#627 Inside "The Duke" JOHN WAYNE'S "WILD GOOSE" WWII Navy Ship / House Boat (4/25/2018)

[Music] well good morning Lionhearts your old pal Jordan the lion I am super excited today I've been kind of taunting and teasing you guys with this all week and today is our day let me tell you what we're gonna do today and how it happened the other day I opened up an email it's from Hornblower Hornblower wrote me a message and said we like what you're doing would you like to come and tour John Wayne's yacht on Monday John Wayne lived on a houseboat and owned a houseboat for about 18 years of his life sold it shortly before he died he had some of his most precious moments and some of his favorite moments of all time on this boat in fact when he knew he was gonna die he convalesced on this boat so it's quite an honor we're gonna get a see they're gonna basically just let us to wear the whole boat how exciting is that John Wayne's wild goose days with Jordan the lion begins now now the houseboat that we're gonna see today is actually a converted World War 2 Naval minesweeper the ship is still docked in Newport Beach so that's where we're headed today [Music] well here we are the Porta Marina where for almost 18 years John Wayne would set sail in between making and starring in a hundred and forty seven movies today we get to see his true love and joy the wild goose now like I said this was a decommissioned naval ship but John Wayne was not the original owner when they decommissioned it a billionaire me named max Wyman bought it turned it into a houseboat and then when he got tired of it John Wayne was looking to upgrade from the bode already had saw this and purchased it now when I see this was John Wayne's boat I truly mean this was John Wayne's boat because John Wayne was six foot four and so it wasn't too long after buying this boat that he would have to have the ceilings raised so that he wouldn't have to walk through with his head tilted at an angle from bumping his head on the ceilings well my friend thanks to Hornblower we get to tour this beautiful ship today as promised we're going inside John Wayne's World the wild goose there she is John Wayne didn't even name this max Wyman's actually the man who named it the wild goose - and then once John Wayne bought it he just took the two off and kept it the wild goose all right well I was just showing around and given free rein to let you guys see everything so let's go now let me tell you why this is so exciting for me also because every year at this time of the year John Wayne's birthday they do a cruise that anybody can pay and ride on this boat so if you get excited and you want to do this on your own you're near Orange County you too can ride the wild goose well as soon as you come on board you're greeted by the wild goose plaque as well as letting you know if this is now a historical landmark now let's take a walk around now like I said this is converted for dinner cruises when what they do is they actually take you on the same exact route the John Wayne would have taken out here he had a house not too far from here had the boat dock there most of the time and loved to go up and down the Newport Coast so you can really live it out now this was the bar area how cool is that and then check out all the details like the wood detail now there's that beautiful bar and they've basically told me hey go anywhere you want so we're gonna go down into the engine room we're going to show you his bedroom his kids bedroom look at that intricate woodwork and that great just think you being the bartender here serving John Wayne right there now we're gonna go ahead and we're gonna leave the bar room and instead of going upstairs which we will go pretty soon we're gonna go around I'm going to show you one of the Dukes favorite rooms this was where he used to play bridge John Wayne was an avid bridge player in fact when I read the book about Rock Hudson when Rock Hudson got one of his first roles it was with John Wayne and when he showed up on set John Wayne was always playing bridge on set always playing cards with people always looking for people to sit in and play cards and he invited draw Hudson to sit down and play when he was still known as Roy and they became fast friends and were friends for the rest of their life now what I read online was that when John Wayne started getting sicker instead of going upstairs to his bedroom since he would spend so much time in here playing cards and playing bridge can you just imagine him sitting in any one of these chairs day after day they said literally in an interview that he would wake up a lot of times do his work out whatnot and then he would play bridge most of the day until he would go to bed about 8:00 p.m. so he would spend his I guess years when he was failing in health instead of going up to his bedroom a lot of times he would just lay there and take a nap there now this mural this has a great story as well because he loved battleship scenes and when he originally got the boat that wasn't there so what he did was at the studio that he was working at he had them make a printout basically what this is is this is the same image cut in half and just duplicated he had them do you know a massive black and white version of this had it put on here and then had one of his buddies at the studio who was a an art director and art worked in the art department come out and hand paint it isn't that great look at he loved that kind of stuff and once we get up to his bedroom you'll see there's something very similar to this there as well here you can see some of the old the old naval specs and different things from from when it was a naval ship now one of the things that he was so great about also was that John Wayne respected the fact this was a naval ship and did everything he could to anytime there was any kind of maintenance needed he kept it in the exact same vein as what the naval requirements were or kept it in the same vein and didn't really update it and check this out now