'John Wayne made real movies. There ain't no queer in cowboy'

Jim-Bob Zimmerschied is not a happy cowboy. "They've gone and killed John Wayne with this movie," he says angrily, beer in hand. "I've been doing this job all my life and I ain't never met no gay cowboy. It wouldn't be right."

The target of Mr Zimmerschied's outburst is Brokeback Mountain, the Hollywood Western-with-a-twist that opens in London this week and is already being tipped for Oscar success.

The "gay cowboy flick", as it has been dubbed in America, is directed by Ang Lee and stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal as two young ranch hands who begin a long-term love affair in 1963 against the stunning backdrop of Wyoming's mountains and prairies.

American critics have enthused about the film, which has topped box office takings per cinema since its limited release in large cities last month.

But the subject matter has earned condemnation from the religious Right - and caused considerable distress in rural Wyoming, bastion of the cowboy culture of unadulterated machismo.

In Sheridan, in the heart of Marlboro Country, where ranchers and cowboys still walk the streets, the Western flavour remains authentic.

Buffalo Bill used to hold auditions for his Wild West Show on the porch of the Sheridan Inn and Custer's Last Stand was fought at the nearby Little Bighorn.

On Sheridan's Main Street, the Mint Bar is a rough and ready institution with a large neon sign of a cowboy riding a bucking bull outside and the heads of stuffed moose, elk and buffalo lining the wooden walls within.

It was here that the writer Annie Proulx had the inspiration for the short story on which the film is based. It was "generated by years and years of subliminal observation," she said in a recent interview. "But the incident that actually made me start writing it was one night when I was the Mint Bar. There was a ranch hand I used to see. This guy was back leaning against the wall by the pool tables. The bar was packed with good-looking women, and he wasn't looking at them - he was watching the guys. He was about 60, and he watched them with a kind of subdued hunger that made me wonder if he was country gay." The film has yet to play in Sheridan and the cinema manager says only that he "might" screen it. If he does, the audience is likely to be limited.

Flushed by Bud Lite, Mr Zimmerschied, a squat walrus-moustachioed man in a hat and check shirt, was in full flow. "John Wayne and Will Rogers, they made real cowboy movies. They portrayed us like we are. There ain't no queer in cowboy and I don't care for anyone suggesting there is."

When he was distracted by one of the two bar-room brawls - both apparently unrelated to the Brokeback Mountain issue - an even drunker young man stepped up to the plate. "If you gave me the choice between watching that movie and being hung by the neck, I'd tie the noose myself," he slurred.

But away from the bellicose posturing, a more subtle view emerged. Dave Miller, 48, a rancher in regulation black cowboy hat, leather waistcoat, blue jeans and boots, said: "It's not the sort of movie that I'd go to see, but this is America and people can watch whatever they want." Nonetheless, he repeated the common refrain that he had never encountered a gay cowboy. "Well, not that I knew," he added. "I just don't think our way of life is conducive to them." And like many others, his concern was that the film would give the wrong impression of life in the West.

Samantha Foster, who moved to Sheridan from cosmopolitan Seattle after marrying a local, was one of the few who said she would go to see the film. "I think it's an age thing and a sex thing," she said. "The older generation don't accept this sort of thing and it makes a lot of men uneasy.

Her husband, Jeremy, seemed less sure. "I wouldn't want to be seen going to see that film. I don't want people to get the wrong impression. I might watch it on DVD, I guess," he said.

One woman quietly disclosed that one of the area's biggest ranchers had a lesbian daughter. "It's just that nobody talks about it," she whispered.

While the patrons in the Mint Bar may be convinced that they have never met a homosexual cowboy, the popularity of the gay rodeo circuit in America is proof that they exist. "I was born gay and I was born a cowboy," said Mike Yocum, a rodeo enthusiast from Oklahoma.

"I grew up in a saddle. It's horsesh*t to say there's no such thing as a gay cowboy, but it's a very touchy subject."

