Content area
Full Text
JOE MCINERNEY: The general impression is your career began with STAGECOACH, but I don't think it really began until RED RIVER . . .
JOHN WAYNE: That's not a question, it's a theory. You want me to sit here like a dummy and nod my head while you put words in my mouth.
MCINERNEY: It was a leading question. When you made STAGECOACH ...
WAYNE: Start somewhere else.
MCINERNEY: How did you get into films in the late Twenties? The most popular story is after you broke an arm you lost your scholarship at USC.
WAYNE: I wrecked a shoulder. I was going back to school for my junior year, but I had borrowed money to go to school the year before. The scholarship only took care of your entrance fees. I had other expenses. As a consequence, when I paid them all back, I didn't have any money to go back to school, and my shoulder was hurting so I figured what the hell, I'll lay out this one year so I won't lose my eligibility for that year and I'll catch up on some money. I got so interested in pictures that I never went back.
MCINERNEY: While you were working with John Ford at Fox, did you intend to be an actor?
WAYNE: Well, Pappy Ford I worked for as a prop man. He's almost a big brother to me, and I was so intrigued by him as a director that I left school and came over striving to be a director. I went back to propping with him so I could get more experience.
MCINERNEY: Did you do any directing?
WAYNE: When I wasn't propping with Ford, I was with Ewing Scott as an assistant director. He used to hire me on the George O'Brien pictures as an actor because he was forced to take someone's cousin along as his second assistant who didn't know anything about pictures. He'd take me along as an actor and have me as his second assistant director. Then I got into acting because they made a big thing of THE BIG TRAIL, and naturally I was complimented. Then they made me take a dim view of acting after that because the next picture I did...