he didn't when he lived on board he didn't have a lot of photos of himself from what I understand he had family photos and things like that but not really many of himself however a lot of these were painted by either Frank Terrell or his wife Pilar so you'll see some of them as we walk around you'll see pilars name in the the corner but just because Hornblower owns it now they have so many John Wayne events they've put all these different John Wayne movie posters up lining the room that one was done by Pilar you can see actually right there it says her name Pilar Wayne and there she is that's an original instrument from the boat now gotta love this isn't this such a treat now let's go ahead and let's take a walk upstairs actually this will take us let's do this first this takes you into what was the galley and then from here we can go down into the engine room so I'm sure he would have had many snacks and meals prepared for him here but let's go take a look down into the engine we are so right in here's the engine of what I found out online was that the engine that's in this ship was originally a locomotive engine or a train engine that they repurposed and put in this ship when the military added so let's go in there and I'll show you right here right there is the engine and right there now if we take this ladder up that takes us that drops us off right where the bar was where we kind of walked in and started so now we're gonna turn around we're gonna go back upstairs and I'm gonna take us up to John Wayne's bedroom you can totally tell you're in unlike a Navy ship with this doorway huh okay now we're gonna go over here it works it works and we're going to take the stairs up to the second level yeah and the way I found out about some of these paintings being pilars was I knew that he wasn't a big fan of having pictures of himself on here so I was curious as to where they came from then they said well I think Pilar did him and then I go she sure did right there his life on the boat now this they said this was another one of his bridge rooms check this out you can even buy a Wild Goose hat now they were telling me a really funny story because his captain is still alive Burt min Shaw he's 88 years old and when they do those cruises Burt comes out and participates in those and one of the stories they were telling me that he told was they said at one point somebody tried to break into John Wayne's house not too far from here right up here into Newport and tried to steal his gun collection so he went to have a security system installed and he told the people that were installing and he said what he wanted was he just wanted a voice of his own that when the alarm went off it said I see what you're doing you bastard how funny is that there's the Dukes book collection check out these old Pacific reporters isn't that interesting to see he was an avid reader you can find a lot of home footage home movie footage of him sitting out reading books and that crazy leopard skin print here look how old the just the furnishings are in here how beautiful is that yeah the wild goose library when John Wayne owned the yacht this area was an open back deck the third deck had not yet been added either says there used to be a large four poster bed in the corner and the wall at the very back side is completely open to give access to the poop deck and a great panoramic view of the harbor the poker table and animal print chair is used to be on the poop deck these items the leather chair ottoman and desk are all from John Wayne's era of ownership so there you go all of this stuff would have been from his era now the bathroom here is pretty fantastic let's take a look you have more of those amazing wood carvings right here on the door how about that now this was not his bedroom so don't get too excited because we're gonna get to really get up close and personal in John Wayne's life this is awesome you know he used it and look how cool the decoration is but wait till we get to his room because his bedroom completely unchanged completely unchanged now let's head over there now now this was his kids room this was Ethan I and I eats as sleeping quarters and I'll tell you what's interesting about that you can see that we came in through this door but at night he used to lock the door from the outside from what I understand because he didn't want to take the risk of anything happening to them them falling over or anything like that so he made it so that if they wanted to leave they had to pass through his room which was through here oops looks like they have a closed up on me but yeah he had it so that they had to go through his room and to get to get anywhere else so this was John Wayne's bedroom right here like I said it's been unchanged isn't that amazing this chair that was here that was the chair that he used to sit and read in I'm not gonna sit in it out of respect but I am gonna touch it that's pretty awesome check out that bed that was his bed and there's the painting above that I was telling you about another battleship scene he loved those battleship scenes you know how special that is to see something that he'd hand selected to be in his bedroom in somewhere that he spent a big majority of his life for the last almost 18 years now this is going to blow your mind we go in this bathroom yeah this is incredible the wild goose his bathroom bamboo mirror you see that his sink his sink that horse and then look at this marine toilet so that's the Dukes bathroom and where the Dukes toilet paper would have sat there's a shower some some gold knobs yeah looks like there were some jets in there nice nice alright let's close that up and here's that door I was telling you about that's the door we were trying to come into from the kids room they would have been they had a bathroom on the other side of this door but they would have been able to enter in through here and then he would have of course been sleeping right here so he could be the hero now let's go up to the top deck