method. Such an occasion even modified the course of Dern’s personal profession, with the actor being typecast as a villain for a time in addition to turning into generally known as the person who killed John Wayne. In equity, although, the Duke did warn him.
John Wayne’s warning to Bruce Dern was a joke — type of
“The Cowboys” was based mostly on the 1971 novel of the identical title by William Dale Jennings and directed by Mark Rydell, marking his and Wayne’s solely collaboration. The movie sees Wayne in one in all his many paternal roles as rancher Wil Andersen, who hires a gaggle of younger boys to assist him on a 400-mile cattle drive. He then teaches the boys the talents crucial for the lengthy journey — alongside some life classes that principally quantity to “toughen up” — earlier than setting off along with his new crew.
On the journey they encounter Bruce Dern’s Asa Watts, the chief of a gaggle of cattle rustlers who ostensibly need to work for Andersen. However after the rancher refuses Watts and his males’s request, they seemingly disappear solely to path Andersen and his boys, finally confronting them and stealing their herd. However earlier than they’ll make off with the cattle, Anderson and Watts come to blows in a struggle that is among the best John Wayne movie moments. Wayne’s character overcomes Dern’s, which audiences had been actually anticipating. However the actually stunning growth comes immediately afterwards. After Andersen turns to stroll away from a downed Watts, Dern’s character then shoots Andersen within the arms, leg and again and the younger boys’ adoptive father falls to the ground earlier than slowly succumbing to his wounds.
Such a second was at all times going to shock audiences used to seeing Wayne overcome the dangerous guys. Even when he’d died on-screen earlier than, it was in a really heroic vogue or he’d not less than been in a position to take out a swathe of dangerous guys within the course of. Right here, although, he is merely gunned down whereas his again is turned. The actual fact he was 55 years previous on the time most likely made the entire thing tougher to observe. Given the person had already broken his repute with the Playboy interview, seeing an older Wayne crumpling from gunfire most likely hit just a little too near residence for followers of the person who had been beginning to sense they had been witnessing the top of an period.
Wayne himself seemingly knew as a lot, and evidently warned Dern — albeit in a lighthearted method — earlier than they shot his demise scene. In a 1996 interview for the movie “Final Man Standing,” Dern was requested about being one of many solely actors to kill John Wayne on-screen, saying, “[Wayne] stated to me, simply earlier than I pulled the set off and did the primary take, ‘Oh how they will hate you for this,’ and I stated, ‘Perhaps, however in Berkeley, I am a goddamn hero.'” Berkeley is the College of Berkeley, a identified liberal stronghold positive to have been enraged by Wayne’s feedback to Playboy. Dern continued, “It’s a must to keep in mind that was 1972. He’d simply completed a Playboy interview wherein he’d ripped all people in America that wasn’t waspy white a brand new behind.”
Bruce Dern and John Wayne had an excellent working relationship
“The Cowboys” is not one in all the best Westerns ever made, however it’s arguably one of the important as a consequence of its stunning demise scene and the ensuing sort casting that Bruce Dern skilled. But it surely appears on the time, all was properly on-set. Dern elaborated on his expertise of filming the scene in query in a 2015 Cowboys and Indians interview, saying that Wayne laughed at his joke about Berkeley. In line with the actor, Wayne then put his arm round his co-star’s neck, turned to the crew of 90 or extra and stated, “That is why that is in my movie.” Dern defined, “He understands that dangerous guys will be humorous. In the event that they weren’t, why would we be speaking about them 150 years later?” It appears Wayne was desperate to get the perfect out of Dern from the outset, and even instructed the younger actor to deal with him with disrespect on the set in order to create a picture of himself as a foul man for the youngsters who had been enjoying the younger ranch palms. As Dern defined in his Cowboys and Indians interview:
“Proper at first, [Wayne] says to me, ‘I would like you to do us a favor.’ He was together with himself, [director] Mark Rydell, and the scriptwriters. He stated, ‘To any extent further, contemplate me to be anyone you may publicly kick the s**t out of 24 hours a day on the set. As a result of I would like these little children [playing the cowboys of the title] to be completely frightened of you.'”
The younger Dern, who should have discovered the prospect of disrespecting the legendary John Wayne a tad vertiginous, recalled embracing the actor’s request nonetheless. “He gave me carte blanche to simply deal with him like a turd,” he stated. “So I used to be on him, speaking again to him and stuff, for the few days I used to be there. And he would do issues like name out: ‘Hey, Mr. Dern, would you recover from right here?’ I assumed, Hey, John Wayne provides you a ‘mister’ standing. My first day, he is calling me mister. How about that? That is fairly cool.”
