Modern Screen (Dec 1949 - Nov 1950)

'ontinued from page 61) a laugh, that is back when John Ford asked me to :k some fellows from USC to act in movie called Salute which he made at e United States Naval Academy. I ed to give the jobs to guys from my iternity. But Ford wanted Bond, and thing I could say would stop Ford from ring him. When we got back to Anpolis, Ford made me room with Ward Bt to get even. We've had some pretty gged arguments since. I was awfully rry when Ward hurt his leg a couple years ago. Now it isn't fair for me to hit ti anymore." Ward and Duke have always been good ends, despite their sparring. Back in 43, when Duke was separated from his st wife, Josephine Saenz, he moved into e Hollywood Athletic Club, where Bond is staying, so they could continue their orkouts in the gym. ' For a while there," says a mutual end, "Duke and Ward quit slugging e another. It got too tame. In those days, eir favorite entertainment was testing lich one could drive his fist farthest rough a wooden door." \ lthough Duke has never got into any nightclub beefs in Hollywood," e of his mar linfishing buddies reported, e's had a couple of pips in Mexico. One ght, he was sitting in a little saloon, jiding his own business, when a drunk iled a knife and started shouting that could lick anyone in the house. It made ike so mad he took the guy's knife away d threw him clear over the bar. But len he didn't get up, Duke walked ound and helped him. A few minutes :er, he was buying the guy a drink and ologizing for being so rough with him." Perhaps the biggest reason why Holly:od has been inclined to think of Duke ! a rough-neck results from his relucace to talk about himself. His own pub ; ity representative, who has worked with |m for 15 years, usually has to find out |e . news-worthy things that happen to ike from other people. For example, when Duke was recently med by his fraternity as a Significant g, an honor shared by President Grover eveland, humorist George Ade, Postmas: Patrick Hurley, cartoonist Milton Can ! , and less than 50 others, his press agent ard about it first from a fellow Sigma li, not Duke. Last year, he financed a ; ries of educational shorts for his standSid Davis, and didn't mention it until • e first one was completed. And very few ople know that Duke each year puts up ; $1,000 scholarship for some deserving , ident at USC. "Duke cares almost nothing about pubity," his press agent says. "He's so easy please that sometimes I hate to take his Dney." Most of Duke's reticence about his acmplishments stems from his desire to main a natural and unaffected human ing. Even now when he's riding the crest the biggest wave in his career, Duke, a teran of 145 screen performances, knows all can end with a crash and roar at y time. "I just happened to be lucky enough to ve five good action pictures in a row," says. "I hope I can find five more." Duke learned a great deal about the ngers of selfadvertising very early in e. When he was a boy in Glendale, the ds in grade school started a fad of rowing cheap perfume on everybody, d, to protect himself, Duke borrowed a .ttle of asafoetida from his father's drug )re. (And compared to asafoetida, a unk smells like Chanel #5.) "It worked just fine as a defense meas e, and I thought I was pretty smart to have thought of it," Duke recalls. "But one day, a kid asked to borrow it, and during recess he threw some on a girl. That caused an awful stink, in more ways than one. The teacher didn't have to bother asking who it belonged to. My dad's label was right there on the bottle. I don't think I'll forget how to spell asafoetida as long as I live." Fraternity life at USC was an emphatic curb on budding egos, and it helped no end to instill the modesty which is almost an inherent part of Duke's personality. When Duke was proposed as a candidate for president of the freshman class, his frat wouldn't let him run. "Guys get too cocky when they get honors before they earn them," they told him. That influence carried over long after Duke had become an established actor in Hollywood. VT'ery little has been printed, and hence very little is known, about Duke's home life. Since his marriage to Esperanza Bauer in 1945, Duke has given up most of his roistering and is living a peaceful and contented life on a rolling knoll in the San Fernando Valley. Their home is a pleasant ranch style building surrounded with hundreds of roses which Esperanza, whom Duke calls "Chata," has coaxed into beautiful bloom. Except when he's making a movie, or working at his office at Republic Studios, Duke doesn't stray far away these days. He's even rigged up a small gym in his garage so he can get his exercise at home. Because of his busy schedule, Duke hasn't had much time for the deep sea fishing he loves. Nor has he been hunting since he mistook Ward Bond for a rabbit and accidentally shot him with a charge of buckshot. "I haven't been deer hunting for years," Duke says. "The last time was on opening day in 1947, when I went ,up to Huntington Lake station and found that 15,000 hunters had checked in. With that many out banging away, I decided to stay at the bottom of the hill and wait for a deer to be scared down. After sitting on a log for half an hour, I finally saw a couple of guys in red hats and shirts come busting through the brush and I asked them if they'd seen any deer. 'Sure,' one of them said, 'we saw one buck and three possibles.' 'What's a possible?' I asked him. 'Well, we saw something moving in the brush and shot at it.' That ended my deer hunting. I packed up and came home and I haven't gone back since." Usually, it is next to impossible to reach Duke on weekends, for then he has a standing date with Toni, Patrick, Michael, and Melinda, the children of his first marriage. Sometimes it takes the judgment of Solomon to pacify the whole brood. A few weeks ago, when Ralph Edwards asked Duke to present a Seeing Eye dog on his show, he took his kids along to see the broadcast. They almost started a riot over who was going to hold his hands as they walked into the studio. Duke finally settled it by deciding that Toni and Michael got the inside track going in, and Pat and Melinda coming out. The crowning characteristic of Duke's personality is his fierce loyalty to his friends. Now that he's an established star, he has little patience with the gladhanders and backslappers anxious to cash in on his success. But the men who have been his true friends over the years will always be able to consider themselves richer for knowing John Wayne. Five years ago, when things were slow in Hollywood, Duke nagged his business manager, Bo Roos, to take over Ward Bond's affairs. Bo finally consented and has since set up a sound investment schedule for Ward that will leave him something to show for his (Continued on page 73) M. wo piece dress-suit with peplum jacket, rolled collar, gold buttons . . . smart slit skirt. In MALLINSON's Tissue Puff Rayon. Berry Wine, Taupe, Green, River Turquoise, Black. Sizes 14-20, 161/2-241/^. about *H0.° At these leading stores New York.Bloomingdole's Chicago The Fair Akron M. O'Neill Los Angelest.The May Co. Baltimore The May Co. Pittsburgh Kaufmann's Boston Filene's St. Louis Famous-Borr Cleveland The May Co. Sioux City T. S. Martin Denver The May Co. Youngstown ... Strauss Hirstvberg or write for store nearest you. CAVANAUGH DRESSES, INC. 463 Seventh Avenue • New York 18, N. Y.