Excerpt

An Excerpt From The Cowboy and the Senorita

Posted on by Chris Enss

“She was feisty, daring, could hold her own against any band of bad guys and looked good enough to leave them dreaming of her at night, and what a voice…”

Cybil Shepherd – Actress

A winter storm blanketed the already saturated Chicago streets with snow. Icy winds blasted through the loose insulation around the windows in Francis Smith’s tiny, one room apartment. She forced a smile at her five-year-old son, Tommy, pulled him to the kitchen table, and served him a meager breakfast. He lapped up every bite happily. Francis pushed her hair off her tired face and choked back a tear. Her skin was pale, making the dark circles under her eyes all the more pronounced. She was tempted to sample her son’s meal, but decided against it. She was hungry. It was 1931 and the country was in the midst of a depression, everyone was hungry. Francis was determined her child would not go without food even if it meant she had to give up a meal or two to make that happen.

After a four-year stay in Tennessee, Francis felt a move to Illinois was necessary. She hoped to advance her singing career in Chicago performing on one of the powerful Chicago stations that reached far and deep into the heartland of America. While in Memphis she had managed to go from singing on a thirty minute request show to hosting a program on the largest station in town. If she could conquer Chicago she’d have it made.

Music spilled out of a radio in the corner of the room – the tunes occasionally interrupted by newscasts announcing the closure of another bank or stories about desperate stock holders jumping out of windows. It was a trying time for everyone. Francis sought to comfort herself with that truth, but it was no use. Tommy finished his meal and entertained himself with a few of his toys. She watched him play as she dressed for work at the Goodyear Company where her duties included filing, taking dictation and answering phones.

Francis made twenty-five dollars a week. More than half of her income went to pay for Tommy’s sitter, the other half went to pay for rent and food. Often times there was precious little in the way of groceries in the cupboards.

However dismal the world was around her, she pressed on, clinging to the dream that she could change their lives for the better.

Francis seized every opportunity to audition as a performer at various clubs around town, but had no luck. Club owners and talent scouts weren’t that impressed with her Memphis accomplishments. She’d been in the city for two years and nothing seemed to be working out as she had hoped. As her weak fingers fastened the buttons on Tommy’s coat she pondered how alone they truly were. She held him close to her and reminded him how much she loved him and always would. Tears were standing in her eyes. Tommy knew something was wrong. He studied his mother’s face, she looked faint.

Francis was very ill. Earlier in the week she had been to see a doctor and the diagnosis was acute malnutrition. She had been warned if she didn’t take care of the condition she could die. “When do I stop beating my head against this wall, Tommy? She asked him rhetorically. The thought of getting on the train to go to work exhausted her. “I came out here to crack Chicago,” she confessed. “But Chicago has cracked me.” She decided right then to wire her parents and ask them for help.

She vowed to herself that once she was well she’d get right back in the game – nothing would deter her for long.

Francis’s parents, Walter and Betty Sue, met their daughter and grandson at the train. It had been a long, hard trip back to Italy, Texas where her mom and dad had decided to return a few years prior. Francis looked miserable. Betty Sue scooped Tommy up with one arm and squeezed her daughter’s neck with the other. Walter was happy to see them come home as well. Francis was unsteady on her feet, dizzy from hunger. Her mother and father took her straight to the hospital. After a two week stay she went to her parent’s home to continue recuperating.

Three months would pass before she would be on her feet again. She spent that time in bed resting. From the upstairs window of the farmhouse she watched her son playing with the animals and enjoying the sunshine. As the healthy glow returned to Francis’s cheeks, so did her desire to continue her singing career. She set her sights on musical comedies and Broadway. To start she settled for a job in radio and Louisville, Kentucky.

With Tommy in tow, Francis made the move and began work at station WHAS as one of their featured singers. She was well paid to sing popular tunes like “Shine On Harvest Moon” and “You Are My Sunshine.”

She had auditioned for the staff position using the stage name of Marion Lee. The program director disapproved of the stage name and quickly renamed her. “Your name is now Dale Evans,” he informed her. Francis was aghast. “That’s a boy’s name!” She fired back. “And what does Evans have to do with me?” He explained that the name Dale was from a silent screen actress he admired and the name Evans just had a nice ring with it. “It will be easy for the announcers to pronounce and impossible to misspell,” he concluded. She couldn’t argue with that. Francis Smith left the director’s office Dale Evans.

