John Wayne stood up to a “furious” John Ford to stop him from firing his co-star on the set of one of their classic early movies together.
John Wayne’s collaborative partnership with director John Ford is the stuff of Hollywood legend.
The pair had regular actors they liked to work with including Ward Bond, whose career with them was almost cut short after enraging the filmmaker on an early movie together.
This past week marks the 94th anniversary of 1929’s Salute, about an American football rivalry of the Army-Navy Game.
The film was Wayne and Bond’s first Ford movie with speaking roles and Duke was responsible for assembling a group of USC football players for the cast, one of which was Bond.
However, the latter was almost fired from the set and has Wayne to thank for saving his job.
Ford would become furious with Bond after discovering that the actor was constantly ordering steak and drinks from his hotel room service, so dismissed him from set.
Nevertheless, Wayne stood up to the director and forced him to keep Bond on, which led to a lifelong friendship and regular collaboration between the two actors.
During filming on The Searchers, Wayne nailed a take only for Ford to become “supremely irritated” after discovering that the camera had stopped working during the scene.
It turns out Bond had pulled the plug so he could charge his electric razor, something that was kept secret from the director.
In fact, he only found out years later after the actor died. And upon hearing the news from his cinematographer, Ford’s “face turned white. He was uncharacteristically speechless because he didn’t have his favourite horse’s ass to kick around anymore.”