5. John Wayne Was in an Abusive Relationship With His Mentor, Who Used to Berate Him for “Skipping Like a Goddam Fairy“
Although the working relationship between John Wayne and director John Ford was long and productive, Ford seldom spared a kind word for his protégé. Wayne worshipped Ford: “My whole set up was that he was my mentor and my ideal! I think that deep down inside, he’s one of the greatest human beings that I have ever known“. By contrast, Ford was savage in his mistreatment of Wayne and bullied him at every opportunity. That bullying helped create one of the most iconic pieces of John Wayne’s public image: his cowboy strut.
As Stagecoach was being filmed, Ford seemed to dislike everything about Wayne. At one point, the director grabbed his lead actor by the chin and berated him: “Why are you moving your mouth so much? Don’t you know that you don’t act with your mouth in pictures?” He even hated the way Wayne moved, which Ford thought was effeminate. So effeminate that he once exploded at him: “Can’t you walk, instead of skipping like a goddam fairy?” That really hurt Wayne. It stung him so bad, as a matter of fact, that he changed the way he walked for the rest of his life.