Back in the Saddle

 

A Special Kind of Love Story

 If there was one thing that director, John Ford enjoyed, other than herding actors around like cattle of course, it was throwing parties for family and friends - good food would be served, even better drink would be in ample supply. Sentimental songs would be sung, stories  told and reportedly a good time would be had by all. 

 

It was at one such gathering in 1941 that John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara first met and theirs would be a friendship that was lifelong. Of course, there were numerous reports and speculation that the two were having a romantic relationship; those rumours have never really gone away.There have been claims that while Wayne was married to his third wife, Pilar Palette he was also in a love affair with O'Hara.

 This was something that both John Wayne and Maureen O' Hara denied, both of them saying that their relationship was based on friendship....a very special kind of friendship. 

So even if the romantic element is taken out of the picture, there is little doubt that theirs was a love story; a very special kind of love story.

 

'Duke and I were not just friends. We were best friends.' Maureen O'Hara

'There is only one woman who has been my friend over the years, and by that I mean a real friend, like a man would be. That woman is Maureen O'Hara,' John Wayne 

 

 

When the pair first met,at a John Ford party they were both riding high - Wayne had finally shaken off the shackles of the B-movie after the success of  Stagecoach, and O'Hara was about to star in John Ford's How Green was my Valley.

 

QUICK TRIVIA - How Green Was My Valley -  based on the novel by Richard Llewellyn was actually based on my own home of Gilfach Goch. Llewellyn, actually an Englishman was of Welsh descent and used to spend a lot of time as a child at his grandfather's home in Gilfach Goch. The village in his novel was very much based on my home village. In fact we have a blue plaque on the village hall commemorating this fact 

 

 

You can check out a prose poem about my village in video form HERE

They became instant friends, and would often meet socially and finally in the early 1950's John Ford persuaded the pair to take the leads in a project he was developing called, The Quiet Man. This quirky Irish romance was a dream project for Ford but the powers that be were not keen, and would only agree to finance the movie if Ford would first film a western, Rio Grande which was guaranteed to make money at the box office.

This was the first time Wayne and O'Hara would star together on screen and the chemistry between the two was intense - the film, the third in Ford's Cavalry trilogy, is recognized as a stone cold classic of the genre. 

 'We loved working with each other. Working with John Wayne was comfortable for me.' Maureen O'Hara.

 

The Quiet Man followed and was a huge success, grossing $3.8 million in the first year and many times that since. Even the critics were wowed by Wayne and O' Hara together on screen.

 

 'Beautifully filmed.Wayne works well under Ford's direction.' Variety

 

"A delightful and rollicking comedy melodrama of Irish life, directed with skill and acted with gusto by a fine cast." Harrison's Reports 

"Director John Ford and star John Wayne depart the Western for the Irish countryside, and the result is a beautifully photographed, often comedic romance."  ^{91% APPROVAL RATING Rotten Tomatoes}

 

 

The pair's friendship was based on shared values - both believed in professionalism and hard work. Neither of them were divas and both seemed to recognize these traits in each other.

 

They remained friends, both of them laughing off press speculation that there was more to their relationship that the platonic, and they would be reunited on screen in 1957 Wings of Eagles, and then again in 1963 for the quite silly but excellent, comedy western McLintock. Loosely, based on The Taming of the Shrew the movie is in a sense, The Quiet Man out West. 

The movie, which is actually in the public domain thanks to an oversight when the copyright was not renewed is great fun. And you get to see Wayne spanking O'Hara!

 Off-Screen they remained friends - O'Hara often visited Wayne and the pair would take trips on Wayne's yacht, The Wild Goose.

 The pair worked on screen together for one final time in 1971's Big Jake - a solid late period Wayne western. In November 1976 O'Hara appeared in an NBC show entitled, An All-Star Tribute to John Wayne, where she serenaded the Duke with the song, 'I've grown accustomed to his Face,'

 

 

 

The pair became even closer in Wayne's final years and in April 1979 O'Hara flew to Wayne's bedside to spend time with the dying actor. The pair went down memory lane, talking of old times and when O'Hara left she was sadly aware that she would never see Wayne again.