Few want to go public in Wyoming. An exception is Derek Glover, 33, a rancher's son who lives in the small town of Lusk. "Folks round here just don't believe that cowboys can be gay," he said. "I wish people could be a little more open-minded, but I don't see that happening for a long time. It makes me mad that they don't approve of me, but what can I do? I'm just one person. This is smalltown America. I don't think this movie's going to make any difference."

Just north of Sheridan, Padlock Ranch is one of the 10 biggest cattle farms in America and stretches out beneath the snow-capped Bighorn mountain range.

Lee Hagel, 47, who was herding cattle there last week, had his own objections to the film. "They aren't even cowboys - they're sheep herders," he said witheringly. "You can't just put a hat on someone and say they're a cowboy."

And for pragmatic reasons, he is also troubled by plans to market Wyoming to gay holidaymakers. "We got a big influx of tourists after the Urban Cowboy film came out and all that happened was prices for boots and hats doubled as they were buying them all up. Let's hope that doesn't happen again."

Meanwhile, one Mint Bar regular offered a suggestion for another film about same-sex romance on the range. "A movie about two women would be different," he said. "I wouldn't mind that at all."

Unforgettable
John Wayne

by Ronald Reagan
courtesy of Readers Digest - October 1979

We called him DUKE, and he was every bit the giant off screen he was on.
Everything about him-his stature, his style, his convictions-conveyed
enduring strength, and no one who observed his struggle in those final
days could doubt that strength was real. Yet there was more. To my wife,
Nancy, "Duke Wayne was the most gentle, tender person I ever knew."

In 1960, as president of the Screen Actors' Guild, I was deeply embroiled
in a bitter labor dispute between the Guild and the motion picture
industry. When we called a strike, the film industry unleashed a series of
stinging personal attacks on me - criticism my wife found difficult to
take.

At 7:30 one morning the phone rang and Nancy heard Duke's booming voice:
"I've been readin' what these damn columnists are saying about Ron. He can
take care of himself, but I've been worrying about how all this is
affecting you." Virtually every morning until the strike was settled
several weeks later, he phoned her. When a mass meeting was called to
discuss settlement terms, he left a dinner party so that he could escort
Nancy and sit at her side. It was, she said, like being next to a force
bigger than life.

Countless others were also touched by his strength. Although it would take
the critics 40 years to recognize what John Wayne was, the movie going
public knew all along. In this country and around the world, Duke was the
most popular box-office star of all time. For an incredible 25 years he
was rated at or around the top in box-office appeal. His films grossed
$700 million-a record no performer in Hollywood has come close to
matching. Yet John Wayne was more than an actor; he was a force around
which films were made. As Elizabeth Taylor Warner stated last May when
testifying in favor of the special gold medal Congress struck for him: "He
gave the whole world the image of what an American should be."

Stagecoach to Stardom
He was born Marion Michael Morrison in Winterset, Iowa. When Marion was
six, the family moved to California. There he picked up the nickname Duke
- after his Airedale. He rose at 4 a.m. to deliver newspapers, and after
school and football practice he made deliveries for local stores. He was
an A student, president of the Latin Society, head of his senior class and
an all-state guard on a championship football team.

Duke had hoped to attend the U.S. Naval Academy and was named as an
alternate selection to Annapolis, but the first choice took the
appointment. Instead, he accepted a full scholarship to play football at
the University of Southern California. There coach Howard Jones, who often
found summer jobs in the movie industry for his players, got Duke work in
the summer of 1926 as an assistant prop man on the set of a movie directed
by John Ford.

One day, Ford, a notorious taskmaster with a rough-and-ready sense of
humor, spotted the tall USC guard on his set and asked Duke to bend over
and demonstrate his ball stance. With a deft kick, knocked Duke's arms
from his body and the young athlete on his face. Picking himself Duke said
in that voice which then commanded attention, "Let's try that once again."
This time Duke sent Ford flying. Ford erupted in laughter, and the two
began a personal and professional friendship which would last a lifetime.