Monday through Friday at six thirty in the morning, announcer Joe Pierson would step up to the microphone and introduce Dale and the five-piece band she was singing with. “And now help me welcome Honey and the Flapjacks,” he would say. Dale shared the stage with many aspiring entertainers from that time, musicians who regularly played at the Grand Ole Opry. Some days the halls of the station would be flooded with ambitious performers and their instruments, guitars and fiddles as far as the eye could see, lined the walls leading into the studio. Surrounded by talent and promise, Dale Evans believed she was finally on her way, but her hardships continued.

At the end of another long, hard work day, Dale hurried home to her son. She sighed as she eyed the stairs leading to their third floor apartment. She was tired and they seemed to go on forever. The lady who looked after Tommy stood at the top of the landing waiting for Dale. She looked worried and was wringing her hands. “What’s wrong,” Dale asked? The sitter swallowed her hysteria and told her that Tommy was ill. “He’s been vomiting most of the day,” she explained. “His arms and legs have been hurting him so bad he just screams with pain,” she continued. A horrifying thought pierced Dale’s heart like a dagger. Could Tommy be suffering from polio? Kentucky was experiencing a polio epidemic that had killed or crippled hundreds of children. Dale’s face turned white. “It couldn’t be,” she whispered to herself.

The two women hurried inside the apartment and into Tommy’s room. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he rubbed his arms. Dale rushed her son to the hospital. The doctor’s agreed with Dale’s suspicions and advised that Tommy be tested for polio.

Dale waited outside of the examination room for word about her son’s condition. A spinal tap was ordered and Dale waited for the results in the hospital chapel.

“Lord,” she pleaded, “I’ll do anything…I’ll forget about show business. I’ll read my Bible every day and I’ll pray and be faithful to you. I promise to put you first in my life,” she cried. Waiting for the test results to return was agonizing. When the doctor finally told Dale the news that Tommy did not have polio, she sobbed for joy.

With Tommy safely back at home, life returned to normal. In spite of her best intentions, however, Dale gradually strayed from the bargain she’d made with God. She was fiercely devoted to her son and her career, but it would take another grave experience for her to see that Tommy was entitled to more attention. Dale’s neighbor’s daughter had been playing around a pile of burning leaves when the hem of her dress caught fire. The girl’s mother arrived home from work just in time to see her engulfed in flames. She tried to save her daughter, but it was too late. The child died en route to the hospital. Dale feared something like that happening to Tommy in her absence. After careful consideration, she decided to relocate her family to the place Tommy had been the most happy.

Walter and Betty Sue again welcomed their daughter and grandson home. Tommy was in his element. He thrived on the wide open spaces and the extended family that showered him with affection. Feeling much more secure about her son’s welfare, Dale set out to look for work. She found employment at WFAA radio in Dallas as the lead singer for a band that performed on “The Early Bird” program.

“The Early Bird” show featured a variety of acts from orchestras to comedians, and Dale entertained the live studio audience with renditions of popular tunes like “Mockingbird Hill” and “If I Only Had a Nickel.” Listeners enjoyed her singing and in a short time she had created a following. Her regional popularity was given a boost in August 1938 when she appeared on the cover of Rural Radio magazine. Offers for work poured in. She accepted engagements to sing at posh dinner and country clubs and at hotels with full orchestra. And then a gentlemen came calling…

Robert Butts was a pianist and orchestral arranger who had become interested in Dale when they met in Louisville. He was making his way to the West Coast via Dallas when he phoned and asked if Dale would see him when he was in town. She happily agreed. Robert was immensely talented and Dale shared his musical abilities with the manager of WFAA.

Not long after his arrival, Robert was hired on as a pianist and arranger for the station.

Dale lived in Dallas during the week and traveled to Italy on the weekends to spend time with Tommy, her brother and parents. For a year and a half Dale managed to make time in Dallas and Italy for outings with Robert. In December of 1939 Robert proposed and Dale accepted. The two were married and decided to move to Chicago. She was convinced, given another chance, that she could make her mark there, but this time she gave in to her parent’s request and left Tommy with them.

Chicago wasn’t as cold and unforgiving as Dale remembered it from before. Robert was hired on as a composer-arranger for the NBC radio affiliate. Dale joined the Jay Mills Orchestra and sang jazz numbers for guests at the Edgewater Beach Hotel. She was becoming a recognizable voice in the area and was a much sought after jazz vocalist for many bands. A fact she found comforting once she realized the Jay Mills Orchestra was the wrong job for her.

Night after night Dale would sit off to one side of the stage watching the other vocalist with the Jay Mills group and serenade the dignified clientele with beautiful ballads.

