Reel Publishing

Review of John Wayne a Giant Shadow by Tim Lilley 2002

Thursday, March 12, 2009

This is a review of John Wayne; A Giant Shadow by Tim Lilley, that appeared in The Trail Beyond in 2002 in USA.

"Occasionally you can judge a book by its cover; Carloyn McGivern's JOHN WAYNE: A Giant Shadow is a strong case in point.  The striking image of the Ringo Kid lighting a cigarette from the lamp promises a dramatic view of the shadows and light which were the Duke's life, and the text, inspired by the author's voracious digestion of every  recorded interview of and about the actor icon (including a number of trips he made to her native Great Britain) delivers one of the most personal biographical treatments of Marion Morrison whose legacy remains the remarkable creation he shared with us called John Wayne.  Carolyn's narrative reads so true, feels so right, that it debunks any prejudice that only a family member or Wayne intimate or at the very least, an American, could possibly get this close to the real man.  She is living proof that a researcher can study the statements and facts about a person and trust those words to paint a vivid picture of a person whom she'd never personally met.  Not that it was an easy task, retaining a sense of balance on the high wire of presenting Wayne's frailties, insecurities and personal failures as they meshed with his admirable qualities, his optimism and his childlike enthusiasm for the things he loved, particularly the making of movies.
Obviously, treading so confidently yet respectfully into the personal life of this most human of heroes will not be everyone's cup of tea.  There is a strong segment of Wayne fandom which has no interest in being exposed to or seeing exposed for the public their hero's feet of clay.  Loudest among the members of this camp is the family itself, in the person of Michael Wayne.  As the self-proclaimed guardian of his father's image he remains dead-set against anything which suggests any frailties and shortcomings to mar the image of the indestructible Duke.  He even attempted to derail the publishing of this book, threatening lawsuits and legal action which fortunately never occurred.
I place myself in another camp. As a fan and admirer of John Wayne for the better portion of my 53 years, I have found, in the company of many of our Big Trail/Trail Beyond family, that John Wayne's appeal is based not on the image of the stone solid superman, but on his closeness to the rest of us as a hero, just like we all strive to be,  a soul and spirit triumphant in spite of the frailties and insecurities and failures which are an integral part of this earthly existence. "Duke, you are just an ordinary man," his beloved Ollie Carey once told him, "but you have a rare gift.  You make unimportant people feel very special."  And with this terse insight she defined the man's spell over our lives.  To author McGivern's credit, her own approach to understanding the man takes this same approach -- allowing a limited number of such deep insights to define a most complex man without interjecting (a la author Gary Wills in John Wayne's America) too much of herself into the mix.
And as Carolyn has trusted Duke's own  words to define him, we cannot do better in our review than to trust her own words to clarify her view of the mixture of dimensions which define human nature:
"He was both simple and complex, a man full of contradiction, both more and less than he appeared.  Here was the ultimate soldier, who never served, the cowboy who loved the sea, a sailor at heart, a man whose image was violent but who always longed for peace, and a man acknowledged by all who came into direct contact with him as the most gentle, kind and courteous of people.  He abhorred his own cruelty but saw his softness as weakness.  He saw little of value in himself, but he never gave up trying to be better, neither did he fail in his attempt to become the hero others believed him to be.  To those who knew him, and to his movie going fans, the contradictions were the very root of his charm, were what made him one of their own, were exactly what made him a man.  If he used what life taught him up on the screen, he also learned many lessons from his films, he used them over and over again in every role he played from then on.  And the performances got better and better."
There is little to complain about in JOHN WAYNE: A Giant Shadow.  Yes, there is a healthy handful of misspellings (I had to finally stop telling myself, "Maybe this is how they spell it in England."), and some of Carolyn's statements of fact are open for further clarification.   A perfect example is: "Fort Apache . . . was shot entirely on location in Monument Valley."  The nitpickers among us might say, "Whoa! What about the exterior shots at Corriganville where the fort was constructed?"  But somehow such observations seem insignificant in light of what Ms. McGivern has accomplished here.  "Don't sweat the small stuff," is the applicable advice here.  For what she has given us is truly a treasure.  Her device of setting the book in the form of a John Wayne looking back on his life and career the evening of his last Christmas Eve is very effective.  She brings us closer than any author to date to the special relationship between Duke and his girl Friday, Mary St. John, and introduces us to a woman with whom he shared his final days, his private nurse, Alice Day.  Her most noteworthy accomplishment, however, is to be able to present the negative aspects in harmony with Duke's amazing triumphs and accomplishments.  What could have easily become a tawdry, tabloid-like repetition of the litany of the failed marriages, the choice not to enlist in WWII,  the  lifelong, self-destructive use of alcohol and tobacco, etc., is modified and defined by Duke's indomitable will to be the best actor, best husband and father, the best citizen he could possibly be.  And with proper elation and respect, the author celebrates each achievement, from a virtuoso performance in one of his movie classics, to his courageous final appearance at the Oscars, to his final three hour "performance" of clarity and good humor for the benefit of his family on the very day of his death.
I've spent a lifetime learning about John Wayne and his half century of film making.  Few essays, documents or books have made me feel as close to the person of John Wayne as Carolyn McGivern's Giant Shadow. What would have been the Duke's reaction to this work?  I suspect it would be, as were most things in his life, a twofold response.  After giving Ms. McGivern a good public, profanity-laced tongue lashing on what she dared to put in print, the legend would have returned an hour later, sat down next to her with a hot cup of tea, put a huge arm around her, then shared a good cry and a better laugh about the whole affair.  In the end, I think he would have approved.  In the end, I think you will, too."