From his job in props, Duke worked his way into roles on the screen.
During the Depression he played in grade-B westerns until John Ford
finally convinced United Artists to give him the role of the Ringo Kid in
his classic film Stagecoach. John Wayne was on the road to stardom. He
quickly established his versatility in a variety of major roles: a young
seaman in Eugene O'Neill's - The Long Voyage Home, a tragic captain in
Reap the Wild Wind, a rodeo rider in the comedy - A Lady Takes a Chance.

When war broke out, John Wayne tried to enlist but was rejected because of
an old football injury to his shoulder, his age (34), and his status as a
married father of four. He flew to Washington to plead that he be allowed
to join the Navy but was turned down. So he poured himself into the war
effort by making inspirational war films - among them The Fighting
Seabees, Back to Bataan and They Were Expendable. To those back home and
others around the world he became a symbol of the determined American
fighting man.

Duke could not be kept from the front lines. In 1944 he spent three months
touring forward positions in the Pacific theater. Appropriately, it was a
wartime film, Sands of Iwo Jima which turned him into a superstar. Years
after the war, when Emperor Hirohito of Japan visited the United States,
he sought out John Wayne, paying tribute to the one who represented our
nation's success in combat.
As one of the true innovators of the film industry, Duke tossed aside the
model of the white-suited cowboy/good guy, creating instead a tougher,
deeper-dimensioned western hero. He discovered Monument Valley, the film
setting in the Arizona - Utah desert where a host of movie classics were
filmed. He perfected the choreographic techniques and stuntman tricks
which brought realism to screen fighting. At the same time he decried
blood and gore in films. He would say. "It's filth and bad taste."
"I Sure As Hell Did!"
In the 1940s, Duke was one of the few stars with the courage to expose the
determined bid by a band of communists to take control of the film
industry. Through a series of violent strikes and systematic blacklisting,
these people were at times dangerously close to reaching their goal. With
theatrical employee's union leader Brewer, playwright Morrie and others,
he formed the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American
Ideals to challenge this insidious campaign. Subsequent Congressional
investigations in I947 clearly proved both the communist plot and the
importance of what Duke and his friends did.

In that period, during my first term as president of the Actors' Guild, I
was confronted with an attempt by many of these same leftists to assume
leadership of the union. At a mass meeting I watched rather helplessly as
they filibustered, waiting for our majority to leave so they could gain
control. Somewhere in the crowd I heard a call for adjournment, and I
seized on this as a means to end the attempted takeover. But the other
side demanded I identify the one who moved for adjournment.

I looked over the audience, realizing that there were few willing to be
publicly identified as opponents of the far left. Then I saw Duke and
said, "Why I believe John Wayne made the motion." I heard his strong voice
reply, "I sure as hell did!" The meeting and the radicals' campaign was
over.

Later, when such personalities as actor Larry Parks came forward to admit
their Communist Party backgrounds, there were those who wanted to see them
punished. Not Duke. "It takes courage to admit you're wrong," he said, and
he publicly battled attempts to ostracize those who had come clean.

Duke also had the last word over those who warned that his battle against
communism in Hollywood would ruin his career. Many times he would proudly
boast, "I was 32nd in the box-office polls when I accepted the presidency
of the Alliance. When I left office eight years later, somehow the folks
who buy tickets had made me number one.

Duke went to Vietnam in the early days of the war. He scorned VIP
treatment, insisting that he visit the troops in the field. Once he even
had his helicopter land in the midst of a battle. When he returned, he
vowed to make a film about the heroism of Special Forces soldiers.

