For the John Wayne expert

29aholic

29aholic

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Someone posted on one of my threads that I had JB Book's quote wrong.

You were right and I corrected it in my signature line...thanks
 
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Someone posted on one of my threads that I had JB Book's quote wrong.

You were right and I corrected it in my signature line...thanks
 
John & I were friends for many years. Our paths crossed in the southwest and in Mexico off and on over the years. Sometimes he was near broke and sometimes he had money, but he always had his friends. We stayed with him regardless, and not because he was always good for a few bucks if you were down, but because he was real. I consider it my good fortune that I was one of them, and his hat hangs in my gunroom. What you saw in his movies was John in real life. The Shootist was his last movie. A lot of what was in the movie was a mini-bio of John and how he saw the world and his friends. He knew he was not going to win the last fight with the cancers he had defeated twice in the past, and that quote summarized how John looked at life.
 
You were friend with John Wayne?!! That is the best thing I have found on this site !! I am a huge John Wanye Fan. Tell me more.
 
Marshall357, My wife was John's nurse at Scripps Clinic in La Jolla when he had his first cancer operation for lung cancer. During his recuperation he would corral me, his two sons, or whomever else he could, to play poker evenings. I had been a child actor in the western movies in the 30s and we both knew some of the same people in the business. Another friend of mine, Pappy Hazard, rented to John's movie company Batjac Productions, the buffalos and covered wagons & other old west gear that John needed for his movies and I handled some of the arrangemants for that. My wife's uncle was John's long time make up man and prop man, and he gave me a Red River D silver buckle that John had made up for wrap gifts for the production crew on Red River. (When a picture ends it's filming, there is a "wrap" party and it is customary for the picture's star to present some kind if unique gift commemorating the filming, to the production crew. John had Mexican silver pesos melted down and cast into the silver belt buckles with the Red River D brand on the buckle. Some sources say Howard Hawks, the director did that for Red River, but it was John.) I grew up along the border and have many friends on both sides. We both liked to travel in Baja and John kept his yacht "Wild Goose" at Ensenada and other ports in Baja and the Sea of Cortez for fishing trips, etc. My friends and I kept an airplane down there and John sometimes bummed a ride from us to various hunting & fishing spots in Baja. John also liked to party and quite a few bars in Baja got rearranged occasionally whenever John and his friends, including me sometimes, were in town. I was partners in a gun store in So. Calif. for years that focused on the movie business crowd and John sometimes stopped in to visit. Leo Carillo lived nearby and he and John would spend hours telling tall tales in the store after we closed in the evenings. John regretted that he was 4F in WW2 due to his bad knees from football injuries at USC and most of us were all combat veterans, but we always kidded John that his roles as a WW2 warrier in various films got him more medals than all of us put together! I don't think they make 'em like john anymore.
 
I had been a child actor in the western movies in the 30s
Click to expand...

Ed, Lee told me that you were in "Birth of a Nation".
icon_rolleyes.gif
 
Originally posted by Muley Gil:
I had been a child actor in the western movies in the 30s
Click to expand...

Ed, Lee told me that you were in "Birth of a Nation".
icon_rolleyes.gif
Click to expand...
Did NOT....you remembered it wrong-
I said- "I wonder if Ed was arund for the birth of the Nation....."
icon_biggrin.gif


Seriously, Ed- THANKS for those posts. That is great stuff. I had never heard you talk about that before. Wow.
 
Ed
One of my childhood dreams was to meet JW. I saw my first movie "Big Jake" at the theater when I was real young, and was won over then. By the time I saw "The Shootist" I knew that the end was near, as I saw the man in the movie for what JW really was.
I was sitting in a barber's chair at my mother's hairdresser when the announcement came over the radio that he had died. I bawled like a baby.
I have long since tried to live my life as he did, being a mentor to some, and an opponent to others. The two quotes in my signature line pretty much sum up my outlook on life, and I have done my best to live up to them.
 
opoefc:
Thanks for sharing your real and interesting memories of JW, he lives on in the hearts of many of us.
 
