The Young Duke

Flamboyant, outspoken gossip columnist, Hedda Hopper approached the podium at the Hollywood American Legion and stared out over a sea of faces. The majority of the people watching her were influential leaders in the movie business who had assembled for a regular meeting of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals in April of 1951. The organization’s president, John Wayne introduced Hopper to the crowd. She had asked for a chance to address the group on a matter of profound importance. Wayne graciously accommodated her. It wasn’t unusual for members to request a moment to speak on a topic they wanted the alliance to consider. Wayne was unaware that the issue Hopper wanted to discuss was the actor himself. As a round of polite applause rose up, Duke headed back to his seat on the dais. Hopper stopped him before he could get too far away and pulled him back towards the lectern. Wayne smiled obligingly. Wayne had been a member of the Motion Picture Alliance almost from the beginning of its inception in the late 1940s when directors Sam Wood, Walt Disney, and Leo McCarey had founded the group to protect the movie profession from the perceived threat of communism life. The Communist movement was founded in 1919. The economic idea behind the organization was collective ownership of property and group labor for the common advantage. Communism was a growing political force in the United States in the 30s and 40s. At the conclusion of W.W. II, the majority of the U.S. population decided to take a stand against the repressive movement. By the late 1940s a wide-ranging anti-communist network was in place to lead the nation on a crusade against domestic communism. In October 1947, a number of suspected Communists working in the Hollywood film industry were summoned to appear before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which was investigating communist influence in Hollywood labor unions. The Motion Picture Alliance was a major force of the anti-communism network that sought to stop the impact of the party. Part of the group’s statement of principles included a commitment “to fight with every means at our organized command, any effort of any group or individual to divert the loyalty of the screen from the free America that gave it birth.” Many Hollywood actors, writer and producers were called before the HUAC. Gary Cooper, Robert Montgomery, George Murphy and Ronald Reagan testified, named names and encouraged Congress to intervene. Wayne was never asked to appear before the committee, but his idol Harry Carey was not as fortunate. Carey refused to be manipulated by the committee chair, Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy wanted those who testified to make untrue statements about fellow actors he hoped to imprison. Carey would not go along with him. His uncooperative attitude led to his own blacklisting. Many high-profile conservatives, such as Clark Gable, Gary Cooper and Ward Bond were members along with John Wayne. The majority of the members of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals were in favor of “blacklisting” or barring members of the Communist Party from jobs in the motion-picture industry both on-screen and behind the scenes. Although Wayne believed in maintaining the American ideals in film, he was not in favor of blacklisting. He felt that denying a person the right to work based on their political orientation was wrong. He was also tolerant of industry professionals once associated with the Communist Party who apologized and asked for a second chance. Wayne’s understanding attitude did not sit well with many of the members of the alliance. The majority believed the best way to fight the Communist influence was to bar party members from jobs in front of behind the screen. The situation that angered Hedda Hopper and brought Duke a fair amount of criticism concerned actor Larry Parks. In 1951, Parks had been called before the House Un-American Activities Committee and extensively questioned about his involvement with the Communist Party. He admitted to being a member of the party and expressed his deep regret over the association. He then cooperated with the committee in their quest to find out who else was involved with the movement. Parks gave the committee several names of other participants. Although he was never officially blacklisted, Columbia Pictures terminated his contract and other studios refused to work with him as well. Leaders of the House Un-American Activities Committee asked Wayne, as president of the Motion Picture Alliance, to comment on Parks’s actions. Duke’s response was not the harsh reply they expected. He called Parks’s behavior courageous and added that he needed moral support. “He should be commended as a good American.” Few in the alliance agreed with Wayne. At the Motion Picture Alliance April meeting in 1951, Hedda Hopper gave Duke a thorough tongue lashing at one of the regular meetings of the alliance. She called him a “damn fool” for supporting Larry Parks. Wayne hotly defended his position and added, “when any member of the party breaks with them, we must welcome him back into American society. We should give him friendship and help him find employment again in our industry.” The reaction from the alliance members at the end of the Hopper Wayne exchange was mixed. Some were irritated with Hedda Hopper’s open criticism of Wayne while others commended her firm position. After much discussion the conservative and liberal sides of the alliance decided that all its members would withhold any comments on the HUAC hearings until the complete facts were known. According to director John Farrow, who worked with Wayne on the movie Hondo, Duke’s politics revolved around a simple issue, “he felt protective of his country and its way of life.” In spite of the fact that Duke had a soft heart for those who had made personal mistakes, he was less forgiving of filmmakers who produced material that denounced America’s heritage and foundation, which was perhaps what motivated him to participate in the Alliance. Among the directors and producers he strongly objected to were Academy Award winners Robert Rossen and Stanley Kramer. Wayne felt that Rossen’s film All the King’s Men and Kramer’s movie High Noon were patently “un-American.” All the King’s Men is the story of the rise of politician Willie Stark. Duke believed that the majority of the characters in Rossen’s motion picture lacked moral fiber. The character of Stark