The audience showered the other vocalist with applause that transcended the polite response Dale recorded for her jazz numbers. The high society patrons who frequented the hotel along the lake shore appreciated the effort, but were clearly unsatisfied. So was Dale. When she was offered a chance to audition for Anson Weeks’s popular orchestra, she jumped at the chance. Weeks had played for and recorded with some of the most famous singers of the day. Bing and Bob Crosby, Carl Ravazza and Kay St. Germaine were among the many artists who worked with the Weeks orchestra. Dale was offered the job as Anson Weeks’s lead vocalist and she immediately accepted. She prayed the move would lead her to Broadway.

An Excerpt From The Young Duke

Posted on by Chris Enss

Shy, thoughtful, overly generous, modest and compassionate – this doesn’t describe the John Wayne most people remember from the very public person he projected in the 1960s and 70s, when his body of work was filled with tough-talking, aggressive, out-for-justice characters. But articles and interviews done with him early in his career suggest John Wayne grew up as a not-so-confident, no-so-outspoken young man.

He rode into the motion picture realm in 1930 with a purposeful swagger and a hard, no-nonsense manner of speaking that epitomized the American cowboy. When the 23 year-old hard fisted, quick-shooting, daredevil accepted a summer job at Fox Films, three years prior to his first starring role in The Big Trail, he could not have foreseen the impact he would have on the film industry. After five decades in the business the gallant 6’2 actor would brand movie going audiences with an indelible image and would forever be recognized as a sagebrush hero.

Born on May 26, 1907, in Winterset, Iowa he was given the name Marion Michael Morrison. When he was seven his parents left the Midwest and moved to a ranch in the Mojave Desert in California.

Marion spent a great deal of time outdoors, hiking through the valley and teaching himself to ride one of the two plow horses his father owned. Just as the young boy was adjusting to life in the rural area his folks relocated to Glendale.

According to an interview Wayne did with Motion Picture Magazine in February 1931, his parents were an unhappy couple and had frequent and heated arguments. He avoided the disharmony by staying away from home. A busy young boy, he got a part time job delivering medicines and supplies for the pharmacy where his father worked and joined the Boy Scouts and YMCA.

A bit of a loner, he spent long hours exploring the neighborhood with his Airedale, Duke. The firefighters Marion befriended in the area referred to the boy as Big Duke and the Airedale as Little Duke. The nickname stuck, and his given name Marion, which he had always disliked, was replaced with one more fitting his independent personality.

Duke did extremely well in school and was involved in numerous extra-curricular activities. He was an exceptional football player, class president and a member of the drama club. In addition to his studies and athletic pursuits, Duke kept up with his various part time jobs. One of which was delivering handbills for the Palace Grand Movie Theatre.  When he wasn’t at school or work he was at the Palace.

Three or four times a week Duke would escape into the world of motion picture cowboys and Indians by watching films starring his idols, Tom Mix and Harry Carey. His appreciation for the actors and the art form grew until he was no longer content to simply enjoy the finished movie. Duke wanted to know how motion pictures were made and decided to venturing onto the lot of a silent-movie studio called the Kalem Motion Picture Company. Many well-known stars of the time like Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Helen Holmes worked at the studio. Duke was enamored with the process – the actors, set directors, camera operators and stunt performers.

Although young Duke Morrison’s had a keen interest in filmmaking his life’s ambition was to serve in the military. He was bitterly disappointed when his application to the Naval Academy was denied in 1925. A football scholarship to the University of Southern California momentarily shifted his focus off his misfortune. He tackled this new direction with gusto and verve, extensively training for games with Trojan’s coach Howard Jones.

Off of the football field, Duke was a popular student who thrived on the camaraderie of his fellow class and teammates.

He was handsome, smart and easy to get along with and whether he was attending an event at the fraternity he belonged to, or working at one of the two jobs he had to help pay his living expenses, Duke was happy. The pleasing lifestyle he enjoyed at college was in stark contrast to the tense and distraught existence he had staying with his parents. Their relationship continued to be combative and after more than 20 years of marriage, the pair decided to go their separate ways.

In 1927, at the age of 20, he would be denied another career opportunity. A severe shoulder injury sidelined the college sophomore an eventually cost him a place on the USC team and his scholarship. Once again the tenacious Duke had to make a shift in his pursuit. It was time to see if he could make a living in the movie industry he admired.

During his freshman year in college, cowboy actor Tom Mix had offered Duke a part time job at Fox Films Corporations. He worked in prop department and was considered by many of the top directors at the time to be one of the best “prop boys” in the business. A prop boy’s job was to see to it that every item an actor is required to handle in a scene is available when the director wants it.

Duke was good at his job because he could anticipate what a director would need and if the item wasn’t available, he would nail, whittle or weld a reasonable facsimile before anyone found out.

