To Kill the Duke (10 page)

He also asked the driver why he had a metallic taste in his mouth when he settled into the car Hughes had reserved and paid for.

“Sir, it’s not you,” the clerk replied. “It’s been like that for a few years. You’ll get used to it.”

“Of course I will. I live with the pollution of Los Angeles,” Powell said.

Dick and June enjoyed their few days together. The drive from Utah back to Hollywood energized both of them. Furthermore, June even came up with a few suggestions for the male lead.

“John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, Robert Mitchum and of course Randolph Scott. After all, it’s an 11
^th
-century western,” she said after reading through the script.

And now, a few weeks after that suggestion, he had a luncheon meeting scheduled with one of his favorite people in Hollywood — John Wayne. They were going to talk about how the blacklisting was starting to settle down and whether or not some of the names associated with
it should be accepted back into the fold. Wayne was against it. Powell wanted to be friendlier; he figured that all of the people named had been punished enough over the last few years and it was time for Hollywood to regroup. Besides, the men named were all of superior talent.

“Mr. Wayne is already in your office,” Miss Burchett announced as Dick made his way into his office.

“He’s always early, and I tried extra hard to be in my office even
earlier
today,” Powell said to his secretary as he opened the door to be greeted by a big bear hug from the Duke himself.
His parents must have brought him up right, too,
he thought.

The Duke — John Wayne. A mountain… no, an entire mountain range of a man. No one in Hollywood was casting a larger shadow than the man now hugging Dick Powell. Wayne had a lot of critics inside some Hollywood circles, not to mention the self-proclaimed intellectual leaders of the left (no one ever could tell Dick how they became the anointed ones) mostly because of Duke’s right-wing politics and nothing else. And in a place like Hollywood, which was far left of center to everything, it was amazing how John Wayne dominated the industry.

“Box-office appeal,” was how one member of the intellectual left described Wayne’s strength. Oscar Millard told this to Dick after Oscar had been to a party that was dominated by screenwriters, poets and authors. And being a screenwriter, Oscar knew a lot of left-leaning men and women, all of whom seemed to be writers.

“That means the majority of Americans are like him,” Oscar had replied to the fellow who was a poet.

“No…,” said another listener to the conversation “they want to
be
him.”

And that is what Oscar Millard told Dick Powell about his friend John Wayne-
American men want to be him, and American women all want him
.

“And the roles he plays and gets all reinforce the image that we fight when it comes to Wayne and the right-wing of our community,” a fiction writer announced to the small circle that was debating John Wayne at the party.

“But it isn’t just one man,” said a fifth member of the group, who Oscar later found out was someone who
wanted to be
a screenwriter and had at least 20 unfinished manuscripts to his credit.

“I have a better question,” Oscar Millard asked the small group he was conversing with. “How come liberals are from the left and conservatives from the right?” Oscar wanted to change the subject, because he liked John Wayne and also knew that John Wayne was great for the movie business.

“That’s a good question,” the poet replied.

“I’ll do some research and get back to all of you later,” said the fiction writer.

“I already know the answer,” said the man who had written, but not finished, at least 20 screenplays. “It comes from the French Revolution. At the first meeting of the new parliament, the most radical of the group sat at the left and the most conservative of the group sat at the right. In between both groups were the moderates.”

“It can’t be that simple,” the poet said.

“Hasn’t changed much… has it?” Oscar asked.

“The French know their stuff when it comes to changing social order,” a listening member of the small group replied.

“And their seating arrangements, too,” Oscar Millard pointed out.

And everyone laughed at that.

“Can we get back to Wayne?” the fiction writer asked.

“How about I end the discussion on Wayne and we all go back to the party?” Oscar said to the group.

They all nodded. After all, the booze and food was not only good… they were free; and the women at the party were all attractive.

“Wayne makes money for Hollywood. We all want to be a part of Hollywood. In that respect he is very good for all of us. Furthermore, as long as Wayne lives and Ford makes him movies that fit his hero image — the Duke could be 70 and still be a hero to Americans. There is something about that guy that no other actor will ever have,” Oscar continued.

“No one has been a leading man in as many pictures… and I mean a lot of
bad
pictures, and survived like Wayne. This place eats up old actors, but look at Wayne again. He didn’t get his huge presence on screen until his 30’s, and he is still going strong,” said the guy who had at least 20
unfinished screenplays. And everyone agreed with him, because he had supplied a credible answer to the question on why liberals were from the left and conservatives from the right.

