Joseph Stalin was a big movie buff and a huge fan of American Westerns, which he regularly screened for the Soviet elite during his reign of terror.
However, the communist dictator was bothered by John Wayne’s powerful embodiment of America, having been warned by Russian film director Sergei Gerasimov about the Hollywood star’s great cultural influence.
Speaking exclusively with Express.co.uk, Duke’s son Ethan Wayne told us: “I think his films made the American idea very palatable to a broad swath of the world, and it was anti-communist.”
As a result, Stalin wanted the actor assassinated, ordering KGB agents to carry out the hit around 1949. However, they were no match for Duke.
According to Michael Munn’s John Wayne: The Man Behind the Myth, Wayne survived a number of attempts on his life. Duke’s stuntman buddy Yakima Canutt even “saved his life once” during the early 1950s. When the FBI first discovered that Soviet agents had been sent to Hollywood to kill Wayne, they offered the star protection. However, Duke told the G-men that he would just deal with the KGB hitmen himself, should they show up, as “No commie’s gonna frighten me”. It then transpired that alongside screenwriter Jimmy Grant, Wayne had planned to abduct his would-be assassins, drive them to a beach and there “stage a mock execution to frighten them.”
The historian doesn’t exactly know what happened after this altercation, but the rumour was that the two KGB men defected and ended up staying in the US to work for the FBI. Even after this assassination attempt, Duke didn’t bother with FBI protection; not even letting his family know about the threat so they wouldn’t worry. Instead, the American icon moved to a house surrounded by a huge wall for increased security. He also relied on his stuntmen friends, who infiltrated American communist cells, to inform him of future attempts on his life. According to Munn: “He then gathered all the stuntmen, went to the communist meetings, and had a huge fight.” This is when Canutt saved Wayne’s life. But it wasn’t the end of his troubles, as there was another attempt on Duke’s life by a communist cell in Mexico when he was filming 1953’s Hondo, which was released the year that Stalin finally died.
Ethan Wayne told us: “Stalin actually had a hit out on John Wayne for a number of years. But then when [his successor] Khrushchev came in, the first thing he wanted to do when he came to meet with the US president in 1959 was [go to Disneyland and] meet John Wayne.” Although President Eisenhower didn’t let the new Soviet premier see the Mickey Mouse theme park on his visit to Los Angeles, he did organise for the Russian dictator to have an audience with Duke at a Hollywood stars luncheon.
Talking Wayne’s arm and walking him over to the bar, a beaming Khrushchev told the actor via his interpreter: “I’m told that you like to drink and that you can hold your liquor.” According to the LA Times, Duke confirmed this before the pair matched each other shot for shot as they “compared the virtues of Russian vodka and Mexican tequila.” It was during their conversation that the Soviet leader told the Western star of the KGB assassination attempts on his life: “That was a decision of Stalin during his last five mad years. When Stalin died, I rescinded that order.”
Ethan Wayne, who was promoting the official museum John Wayne: an American Experience, added: “It went from somebody who wanted to kill him to somebody who wanted to know him. And what was John Wayne? John Wayne, that character, what he represented on screen to people was quintessentially American ideals, values and character. Duke Morrison was just a human being, but that’s what he did well. It’s like people now, they want to have a franchise of Superman or whatever these Marvel things are so they can make multiple movies on the same subject. But John Wayne had through the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s. He became John Wayne. And John Wayne was really the American ideal of what a man should be. And he spoke about it openly. He said he wanted to be the man who the guy wanted to have as a best friend and who the girl wanted to marry, who the dad wanted to have as a son, the son wanted to have as the Father.”
John Wayne: An American Experience is open now in Fort Worth, Texas and tickets can be purchased here.