was a shady leader who seems only to benefit from his corrupt ways. Duke believed that character fully demonstrated to young viewers that doing right is pointless and evil has great rewards. Duke also felt that Kramer’s High Noon possessed the “single most disrespectful act in any film to date.” At the end of the movie Gary Cooper’s character removes his United States sheriff’s badge, tosses it into the street and steps on it as he walks away. “The message was clear and disturbing to me. It was like belittling the medal of honor,” Wayne told biographer Maurice Zolotow. In an effort to counteract the negative impact of the movies Duke referred to as “protest films,” he set out to make a series of patriotic films. The four motion pictures he choose to do based on their positive political content were Flying Leathernecks and Operation Pacific, released in 1951, Big Jim McLain, released in 1952, and Jet Pilot, released in 1957. All the films were box office successes. Big Jim McLain was a specifically anti-Communist film that generated a great deal of attention not only among film-goers, but with motion picture executives and government officials. In the movie Duke plays a F.B.I. investigator working for the House Committee on Un-American Activities. When it’s learned the Communists are threatening to infiltrate Hawaii, he and his partner are sent to the islands to get evidence against the Red cells that can be used for a documented public hearing. When the film was released it instantly sparked the interest of the Federal Bureau of Investigations and specifically J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover was concerned his agency would be perceived by audiences as one that would rob citizen’s of their Civil Rights in order to build a case against citizens. After reviewing both the completed motion picture and the written screenplay, the script, F.B.I. officials were satisfied the movie had nothing to do with them. They found it to be more the story of the HUAC investigative methods. Some film critics called Big Jim McLain an “embarrassment to the film industry,” and many more liberal-minded movie goers left the theatres fuming. Although the majority of reviews for the film were poor, it was no less a financial success. At the end of the 1952 it ranked among the top 30 highest grossing movies of the year. Young Duke Wayne’s traditional ideas first took root in Iowa. His parents, neighbors and friends families were conservative, and though he had at one time considered himself a liberal, he was a registered Republican and staunchly opposed to excessive taxation, big government and politicians. He was not shy about sharing his opinion on the subject with those closest to him, but was uncomfortable publicly speaking out against any of those areas. It was that uneasiness that convinced him to turn down the Motion Picture Alliance’s initial invitation to be the group’s president in 1949. Ward Bond persuaded Wayne to rethink his position, appealing to his patriotism. Bond believed fervently, as did many other members of the motion-picture industry, that the Communist threat was very real and had crept into the making of movies. “America needs someone like you,” Bond told Duke. “The Alliance needs someone of your stature too.” Wayne reconsidered the offer, believing that it would be a great way to stand up for his country. He reasoned that if he could make a difference with the Alliance he might be able to effect change on a grander scale, but Duke had no real political ambitions for himself. He was motivated solely to serve the country he loved and help those in need. One of his associates said that Wayne was about as “political as a Bengal tiger.” In 1952, Duke supported Senator Robert Taft of Ohio’s run for President of the United States. Taft was against President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and the spending that went into funding the program and in favor of cutting taxes and putting a cap on government spending. Duke campaigned heavily for the Senator. Dwight D. Eisenhower would take the nomination and become President, but that wouldn’t end his relationship with the national political scene. According to fellow actor Ronald Reagan, “John Wayne represented the true American spirit.” The Republican Party capitalized on his influence in 1968 and called upon the star to open their convention in Miami, Florida. He was asked to deliver an inspirational reading rather than the run of the mill invocation. The speech he gave had the desired effect on the cheering crowd. He made it clear to voters that a “true commitment to American values made a difference to all United States citizens.” “This nation,” he proudly told delegates, “is more than laws and government. It’s an outlook, an attitude.” The applause at the conclusion of his speech lasted more than four minutes. John Wayne served three consecutive terms as president of the Motion Picture Alliance. He was succeeded as the head of MPA by Ward Bond. Ronald Reagan would eventually take over as president of the organization, echoing Duke’s sentiments about love for country and dedication to the American dream. The controversial investigation conducted by the HUAC resulted in the blacklisting of a large contingency of Hollywood writers, actors, directors and producers. Many never fully recovered from the social stigma attached to their names and reputation. The HUAC communist probe had a negative impact on the Motion Picture Alliance and many of its members. Industry professionals sympathetic to the plight of the individuals who bravely endured being blacklisted accused the MPA of not only being too compliant with the HUAC, but for being anti-labor, anti-Semitic, anti-women and anti-Negro. In 1975, 13 years after the House of Representatives changed the committee’s name from HUAC to the committee on Internal Society, the organization was completely abolished. The MPA disbanded at the same time. John Wayne arrived on the other side of the highly publicized “Red Scare” years virtually unscathed. Wayne’s liberal peers didn’t agree with his involvement with the MPA, but respected his conservative views and recognized him as a “fair minded individual who was not a reactionary, but a balanced, understanding man.” Most of Wayne’s fans saw him in the same light. In the midst of a troubled period in U.S. history, Wayne continued to seen by the public as a true American, a symbol of a time when men proved their worth not with words, but action.