In 1959, John Wayne teamed up with his long-time collaborator and fellow conservative Hollywood star John Ford to make the director’s only complete American Civil War film.
Duke and his “The Horse Soldiers” co-star William Holden each negotiated a whopping $775,000 (nearly $8 million today), plus 20 percent of the total winnings.
That was an unheard of sum at the time, but nothing was left of it, as the film flopped at the box office and was received “mediocre” by critics and audiences. What made this failure even more painful was how incredibly difficult the film had been to make.
Not only did Holden and Ford constantly argue, there were cost overruns, serious injuries, and even a tragic death. Meanwhile, the alcoholic director was forced by his doctor to stay sober or he would die from the side effects of his drinking.
This made the filmmaker, who was notorious for being argumentative and uncompromising, all the more unbearable for Wayne, who had run out of patience.
Ford, who notoriously provoked his actors to get better performances out of them (including constantly insulting Wayne for not serving in World War II), was even harsher than usual with everyone. Although Wayne didn’t have to stop drinking, Ford demanded the same of Duke on the set of The Horse Soldiers. The star ended up begging producer Martin Rackin to briefly keep him away from the director he called Pappy.
The producer agreed and blatantly lied to Ford that Wayne and Holden’s teeth looked yellow in the film and that they would have to be taken to New Orleans to be whitened. The three then spent a night of drinking in the Crescent City and returned to the set to find an angry Ford, who had found out from his spies how many bars they had visited. Wayne had certainly needed an escape from everyday life during filming due to the personal crisis he was going through with his wife Pilar.
Pilar had become addicted to barbiturates, but Wayne had refused to put her in a private sanitarium, believing he could help her get off them on location in Louisiana. During filming, however, his wife began to hallucinate and even slit her wrists with a razor blade. At this point, Duke realized he had to admit her to a hospital in Encino, California. Incredibly, this incident was omitted from the newspapers.
Meanwhile, on the set of The Horse Soldiers, three actors, including Ford’s son Patrick, suffered broken legs. But the biggest tragedy occurred during the filming of the film’s climactic battle scene.
Veteran stuntman Fred Kennedy staged a fall from the horse for the film, but broke his neck and died. According to biographer Joseph Malham, “Ford was devastated, feeling a deep responsibility for the lives of the men who served under him.” After the tragic accident, filming was immediately halted and moved back to Hollywood. By this time, the filmmaker had completely lost interest in shooting the scripted ending, in which Wayne’s character Colonel John Marlowe and his troops arrive in Baton Rouge. In the end, he simply ended The Horse Soldiers with the lead actress saying goodbye to Hannah Hunter (Constance Towers) before crossing and blowing up a bridge to stop the Confederate advance.
Despite the ugly side of Ford’s character, he was way ahead of his time when he championed black actors in the segregated South, where the film was shot.
Ford had cast tennis champion Althea Gibson as Lukey to attract African-American audiences to The Horse Soldiers. However, her dialogue was written in an offensive and stereotypical “Negro” dialect. She then assured the director that she would not recite her lines as they were written. Although the filmmaker was usually uncompromising in his demands of his actors, he agreed and the script was changed. In addition, Ford made sure that the black extras on location in Louisiana and Mississippi were paid the same as the whites, which angered members of the segregated states.
