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MALE O0MPH
HOLLYWOOD HAS SUDDENLY DISCOVERED THAT JOHN WAYNE, WHO HAS BEEN RIDING THE SAGEBRUSH IN HOSS OPERAS FOR TEN YEARS, POSSESSES A NEW AND DISTINCTIVE TYPE OF MALE OOMPH
By
GENE SCHROTT
IT WAS in one of those darkened projection-rooms that I heard the name of John Wayne for the first time. The lights had gone out and in the inky blackness that engulfs the room the moment before the film is flashed in, three men seated themselves.
"Watch Wayne," one of them admonished.
"Why him?" came back the hesitant question.
"Because in a few years, John Wayne is going to be one of the biggest names in pictures. He's going to be the man who makes the heart of every woman in the country do a sudden speed-up. He's going to be the guy who's going to do to the public what Gary Cooper did when they took him off a horse and put him in a drawing-room. . . ."
The rest of that conversation was lost in the opening bars of the music. But those stray remarks so casually overheard gathered more and more meaning as the film unfolded on the screen. There was really something about Wayne that made you remember him. There was something about his casual, matter-of-fact manner that made you aware of his personality. And though he wasn't thrust headlong at you, you couldn't very easily forget him.
Sure — there was something of the Gary Cooper manner about him. But it was not an imitation. Merely a faint shading. A mere reminder. There was strength and charm and a real down-to-earth quality. There was something about him that captured the imagination — something that men and women alike admired. It was a strange combination of iron and muscle and romance.
And yet for anyone to make so startling a prediction about John Wayne two years ago was like predicting Hedy Lamarr's future ten years ago. It just didn't mean a thing. Both were nothing but names. In all of Hollywood, probably not more than a mere handful of people had heard of John Wayne. To them he was just another cowboy who dashed monotonously over the sagebrush routing the rustlers or rescuing the ranch-owner's daughter from a fate worse than death.
That was the sort of guy John Wayne was. But that was two years ago. And if you had asked Hollywood's opinion of him at that time. [Continued on page 72~\
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