Originally posted by opoefc:
Marshall357, My wife was John's nurse at Scripps Clinic in La Jolla when he had his first cancer operation for lung cancer. During his recuperation he would corral me, his two sons, or whomever else he could, to play poker evenings. I had been a child actor in the western movies in the 30s and we both knew some of the same people in the business. Another friend of mine, Pappy Hazard, rented to John's movie company Batjac Productions, the buffalos and covered wagons & other old west gear that John needed for his movies and I handled some of the arrangemants for that. My wife's uncle was John's long time make up man and prop man, and he gave me a Red River D silver buckle that John had made up for wrap gifts for the production crew on Red River. (When a picture ends it's filming, there is a "wrap" party and it is customary for the picture's star to present some kind if unique gift commemorating the filming, to the production crew. John had Mexican silver pesos melted down and cast into the silver belt buckles with the Red River D brand on the buckle. Some sources say Howard Hawks, the director did that for Red River, but it was John.) I grew up along the border and have many friends on both sides. We both liked to travel in Baja and John kept his yacht "Wild Goose" at Ensenada and other ports in Baja and the Sea of Cortez for fishing trips, etc. My friends and I kept an airplane down there and John sometimes bummed a ride from us to various hunting & fishing spots in Baja. John also liked to party and quite a few bars in Baja got rearranged occasionally whenever John and his friends, including me sometimes, were in town. I was partners in a gun store in So. Calif. for years that focused on the movie business crowd and John sometimes stopped in to visit. Leo Carillo lived nearby and he and John would spend hours telling tall tales in the store after we closed in the evenings. John regretted that he was 4F in WW2 due to his bad knees from football injuries at USC and most of us were all combat veterans, but we always kidded John that his roles as a WW2 warrier in various films got him more medals than all of us put together! I don't think they make 'em like john anymore.
Click to expand...

Thanks so much, for sharing this.

I love this forum, and I love the people that lawful gun ownership brings together.
 
Another little tidbit about John that we S&W collector's will enjoy - John knew I was a S&W lover and he mentioned that Gary Cooper's widow, Rocky Cooper, was going to sell Gary's gun collection to the old Hollywood Gun shop. I knew the people there so I asked them to let me know if any S&Ws were in the collection. Sure enough, a nice .357 Registered Magnum, with custom quick draw holster was included and that's how I became the owner of Gary Cooper's Registered Magnum. The holster is marked "Coop" and I recognized the design as one made by my friend and former fellow gunshow table partner Arvo Ojala from the old Great Western Gun Shows in Los Angeles County. I called Arvo and , yes, he had made the holster to fit an N Frame S&W for Cooper, but in the low slung quick draw style. Arvo taught many Hollywood western actors the art of quick draw, etc. In the opening scene of the TV western "Gun Smoke" , Arvo is the man shooting it out with Jim Arness ( Marshal Dillon). The gun is now in the great RM collection of one of our members on the Forum. I also knew that Jimmy Stewart and Gary were great pals and both had acquired Registered Magnums back in the mid 30s. Jimmy gave his RM to Marsh "Carbine" Williams after Jimmy starred in the movie "Carbine Williams, as a memento of the movie. I tracked that gun to a subsequent owner and it now resides in my RM collection. Muley, Lee and all you other guys are just jealous that a kid like me beat you to all those fun times! Ed.
 
John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart. Two American Icons that loved this country that are dearly missed. Not only for their acting but for their love of this country and the activism and service they gave to keep this the greatest nation in the world.

I'm 29 and love them both for the above reasons.
 
I have had three Arvo holster rigs over the years. One of the best Colt SAA's I owned once belonged to Michael Landon when he was on "Bonanza" The person I accquired it from reportedly got from Landon's agent because it was broken (which he fixed). The bore was all but gone due to movie blanks, but the outside was pretty decent and the Ojala rig was beautiful.
 
Back in the 80's I owned a little ranchito in Arizona about 10 miles from Wayne's old 26 Bar Red River Ranch. I "feedlot cowboyed" there several times when they were short-handed. All the old timers had stories of the times he came to visit. I was always sorry I came too late to see him.
 
Great stories here of some great men. I remember seeing and old Cadalac of a friends father. It was a convertable, long horn mounted to the hood, cow hide seats and door handles made like SA 45. The car had belonged to Roary Calhoun
 
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