Wayne died on 11 June 1979, and O'Hara, who would outlive him by more than a quarter of a century never forgot her old friend, Duke. In her 2004 autobiography she wrote that Duke's death knocked her on her rear and sent her into a depression that lasted years.

 

So was there ever a romance between the two? Who knows! Though make no mistake theirs was a true love story....a very special kind of love story. 

 

 

Are Blogs dead in the water?

 I'm reviving this blog, after several years of inactivity. There was a time when this blog was vibrant; both in terms of readers and posts. Is there anyone out there still interested in reading the ramblings of an aging western nut?

Ride the High Country

 

Dry January now in the rear view

 

January 31st - I've done it, gone the full month without a drink. I've smashed dry January. Do I feel proud of myself? Well, sort of but put it in perspective - it's not as if I've done something that will benefit us all like kicking the fat knight and his hypocritical cod-communists out of Downing Street, nor have I saved the world from totalitarianism by dismantling the insidious wokery machine. What I have done is proven something to myself. I'm not an alcoholic, just someone who drank a little too much. I always suspected that was the case, but there were moments when...well....

Prior to my Dry January challenge I'd drank every night for a decade or so, and what started out as a glass of whisky every night before bed, eventually turned into a couple, a few, a few more and then too fucking many. It got to the point where it was detrimental to my real work, my writing. Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Dylan Thomas, Dorothy Parker, Eugene O'Neill, Hunter S. Thompson, and Raymond Carver may been have been able to create when sloshed but I just ended up slumped over the keyboard.

I plan to have a glass tonight to celebrate and going forward I'm going to reset my drinking - start to once again appreciate the complex, nuanced drink that is the water of life and not submerge myself in its intoxicating depths. I've been there and sometimes it can be hard to surface again.

Anyway my new book - A Dark History of Whisky - is out at the end of this month, so expect daily whiskey/whisky postings as I promote the tome. So anyway, that's it for now from this born again appreciator of fine spirits. Now, where did I leave the that glencairn glass?

BOOK REVIEW - FOLLOW YOU HOME MARK EDWARDS

W H SMITH ON ITS LAST LEGS

 It's sad but not a surprise to hear that W H Smith is in trouble, and will likely vanish from the High Street - My own local store in Pontypridd vanished shortly before Christmas and to be honest has been going down hill for some considerable time. There was a time when I never came out of the store without buying something - a magazine or two, maybe a book or, and it's not that long ago, a discounted DVD box set.

Though over recent years I've boought less and less from the store - some of it is admittedly becuase I could get books cheaper on Amazon, but by far the biggest reason is that Smiths just didn't carry the variety they once did. And as for magazines - well, they were moved about so much that if you were in a rush you didn't have time to find what you wanted. Blame online shopping, blame eBooks, blame what you want but the facts are that Smiths failed to be store worth browsing in. IIt was overly expensive - particularly for stationary and well it wasn't what it once was, but then so few things are.

I can still recall the days when my local town of Pontypridd boasted not only a W H Smith but a John Menzies too -  I think Menzies went in the early 90's or thereabouts and now it looks as if good old W H Smith is going the same way.

Both were great bookshops, newsagents and sellers of all sorts of other entertainment - there was a time when they stocked LP Records, cassettes, video tapes, CD's, DVD's as well as having a varied magazine selection. Of course when Menzies went, W H Smith largely acquired their shops but now a few decades later Smiths is also going the way of Mothercare, Woolworths and the dodo. 

The High Street these days seems to be charity shops, vape stores and Kebab places.

It's sad but proper newsagents seem to have vanished - these day magazines and newspapers are sold in supermarkets, garages and corner shops but there is far less of a selection.

The death of the High Street, scream the newspaper headlines and they're not far from the mark.

RIP W H Smith...you will be missed.