Politics and cinema have always been uneasy bedfellows, a sentiment that dates back to the advent of the moving image. Few high-profile Hollywood heavyweights have ever backed their ideology to such an extent as John Wayne‘s anti-communist stance, though, to the extent that it even made him hate certain aspects of his chosen profession.
While he might be one of American cinema’s most iconic stars, Wayne’s personal views placed him under scrutiny more than once during the peak of his popularity and again long after he’d passed away in 1979. A key driving force behind the creation of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals in 1949, he was also a full-throated supporter of the House of Un-American Activities Committee.
So much so, in fact, that he went out of his way to star as a HUAC enforcement official in 1952’s politically-charged Big Jim McLain and was a noted backer of Joseph McCarthy during the height of the industry’s communist witch-hunt. With that in mind, it’s no surprise the looming “Red Scare” ended up with Wayne lamenting the blurring of lines between somebody’s personal and professional merits, which is mightily ironic, all things considered.
In Jean Ramer’s biography Duke: The Real Story of John Wayne, a movie executive even reportedly warned him that his continual railing against Communism in such open forums could have an adverse effect on a career that was already facing a downward slope: “Duke, I’ve got to warn you. You’re going to be in big trouble if you don’t get out of that MPA. You just don’t realize how much this kind of thing can hurt your career. Your box office showing will fall. You’ll hit the skids!”
Responding in typically hard-nosed fashion, Wayne offered a sarcastic “thanks for the warning” before explaining that he couldn’t sanction the prospect of politics interfering with his star power: “One thing I hate is this attitude that an actor’s going to be ruined if he becomes involved in anything political,” he said. “Hell, a butcher or a baker can say what he thinks, but not an actor. It’s not fair!”
This is the same Wayne who once claimed to Playboy that “I always thought I was a liberal” before voicing his surprise “when I found out I was a right-wing conservative extremist”. According to urban legend, his anti-communism ran so deeply that Joseph Stalin was allegedly planning to have him assassinated despite being a huge fan of his filmography.
According to The Guardian, Michael Munn – author of John Wayne: The Man Behind The Myth – was told by no less an authority than Orson Welles that the KGB plot was true, and while “Mr Welles was a great storyteller,” he explained, “he had no particular admiration for John Wayne”. He remained dedicated to his communist opposition, then, even in the face of his career – and life – being placed in danger.
