Hollywood icon John Wayne is best known for his roles in rollicking Westerns, but a number of the star’s 164 movies over a 50-year span were shot or set in Hawaii or on other Pacific islands.
Indeed, most of "Duke’s" World War II movies were set in the Pacific Theater, not Europe, and as Marc Eliot’s sprawling new biography, "American Titan: Searching for John Wayne" (Dey Street Books, $28.99), details, Hawaii also figured prominently in the actor’s private life.
Eliot, whose previous best-selling biographies include "Cary Grant," "Walt Disney: Hollywood’s Dark Prince" and "American Rebel: The Life of Clint Eastwood," documents Wayne’s life and motion picture career starting with his childhood in Iowa, where he was born Marion Morrison in 1907, and on to a football scholarship at the University of Southern California and odd jobs in the film industry.
As a young actor he changed his name to John Wayne in 1930 and appeared in low-budget B pictures and serials before his breakout role as the Ringo Kid in director John Ford’s 1939 classic "Stagecoach." The legendary Ford made 24 movies with the actor, including their last feature film collaboration, the made-in-Hawaii "Donovan’s Reef" from 1963.
But that wasn’t the first time Wayne starred in a movie that took place in the Pacific islands. He debuted in an Oceania-set flick in "Adventure’s End" (1937) as pearl diver Duke Slade. That was followed by "Seven Sinners" (1940), which takes place on the fictional Boni-Komba isle, where Wayne’s naval lieutenant romances a sexy saloon singer played by Marlene Dietrich. ("American Titan," set for release Tuesday, claims the two engaged in an intense affair.)
Duke met Hawaii’s Duke in the seafaring potboiler "Wake of the Red Witch" (1948), with Wayne as octopus-fighting Capt. Ralls and Native Hawaiian surfer and Olympic swimmer Duke Kahanamoku portraying Polynesian chief Ua Nuke. Although set in the South Seas, "Wake" was shot at the Los Angeles Arboretum and Republic Studios.
The aviation drama "The High and the Mighty" (1954) starred Wayne as the pilot of a troubled trans-Pacific flight that took off from Honolulu’s airport but was lensed in Los Angeles. "Donovan’s Reef," with Wayne as French Polynesia saloonkeeper "Guns" Donovan brawling with ex-shipmate "Boats" Gilhooley (Lee Marvin), was shot on Kauai by Ford.
Wayne’s World War II morale boosters included the Philippine-set "Back to Bataan" (1945) and "Sands of Iwo Jima" (1949). His performance in the latter as tough Marine Sgt. John Stryker earned the actor an Oscar nomination.
"Operation Pacific" (1951), with Wayne playing submarine Lt. Cmdr. Duke Gifford, included scenes apparently set, but not shot, at Pearl Harbor, Camp Smith and other Oahu locations. More than a decade later, director Otto Preminger relied on location shooting at Pearl Harbor, Kaneohe Bay, Makapuu and other sites for "In Harm’s Way" (1965), with Wayne as Adm. Rockwell Torrey.
In contrast to his battlefield heroics on film, "American Titan" emphasizes that unlike Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart and other celebrities of the era, Wayne never served in uniform. Eliot writes that his third wife, Pilar Pallete, contends this explains why the actor became a "superpatriot for the rest of his life trying to atone for staying home."
Eliot notes that during Wayne’s wartime South Pacific USO tour, he was not "warmly welcomed by the enlisted men, most of whom had seen hard combat and did not appreciate these visits by Wayne" and other entertainers who had not enlisted.
The first feature Wayne shot in Hawaii was 1952’s "Big Jim McLain," at locations such as the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, Outrigger Canoe Club, Waikiki and Kalaupapa on Molokai. His role depicting a House Committee on Un-American Activities investigator who busts a "commie" ring operating in the territory of Hawaii reflected the actor’s conservative bent off-screen.
Made during the anti-communist McCarthy era, the plot was inspired by the "Hawaii 7" — activists such as ILWU leader Jack Hall, Honolulu Record Editor Koji Ariyoshi and teacher John Reinecke, who were arrested by the FBI in 1951 and accused of conspiring to overthrow the U.S. government.
Around the time the movie was made, Wayne was president of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals and supported the Hollywood Blacklist of suspected leftists in the film industry. On-screen, however, he often acted in movies with and by left-wingers, winning his only best-actor Academy Award as Rooster Cogburn in 1969’s "True Grit," whose screenwriter, Marguerite Roberts, had been blacklisted.
"American Titan" has a tell-all quality, disclosing titillating tidbits about the star’s personal life, which includes several tabloid-worthy episodes that took place in Hawaii.
In December 1945, Wayne wed his second wife, Mexican actress Esperanza "Chata" Baur, in California, and they honeymooned at the Royal Hawaiian. "Howard Hughes personally flew them there, on the first civilian flight to Hawaii since the war ended," Eliot writes.
When the couple separated in 1952, the book cites gossip columnist Louella Parsons’ contention that Wayne’s desire to fly home from Hawaii during their vacation to attend the graduation of his son from a previous marriage contributed to the rift.
At their divorce proceedings in 1953, Baur testified that Duke "clobbered" her during their Hawaii vacation and that "on Waikiki Beach she had discovered Wayne having an orgy with other naked men and women." Baur also alleged he’d been unfaithful with his "Wake of the Red Witch" co-star Gail Russell.
In 1954, after shooting "The Sea Chase" with Lana Turner on the Big Island, Wayne received word the divorce was final. According to "American Titan," he married Peruvian actress Pallete that evening in a sunset civil ceremony "held in the palatial former home of King Kamehameha III. … A crowd of Native Hawaiians in traditional hula dress" danced.
Former Makaha resident Ed Rampell is co-author of "The Hawai‘i Movie and Television Book" (Mutual Publishing), which includes information on John Wayne.
