Playing John Wayne Scott Eyman’s ‘John Wayne: The Life and Legend’
By PETER BOGDANOVICH MARCH 28, 2014 Photo John Wayne as a gunfighter for hire in “El Dorado,” released in 1966. Credit Photograph from Paramount Pictures Continue reading the main story Share This Page The first time I met John Wayne was in 1965 in Old Tucson, Ariz., where he was shooting Howard Hawks’s “El Dorado.” They were doing a night scene so the lighting took a long time and, happily, gave me a solid two hours to sit on the set, not in his trailer, and to speak with the Duke about nothing except pictures. I hadn’t directed a movie yet, but I had been approved as a journalist by John Ford and endorsed by Hawks — the two most important directors in Wayne’s career — so he quickly became outgoing and pretty candid. When he was finally called away, he said to me, enthusiastically: “Geez, it was great talkin’ about . . . pictures! Nobody ever talks to me about a...