In the not so very long ago I started a talk in a properly sombre way with the single sentence: “Yakima Canutt is dead!” Now don’t think I didn’t calculate the shock value of a line lamenting the death of a man that probably not one listener in 10,000 had ever heard of. It was, […]
Read MoreJohn Wayne Dedication
WASHINGTON, D.C., The Mall – The U.S. Army, along with the U.S.O./Washington Region, dedicated the 2nd prototype of the newest multi-million dollar weapon in our defense arsenal. Or, was it in the billions? The Comanche RAH-66, covered by a white tent lest it get wet before its first flight!, was uncovered last night by Country […]
Read MorePhoenix man buys former John Wayne feedlot
Phoenix man buys former John Wayne feedlot – 1997, The Tucson Citizen STANFIELD – The Red River Feedyard, once owned by John Wayne, has been purchased out of bankruptcy by Phoenix-area cattleman Earl Petznick. Petznick’s Red River Cattle Limited Partnership bought the historic property, 40 miles south of Phoenix, from a creditor of Triple T […]
Read MoreA Tribute to Ben Johnson
An honest-to-goodness Oklahoma cowboy who became an Academy Award winner and World Champion Rodeo Roper (1953). Fate placed him in the film business in 1940, when he delivered horses to Howard Hughes… In 1972, when Ben Johnson walked to the stage to accept an Academy Award for best supporting actor in The Last Picture Show, […]
Read MoreBen Johnson, Oscar winner, dead at 77
MESA, Ariz. (CP) — Ben Johnson, a champion rodeo performer who appeared in many Westerns and won an Oscar for The Last Picture Show in 1971, died Monday. He was 77. The actor collapsed while visiting his mother at Leisure World in Mesa, the suburban Phoenix retirement community where they both lived. “He asked a […]
Read MoreDUKING IT OUT
‘Festival Proves That John Wayne’s Range extended Beyond the Western’ By Nick Clooney Let’s try the Hollywood word game. I say “Laurel and Hardy”, you say “Comedy.” I say “Gene Kelly”, you say “musical”. I say “John Wayne”, you say “Western”. Perhaps we should take a closer look at that last one. I ‘ve been […]
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Pat Stacy Donahugh; Assistant, Companion to John Wayne
Pat Stacy Donahugh, 53, companion to John Wayne who wrote a book about their years together. Before her marriage to Richard Donahugh in 1982, Pat Stacy worked as an assistant to the fabled actor and became his companion in the last years of his life. She later published her book, “Duke, a Love Story.” A […]
Read MoreJohn Wayne’s Daughter, Friend Attacked
Aissa Wayne, daughter of the late actor John Wayne, and her financier companion were threatened with death after being attacked and brutally beaten in his $3-million Newport Beach estate, she said Tuesday. Wayne, 32, and Roger W. Luby, 52, were followed into his electronically gated Newport Beach estate Monday morning by two gunmen, who bound […]
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Good Times, Bad Times : John Wayne’s Wife Pilar Says She Wrote Book to Protect an Image, Tell Children Real Story
They met on a movie set on the edge of a Peruvian jungle in 1952. She was Pilar Pallete, an exotically beautiful young Peruvian movie actress with one movie to her credit and a failed eight-month marriage to an American airline executive behind her. He was John Wayne, the ruggedly handsome, middle-aged American movie star […]
Read More‘Duke,’ an American Hero
By RICHARD F. SHEPARD In more than 200 films made over 50 years, John Wayne saddled up to become the greatest figure of one of America’s greatest native art forms, the western. The movies he starred in rode the range from out-of-the-money sagebrush quickies to such classics as “Stagecoach” and “Red River.” He won an […]
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