John Wayne: The Life and Legend (83 page)

One morning at 9:15, Kane’s phone rang. It was his wife, sounding like she did before she got sick.

“My God, you sound great,” said Kane.

“Well, how would you feel if you woke up in the morning and John Wayne was standing by your bed?” She went on to explain that Wayne had stayed for more than an hour talking to her. Before he left, he had brushed her hair.

Kane vowed then and there that he would never let anything Wayne said or did interfere with their relationship. When Ruth died, Wayne came from Newport to Burbank for the 8 A.M. funeral Mass. Wayne drove himself to the funeral, which was potentially dangerous because he was a terrible driver—recklessly fast. But he got to the church in one piece, even if he did park halfway up on the curb. He put his arm around Kane, who leaned against him. “Things will never be the same again,” Wayne told him.

Charlie Feldman had been experiencing bouts of bad health in the midst of producing films. His latest was
Casino Royale
. Since it involved no fewer than five directors, any cohesive approach was impossible, and Feldman was exhausted. “I’ve been through the most harrowing experience that I have ever been through since I’ve been in the business,” he wrote Wayne in October 1966. “Not a moment to myself, not a moment to write a letter, not a moment to pick up the horn. . . . I was so ill at times I didn’t know whether I could finish the film. . . .

“Dear Duke, please take care of yourself,” closed Feldman. “Though I am not a faggot, I close this note with a big kiss and all my love to you, Pilar and your wonderful family.” Charles Feldman died in 1968, but Wayne stayed with the agency after Feldman’s death.

The genesis of
The Green Berets
seems to have been an encounter Wayne had on the USC campus. He was there to discuss a benefit for a children’s hospital and was taking a stroll with Mary St. John when he saw students protesting the Vietnam War.

What got my goat was that these students were heckling a young marine, a corporal, who was going by and heading for his car. He walked with his back straight as a rod, and he wore his uniform with pride. Then I noticed that where his right arm should have been there was only an empty sleeve which was neatly folded and pinned back.

Turned out he was one of the Ninth Marine Brigade which were the first ground troops America sent to Vietnam. He had a chest full of medals and ribbons. He said his drill instructor had taught him to ignore impolite civilians. He said, “You don’t give them the satisfaction of noticing them.” I waved to him as he drove away. And my blood was boiling.

I ran over to the students and I was just so angry, I drummed my fists into their goddamn table and I said, “You

bastards! You

fucking

! Blame Johnson if you like. Blame Kennedy. Blame Eisenhower or Truman or fucking goddamn Roosevelt. But

you blame that kid. Don’t you

blame any of those kids. They

! Jesus, the kid lost his

. I mean what the hell is

to this country?

The first concrete sign of
The Green Berets
was a December 29, 1965, letter from Wayne to the distinguished director George Stevens. “My company and I want to make a motion picture about the war in Vietnam,” Wayne began. “It will have the scope, integrity and dignity required by the subject matter. . . . Our film about the exciting new unit fighting in Vietnam will be as American as ‘apple pie’ and as harshly against the ‘beard and sandal’ brigade as possible.”

Stevens was no co-religionist of Wayne’s—he was a New Deal liberal. Wayne was writing him because Stevens’s son was working in the Johnson administration and Wayne knew he would need help from the Defense Department.

Wayne also wrote President Johnson, while George Stevens Jr. spoke to Johnson’s assistant Jack Valenti, who made sure Johnson saw Wayne’s letter. Valenti advised Johnson to give Wayne what he wanted: “Wayne’s politics are wrong, but insofar as Vietnam is concerned, his views are right. If he made the picture he would be saying the things we want said.”

Wayne opened his offensive by telling Lyndon Johnson that, while he, Wayne, supported the war, he knew it was not popular. It was important that the people of the United States as well as the rest of the world understand why it was important to be there.

“The most effective way to accomplish this is through the motion picture medium. Some day soon a motion picture
will
be made about Vietnam. Let’s make sure it is the kind of picture that will help our cause throughout the world.”

Wayne wanted the cooperation of the Defense Department, just as they had helped on
The Longest Day
and
Sands of Iwo Jima
. Unsure if Johnson was a movie fan, he recapitulated his career, slightly exaggerating by saying he had been a star for thirty-seven years, then closed by quoting some of Jimmy Grant’s dialogue from
The Alamo
, about how a man who gets in the habit of goring oxes gets his appetite whetted. “And we don’t want people like Kosygin, Mao Tse-Tung, or the like, ‘gorin’ our oxes.’ ”

Three weeks later, Bill Moyers, special assistant to the president, wrote Wayne saying that President Johnson did indeed remember
The Alamo
and understood the reference. However, whether or not the Defense Department could offer assistance depended on the script. A month after that, Wayne replied to Moyers: “We feel confident that the finished script will be one that adheres closely to the thinking of President Johnson . . . regarding the role being played by the U.S. fighting men in Vietnam.”