When Oscar Millard told Dick Powell about the guy with 20 unfinished screenplays’ obvious research instincts, Dick Powell hired him for the research department.

“Dick, I’m sure glad to see you. What’s it been, a few months?” the Duke asked his good friend.

Powell nodded.

“But at least it means we are both busy, and that’s a very good thing,” the Duke said as he stopped embracing his friend and let Dick walk over to the couch.

Again Powell agreed.

“What are you working on now?” Wayne asked.

Powell pointed to the script and was just about to start telling the Duke about his plane flight, when Miss Burchett came running into the office.

“Excuse me Mr. Powell and Mr. Wayne, but there is a fire on the back lot. It’s under control, but the fire chief wants to talk to someone in charge, and everyone who could talk to the chief is on the way to Southern Utah with the first haul,” the secretary blurted out in one breath.

Powell turned to John and excused himself.

“Don’t worry. I’ll read this,” Wayne said as he pointed to the script of
The Conqueror.

“I’m only worried that neither one of us heard the engines,” Powell said.

“That’s because the executive offices are sound proof. Don’t forget I worked on this lot long before you did,” Wayne bellowed to his friend as he buried himself in the manuscript.

Rumor had it that the office windows were also bulletproof because the previous studio owner — Joe Kennedy — had made a lot of enemies who used real guns and bullets, not Hollywood props.

When he got off the little golf cart that had taken him to the scene of the fire, it was out, and Dick Powell could see that the water and smoke damage were going to be more expensive to clean and repair than putting out the actual flames. He also knew that getting the fire chief and the hordes of firemen off the set was going to be problematic, because the firefighters all seemed bent on finding a celebrity or being discovered. He looked for someone who looked like a take-charge guy and ended up finding an intern he had hired from Wittenberg University, which was located in Springfield, Ohio. The intern was there for the summer learning the film business and it was a hire that brought one of those tax breaks that Howard Hughes loved.

“Hey kid,” Powell said to him as he motioned for the intern to come to him.

“Yes sir,” the intern replied.

“I don’t have time to conduct a field trip for the firefighters. Give them all free passes with two tickets apiece for any of our upcoming premieres. Also, if any of them think they can act they should send their resumes and pictures to you, care of me here at the studio. Don’t forget to tell the chief to send me 25 tickets to the next fundraiser… and tell them that your name is Randy Komara.”

“You remember my name!” the boy shouted, upbeat that Dick Powell had indeed remembered his name.

“Okay Randy. Write a report and drop it off at my secretary’s office; tell her to set up a meeting with me,” Powell said as he climbed back on to the golf cart and drove back to his office. “And kid, no one could remember my name when I first set foot on a studio lot.”

“I’m doing what I said I would do
a happy Dick Powell thought.
Nice kid, too
, he further mused as he mouthed a “thank you” to the movie gods that the entire lot hadn’t been engulfed in flames and looked forward to talking to the Duke about the Hollywood Ten and making plans for a night of hard-drinking before they both went their separate ways in the next few weeks. Powell wanted to get drunk, because he still hadn’t cast the two top leads. And when it came to drinking, John Wayne was one of the best guys to party with.

Dick Powell assumed that when he returned from putting out the fire his friend would be sound asleep on the couch from being bored by Oscar Millard’s script.

Once again, Dick Powell proved to be lousy at guessing.

“Dick, this is one of the most interesting scripts I have ever read. Was everything okay with the fire and all?” John Wayne asked.

“Someone must have been playing with those special-effects gizmos again. Those guys who make the explosions are always causing damage around here. Luckily, the fire was more smoke and water. What script?” Powell asked.

“This one, Dick,” the Duke said as he waived the manuscript that Dick Powell had let him read while Dick went out to check on the emergency.

“You like it?” Powell asked his friend.
Boy, have I been a bad guesser of late,
thought Powell as he waited for the answer.

“It’s a western set back in time. I love it!” cried out the Duke. “Is it already cast?”

Is he serious?
Dick Powell mused.
Hhhmmmm. He’s caught on that it’s a western, just set a long time ago. A theme that seems to be a common thread with everyone who reads the script. Although not Brando… but then… this man is John Wayne. Who would be better for a western? And after Wayne, I’ll get the actress with a big rack that Howard wants. But wait a minute; I’d have to have Oscar re-write it. No way can the Duke deliver the lines like they stand. That will be a delay, and that cannot take place.
“Wait a minute big guy. Are you serious or are you pulling one of your practical jokes on me?”