Mix felt that Duke had a future in front of the camera as well as behind. “He had shoulders like the Golden Gate bridge and the kind of pale blue eyes you find in a long riding cowboy,” Mix told Fox executives. He had Duke cast as a bit player in a few of his films and on occasion hired him to work as a stuntman. Duke had a natural aptitude for the job and wasn’t afraid to take risks to achieve the effect the directors called for.

A supporting role seemed to fit Duke just fine. He didn’t deliberately strive to be an adored movie star, but if Duke was not pursuing stardom, others saw greater roles in his future.

John Ford was the first to appreciate Duke’s physical courage on the set. During the filming of “Men Without Women” Ford hired Duke to act in the movie and used him as a stunt double as well. The script called for several sailors, trapped in a doomed vessel, to escape their death by being shot out of the torpedo tubes.

Trained divers were on hand to rescue the actors once they made it to the surface, but still the men playing the sailors refused to take part in the stunt because the conditions of the water off the coast of Catalina were too dangerous. Ford disregarded their warning and prevailed upon Duke to do the stunt. Duke eagerly obliged.

Content to work in the prop department and with no thought of ever being a screen legend, Duke accepted offers to appear in a variety of low budget films. His passion for film acting and stunt work grew and although John Ford had assured Duke his first shot at a starring role, it was director Raoul Walsh who made that happen. Walsh was searching for a tough, good-looking lead for a Western he was making called The Big Trail. Duke had all the qualities necessary for the part, but before the studio would hire him on they insisted he change his name. Fox executives selected a handle they felt sounded rugged and captured the essence of an American cowboy. Duke Morrison, now known as John Wayne, galloped into theatres on October 2, 1930.

The Big Trail was not a huge money maker for the studio, but John Wayne’s performance did not go overlooked.

Fox Films signed him as a regular contract player and for nine years Wayne twirled six guns, tossed rope, busted broncos and foiled cattle rustlers in a series of low-budget, quickie westerns. During that time he honed his skills as a stuntman, training with one of Hollywood’s finest stuntmen, Yakima Canutt. Canutt was a rodeo champion turned actor who was known for his amazing leaps from and onto horses and wagons. Together the two created a technique that made on-screen fight scenes more realistic.

By the time John Ford offered Wayne the part of John Ringo in the movie Stagecoach, the Duke had made more than 80 films and was one of the top sagebrush heroes of the screen. Stagecoach was released in March 1939 and received glowing reviews. The critics singled out Wayne’s performance, praising him for his fine and memorable work. The film changed the course of Wayne’s career and did the same for westerns as a film genre.

After the success of Stagecoach, the battle-scarred veteran of the B-Western was given the opportunity to make other pictures outside that of horse operas. Instead of searching out a big-budget movie to boost his popularity, Wayne trusted his career to his mentor, John Ford.

In 1940, he again worked with Ford, this time he played a sailor on a tramp freighter who is drugged and shanghaied in Eugene O’Neill’s dreamy tragedy, The Long Voyage Home. Wayne’s strong performance proved that he had range as an actor and reassured filmmakers that he could handle new roles.

During this time Duke was paired with some of Hollywood’s most compelling leading ladies – Marlene Dietrich, Paulette Goddard and Clair Trevor were among his costars. The on-screen chemistry he shared with those starlets and his versatility made films like Reap the Wild Wind, Dark Command, and A Lady Takes a Chance classics.

From 1943 to 1945, Wayne alternated between appearing in westerns and war epics, forever solidifying his film persona as a stalwart soldier and a champion of the range. His portrayal of Sergeant Stryker in Sands of Iwo Jima earned him an Academy Award nomination and his work in She Wore A Yellow Ribbon was hailed by critics as “spectacular and noble.”

One of the most challenging cowboy roles Wayne ever took on was that of Thomas Dunson in Red River. After seeing the movie, Ford admitted that he had underestimated Duke’s capabilities. He told Daily Variety magazine, “I didn’t know the son-of-a-bitch could act.”

Ford rewarded Duke’s efforts in Red River with an offer to play the lead in another western. The movie promised to be a wide cut above the average cowboy film, depending on human relationships for its value as well as on the customary chase.

The complex part had the potential of further enhancing Wayne’s career. On the other hand, the near villainous role of Ethan Edwards in The Searchers could threaten his top box office status. Wayne took a chance that the film and his performance would be well received by moviegoers who saw him not only as an actor, but a larger than life hero.

The Young Duke: The Early Life of John Wayne is available at bookstores everywhere.