The public jammed theaters to see the resulting film, The Green Berets.
The critics, however, delivered some of the harshest reviews ever given a
motion picture. The New Yorker bitterly condemned the man who made the
film. The New York Times called it "unspeakable ... rotten ... stupid."
Yet John Wayne was undaunted. "That little clique back there in the East
has taken great personal satisfaction reviewing my politics instead of my
pictures," he often said. "But one day those doctrinaire liberals will
wake up to find the pendulum has swung the other way.
Foul-Weather Friend
I never once saw Duke display hatred toward those who scorned him. Oh, he
could use some pretty salty language, but he would not tolerate pettiness
and hate. He was human all right: he drank enough whiskey to float a PT
boat, though he never drank on the job. His work habits were legendary in
Hollywood - he was virtually always the first to arrive on the set and the
last to leave.

His torturous schedule plus the great personal pleasure he derived from
hunting and deep-sea fishing or drinking and card-playing with his friends
may have cost him a couple of marriages; but you had only to see his seven
children and 21 grandchildren to realize that Duke found time to be a good
father. He often said, "I have tried to live my life so that my family
would love me and my friends respect me. The others can do whatever the
hell they please."

To him, a handshake was a binding contract. When he was in the hospital
for the last time and sold his yacht, The Wild Goose, for an amount far
below its market value, he learned the engines needed minor repairs. He
ordered those engines overhauled at a cost to him of $40,000 because he
had told the new owner the boat was in good shape.

Duke's generosity and loyalty stood out in a city rarely known for either.
When a friend needed work, that person went on his payroll. When a friend
needed help, Duke's wallet was open. He also was loyal to his fans. One
writer tells of the night he and Duke were in Dallas for the premiere of
Chisum. Returning late to his hotel, Duke found a message from a woman who
said her little girl lay critically ill in a local hospital. The woman
wrote, "It would mean so much to her if you could pay her just a brief
visit." At 3 o'clock in the morning he took off for the hospital where he
visited the astonished child and every other patient on the hospital floor
who happened to be awake.

I saw his loyalty in action many times. I remember that when Duke and
Jimmy Stewart were on their way to my second inauguration as governor of
California they encountered a crowd of demonstrators under the banner of
the Vietcong flag. Jimmy had just lost a son in Vietnam. Duke excused
himself for a moment and walked into the crowd. In a moment there was no
Vietcong flag.
Final Curtain
Like any good John Wayne film, Duke's career had a gratifying ending. In
the 1970s a new era of critics began to recognize the unique quality of
his acting. The turning point had been the film True Grit. When the
Academy gave him an Oscar for best actor of 1969, many said it was based
on the accomplishments of his entire career. Others said it was
Hollywood's way of admitting that it had been wrong to deny him Academy
Awards for a host of previous films. There is truth, I think, to both
these views.

Yet who can forget the climax of the film? The grizzled old marshal
confronts the four outlaws and calls out: "I mean to kill you or see you
hanged at Judge Parker's convenience. Which will it be?" "Bold talk for a
one-eyed fat man," their leader sneers. Then Duke cries, "Fill your hand,
you son of a bitch!" and, reins in his teeth, charges at them firing with
both guns. Four villains did not live to menace another day.

"Foolishness?" wrote Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mike Royko, describing
the thrill this scene gave him. "Maybe. But I hope we never become so
programmed that nobody has the damn-the-risk spirit."

Fifteen years ago when Duke lost a lung in his first bout with cancer,
studio press agents tried to conceal the nature of his illness. When Duke
discovered this, he went before the public and showed us that a man can
fight this dread disease. He went on to raise millions of dollars for
private cancer research. Typically, he snorted: "We've got too much at
stake to give government a monopoly in the fight against cancer."

Earlier this year, when doctors told Duke there was no hope, he urged them
to use his body for experimental medical research, to further the search
for a cure. He refused painkillers so he could be alert as he spent his
last days with his children. When John Wayne died on June 11, a Tokyo
newspaper ran the headline,
"Mr. America passes on."

"There's right and there's wrong," Duke said in The Alamo. "You gotta do
one or the other. You do the one and you're living. You do the other and
you may be walking around but in reality you're dead."
Duke Wayne symbolized just this, the force of the American will to do what
is right in the world. He could have left no greater legacy.

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