The Green Berets
, then, was always intended to illuminate the administration’s—and John Wayne’s—view of the war. The American involvement in Vietnam fit right into Wayne’s worldview—Communism had to be fought everywhere it surfaced, whether Hollywood or Southeast Asia.

In June 1966, Wayne went to Vietnam to work on a documentary for the Defense Department that he was narrating. “I’m going around the hinterlands to give the boys something to break the monotony,” he said. He was amused by the urchins of Saigon, who immediately recognized him and called out “Hey you! Numbah one cowboy!”

In time, Wayne would make trips to all four of the combat areas of Vietnam, and most of the forward camps, purely by himself and without any accompanying entertainment units. During one of the visits, he received a Montagnard bracelet from a Strike Force under the command of Captain Jerry Dodds. The Montagnards were mountain tribesmen who had fought for the French during the Indochina war and were currently working as mercenaries for the Americans in Vietnam, usually as the defenders of isolated camps in the highlands or elsewhere.

Wayne was deeply moved and wrote a letter saying that he hadn’t removed the bracelet since it was bent around his arm. Indeed, the bracelet can be seen on Wayne’s wrist in several movies of the late ’60s.

Working from Robin Moore’s book, James Lee Barrett completed a first-draft script of
The Green Berets
in August 1966, to which the Pentagon strenuously objected. Barrett’s script involved a Special Forces unit going into North Vietnam on an offensive mission, which was forbidden for the Green Berets. Mike Wayne didn’t tell his father about the rejection. “I was actually afraid to because he would have said, ‘You dumb son of a bitch!’ ” Barrett went on a research trip to Vietnam, and came back to do a second draft. The Pentagon objected to some specifics, and a third draft was soon under way.

By the end of March 1967, the Pentagon agreed to assist Batjac, provided specific modifications were made in the script. Mike Wayne and Barrett made the changes. In April of 1967, Jack Valenti wrote Wayne that the Defense Department had approved the script of
The Green Berets
. “I urged them to go all out on equipment and material cooperation. Let me know if you run into road blocks. Good luck.” Michael Wayne wrote George Stevens to thank him for his help.

The Green Berets
was to be the second picture on a two-picture deal Wayne had with Universal (the first was
The War Wagon
). In many respects, Wayne was making the same deal John Ford had been forced to make for
The Quiet Man
—an overtly commercial film in exchange for a far dicier personal project.

The Green Berets
was penciled in to begin shooting in the late spring of 1967, but after stalling for a few months Universal backed out of the project, ostensibly because of changes the studio wanted to make in the script, but mostly because they got cold feet. Batjac quickly moved the picture over to Warner Bros., with production scheduled to start in August.

Ed Faulkner hadn’t worked with Wayne since
McLintock!
and asked his agent about getting him an interview for
The Green Berets
. His agent couldn’t do anything, so Faulkner sat down and wrote a personal letter. “Like yourself, I’ve worn a Stetson long enough. Maybe a change in hats is called for.” He signed it and sent it over to Mary St. John. Five days later, Faulkner’s agent called and asked if he had talked to Wayne, because a script for
The Green Berets
was on the way to Faulkner.

At this point, the picture had a budget of $5.1 million and a sixty-two-day schedule. Okinawa was being considered as the primary location, but the Huey helicopters needed for the movie wouldn’t be available from Japan until the end of the year. The Department of Defense preferred a Fort Benning location because it would involve fewer personnel. Besides that, the terrain, they said, was similar to Vietnam.

Wayne finally agreed to Fort Benning. The Pentagon handed over five acres, on which Batjac spent $171,000 building a Green Beret camp, which was left intact for training purposes. Batjac also spent $305,000 in salaries for personnel, 80 percent of which was to off-duty or furloughed soldiers. In return for the Pentagon’s land and equipment, Batjac was charged a grand total of $18,623.

Wayne was acting in the picture for $750,000 plus 10 percent of the gross over $7.5 million. For directing the picture, he was paid an additional $120,000. Co-director Ray Kellogg was on board for $40,000 for twenty-two weeks’ work, second unit director Cliff Lyons was getting $1,000 a week, and cinematographer Winton Hoch was getting a total of $17,500.

Wayne cast George Takei, who had just finished the first season of
Star Trek
, as a South Vietnamese officer who relishes killing Vietcong. Takei stifled his ambition and told his prospective director that he was opposed to the Vietnam War.

“I respect your opinion, George,” replied Wayne. “I know a lot of people feel the same way. David Janssen and Jim Hutton, who are also in the movie, feel as you do. But I want you guys in this movie because you’re the best actors for the job. I need your help. I’ll need your ideas to make this a good movie. And I’ll try to do what I can to make this a good movie.”