However, the film remained with him, fearful that his public image would be tainted by seeing his face in an oxygen mask. After all, he felt it was crucial to reestablishing his tough persona after such major surgery.
Even though he was reliant on the oxygen tank, actor George Kennedy recalled that although Wayne had stopped smoking cigarettes, he continued to puff away on cigars despite now only having one lung.
The ever tenacious star also insisted on doing some of his own stunts in The Sons of Katie Elder, just four months after his operation, to show the public that he wasn’t slowing down.
This included being dragged into a river and almost catching pneumonia, but narrowly getting away with a serious cold. In fact, if you watch that scene you can hear a child crying out “Come on Dad!”
This was Wayne’s three-year-old son Ethan who was watching off-camera and knew his father wasn’t in the best of shape.
Duke shot this without a wet suit as he was already too fat for the role, something the crew were working overtime to hide.
The scene took five days to film and after one particularly freezing take, the star took some vitamin C tablets, washed down with mescal.
Spotting he’d been observed by reporters, he shook off the hit of the drink, smiled and said to them: “Goddamn! I’m the stuff men are made of!”
On Wayne’s tenacity, Dean Martin told a reporter for Time: “Someone else would have laid around, feeling sorry for himself, for a year. But Duke, he just doesn’t know how to be sick. He’s recuperating the hard way. He’s two loud-speaking guys in one. Me, when people see me, they sometimes say, ‘Oh, there goes Perry Como.’ But there’s only one John Wayne, and nobody makes any mistakes about that”.
Hathaway made sure to reshoot scenes that had too much of Wayne’s gut on display, while his makeup man kept on top of things.
This included redoing the star’s eyes, continuing to smear Nivea cream over his double chin and stying his hairpiece.
Additionally, Duke’s trainer Ralph Volkie would rub the star’s aching muscles with Absorbine Jr pain relief which made the set smell.
Nevertheless, it all paid off and the director’s wish for America to see John Wayne as they had known him worked a treat.