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DUKE 3/29/2014 8:19:54 AM
I went to Hollywood for three weeks in the spring of 1956, at the invitation of Jock Mahoney (of stuntman and actor-fame: TARZAN and other pot-boilers), to explore possibilities (I did not find any) for employment in the movie biz.
Jock never got over Johnny Weissmuller given the part of Tarzan over him — of course, Weissmuller was the better swimmer, able to beat crocodiles by a full length, but dammit, the fat slob was so outta shape, he wanted (an got) Johnny Sheffield as Boy, when I wanted Jimmy Midlanz. We both wanted Tess Wagner for Woman, so naturally we both lost!
I borrowed Jock’s car — the family’s third or fourth vehicle, an old Dodge, in order to get around to the various studios with whom I had appointments — (Harry Cohn at Columbia was the rudest and least interested.)
Call me when you get there, Mahoney had said when in Rochester. I live in the Valley.
I stayed at the Emerson Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, and I phoned Jock the day I arrived.
Where yuh stayin, boy? he said. I told him and he said, I never heard of it. . . Come tuh muh shack fo dinner, meet the whole family. I gotta be in town, anyway. Where is the Emerson, in relations tuh Capitol Records? I’ll pick yuh up out front.
It was after six when Mahoney arrived, and after I gushed adequately all over his new Cadillac convertible, he said, Duke Wayne is stoppin by fer vittals. Hope yuh doan mind none. Lives jess down the road some, and besides, I owe him.
Mahoney lived on a eighty-acre ranch in the Valley — nobody out here never calls it thuh San Fernando Valley, jess plain, ole the Valley; RKO owns thuh biggest piece a hit.
Over the gate to Jock’s spread was an icon in the shape of a horse shoe — only it was dangling upside down, facing the wrong way: (Ω).
Your horse shoe is facing wrong, I said.
No, taint. Muh luck spilled out years ago. Weissmuller saw tuh that.
Duke — John Wayne — showed up at 8:45, and he came to dinner bearing gifts. I was mesmerized by him.
This here wine was frum the King of Saudi Crimea, or the Ukraine, or someplace, when he came tuh dinner one night, he told me, with his uncanny drawl; and Pilar would not even unwrap the stuff, let alone drink it. Where’s your kid?
Sally joined us for dinner, but at the time she was only nine years old, or so; I could not have cared less about her.
I was more fascinated by John Wayne than I was with Sally Field, Jock and Margaret’s adopted daughter. She hadn’t done anything spectacular yet, but the studios saw lots of potential in her.
Man, you sure are tall! I said, to Duke Wayne. How tall are you, if I may ask?
Six feet eleven, was his answer. He barely made eye-contact with me.
After dinner, which consisted of roast beef and ranch-fried potatoes personally prepared on the outdoor grill by Mahoney; his second wife, Margaret, a pretty, young lass, was still in the kitchen, so after dinner we adjourned to the porch for more drinks. The talk got around to fast draw.
Mills here, Jock proclaimed, while mixing our fifth or sixth bourbon and water, said on his Welcome Inn show that he is the fastest gun in the East, even faster then you an me are!
That so? Duke drawled. Does he, now?
Yep! So he says!
Less prove it. . . You got guns?
Do injuns smell bad?
Mahoney produced three holstered Western revolvers, fully loaded, complete with bejeweled belts and buckles with wide holders for up to a dozen extra bullets. He got the weapons from an ornate locker near the front door.
I hitched mine ceremoniously over my tweed sports coat, and Jock stood Wayne and I approximately fifteen feet from each other.
Wait til I say three, Mahoney said. One . . . two . . . THREE!
Pow!
Pow!
I pulled out my gun and fanned off a shot (as I had seen Wayne do in THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE.)
The Duke grabbed his leg and went down, my bullet grazed his thigh, barely drawing a trickle of blood; he fired a single shot into the floor, long before his gun cleared his holster.
JESUS! I’M SHOT! CALL 911! Wayne cried. — THAT SONABITCH IS FASTER THAN JIM ARNESS! I THOUGHT I WAS THE FASTEST MAN ALIVE SINCE BUCK JONES GOT KILLED!
Strange though it seemed at the time, Duke Wayne and I became good friends after that incident, and he often came to Rochester to visit me — I always stayed at his or Jock’s place in L.A. whenever I was in town.
We shared many drinks together. Duke’s stories were not bad, either.
Robert A. Mills
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