THE DUKE
Dear Readers, if you have your Marmalade Sandwich packed
inside your hat and you are ready to leave Paddington Station, you are a fine
Bear indeed…
A wisp of warm air pushes itself through the melancholy of
the day, I find myself done with what needs to be done, and I have some time, I
like it when time stands still, well away from the machines making all the
modern music of the day, no rushing around, and drifting to the era of
yesteryear again.
Its lunchtime and I must refuel, not you understand because
my gentle frame needs it, more because you know, foods good right?
Often people ask me who I would like to have lunch with
living, or thereafter passed to the other side, probably because they know that
I have wandered aimlessly through a cemetery or three.
Today feels no different, I’m in Newport Beach just outside Costa
Mesa it’s a beautifully warm day, the Southern California it never rains here
kind of day, that Cass Elliott and John Phillips warned us about.
I’m fortunate I realize, not everyone can do this, but instead of
pulling out a book and starting to read, I really will read a book sometime
soon, I decide that an adventure is nigh.
Short traipses during the day can be wonderful mind
excursions, and as that wisp of warm air grasps me, I picture myself as
Lieutenant Yorke riding across the Rio Grande in 1897,
Hollywood lasts forever in our minds and whether its one of
the Trio of films made in the 50’s by John Ford as he directed a young Marion
Morrison through his paces in “Fort Apache”, “Rio Grande” and “She wore a Yellow Ribbon” or by the fact that Southern
California is in fact the final resting place of these greats, I never did get
to meet him and shake his hand, wouldn’t that have been great, for this curious
pilgrim.
My old boss told a story that I think depicts the great Duke
so well. He was sitting in the Beverly Hills Hotel when he heard a helicopter
land in the garden, he got up to see who it was and out stepped all 6 ft 4” of
John Wayne in full Cowboy wear, revolver at the waist, as Wayne strolled to the
Hotel he caught sight of my boss who had just finished filming a movie himself
called “Alfie” stepped closer and said, “son you will be a star, but if you
want to stay one, remember talk low, talk slow and don’t say too much”
Words I believe John Wayne himself lived by.
Born probably tipping cows in Iowa on May 26th
1907, by the name of Marion Robert Morrison, his family moved to Glendale CA
where he went to high school, before going to USC on a football scholarship (
he had to leave school and lose his financing when he broke his collar bone
surfing)
He was friends with Tom Mix a silent movie star from the
20’s who introduced him to Wyatt Earp (yeah that one)... see these Hollywood
stories are so cool when you dig in..., and his slow drawl persona of talk low,
talk slow and don’t say much, was modeled on Earp himself, oh I wish I could
have been there to see this….
A chain smoker, a drunk, married three times, seven kids,
lung cancer survivor in 1964, Oscar winner for True Grit, Freemason,
Republican, kept his yacht in Newport Harbor called the Wild Goose, ranked 13th
all time male screen legend by AFI ( American Film Institute), a gentleman,
generous to a fault, a true patriot and he made over 170 movies… Gee I’m
exhausted, why is all this in my head, I guess I have read some books in my
time !!
Wayne passed away in Los Angeles on June 11th
1979 at the age of 72 from stomach cancer, he was buried in Pacific View
Memorial Park in Corona Del Mar, Newport Beach, that’s where I am now, sitting
next to the now marked final resting place of the big man himself, this spot laid unmarked by his family for over 20
years, now with a beautiful bronzed plaque, classically laden riding his horse in the wild west and the words of the man himself quoted from an interview he did with Playboy...
“tomorrow is the most important thing in life, comes
to us at midnight very clean, its perfect when it comes to us and it puts
itself in our hands, it hopes we’ve learned something from yesterday”
There is something peaceful as I spend my lunch break with
“the man who shot liberty Valance” ( the first time he ever uttered the word
pilgrim) and also something ironic that the last film he made called “The
Shootist” in 1976 he played a man dying of cancer.
If you have a few moments go have a sandwich with this
Hollywood legend, see if your memories of Saturday afternoon westerns, and
playing with your pretend colt 45’s in the back garden are sprung back to life.
As we find time waits for no man, I’m now whistling down the
beautiful Southern Californian coast, waves crash, and in my winds eye I see
Marion Morrison give me a wink as he dives his board under the curling spray of
the pacific ocean, did that just happen…
#bennysantiniproductions #grahamsataconcertagain
Pictures by Benny Santini Productions
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