you're gonna love this well actually we're going to go up to the the front here John Wayne's anchor now this is special because his very last interview was with Barbara Walters and there's a part where you see John Wayne and Barbara Walters both standing right here John is right in front of this kind of thicker white piece because you can see that right over his shoulder and Barbara Walters is standing right over here on the other side of him and the camera just keeps zooming in right here [Music] and at the time you see that that glass piece above there would have been another one of those going along here so that famous shot of them would have actually been right here now I'm super excited because they actually went and unlocked the wheel room I guess you would say so that I can get in here and show you there's a photo of well maybe it's the other side photo of Barbara Walters sitting in a chair in here it's at this side they opened up yes then we'll go up there eventually okay now the Duke was the captain of this ship okay and when I say the captain of this ship there was a rule nobody touched that brass but the Duke and that rule was always followed Bert Minshall said in an interview that he was the man who would polish this brass even when he polished it he would touch it by the spokes and when he would steer the boat he would steer it by the spokes never ever touching that and I'm not going to touch it either now a lot of the this wood paneling this is newer this wasn't in here when he owned the boat however all the devices and all of the mechanics and everything it is so these are the same type of things that these would have been on the boat when he was here now obviously that wouldn't have been here but signed photos that signed photo and then there he is standing at the wheel right directly behind us right here that shot would have been right there can you believe it and Barbara Walters actually sat right here in that photo and then I'm guessing this would have been Burt's area because he became the captain I think after two years of being on the boat and here's a little sleeping area down here as well isn't that amazing I mean we've we're about as much of a private guest on John Wayne's boat right now as you could possibly be I mean we literally have the whole boat to ourself except for anybody that might be on board to help answer questions for me or or open up anything we're looking out John Wayne's window I mean as Captain this is that's the view he would have been looking out those windows every time how about that this was the pilot house officially says and you can kind of see back in there there's the wild goose acts I can't show you any more of it because you can't move this chair you see they've got it bolted in or they've got it you know fastened in there now let's go see see some more of the boat here now one thing a lot of people don't know about John Wayne that was really funny about reading out in this boat was that John Wayne wore a hairpiece he wore a wig and he didn't really care if anybody knew it he only wore it as like a prop you know as an actor would because people didn't want to see him bald but when he was on this ship he never wore the hairpiece unless somebody was coming to do an interview or an article or anything like that so a lot of the whole movie footage that you see is him wearing it toupee you know or or the whole movie footage he's not wearing any hairpiece at all and if you do see it then now you know it was you know it was a toupee now what's interesting here is this is all new ok this this level this third level that we're on right now this is kind of the dining area and that's pretty classy I love that so when you come to a cruise or you come have a meal you're actually on here but this was not originally here when he owned it now it's a tiny bit of a bummer for me because one of the main things that I really was looking forward to matching up was where this used to be or what used to be here before not anything really that big of a deal but this was this was where John Wayne used to do his weight lifting originally right over here is where there was a little red couch that he used to always sit on and read on and he would lift weights with Burt right here in front but with the editions I totally get it you know couldn't keep everything the same now let's go up here get some footage up here now we're on the very top section can you believe we're on John Wayne's boat man the wild goose so if you come decide to be a part of the John Wayne celebration that's happening over the next month they give you champagne they take you out on a ride pretty much over by his house and you get the full experience now a lot of you know that I used to be friends with Shelley Winters when she was alive and I asked her if she ever knew him because at the time that I knew her I was really getting into watching like rooster cogburn and McClintock and things like that and I asked her what do you think of him as an actor cuz she would sometimes say that she thought you know popular actors were like an old type of acting and that she didn't really like it and she said look honey you don't get to make that many movies without being good she goes he's a really nice man and he was good at what he did and it's funny I found an interview with him and they were they were saying you know you've always some people have always kind of pigeon-holed you and said that you were one-trick pony and not really a good actor and he said I've been doing it 50 years you'd think I learned something over this time so we're gonna go ahead and end our beautiful tour here in John Wayne's bedroom I hope you guys enjoyed this I can't thank Hornblower enough for inviting me out and letting me see every nook and cranny of this place that I wanted to now Hornblower did not sponsor this video or anything like that other than the fact that they just said we like what you're doing and we'd like to let you see it in fact they told me today that when they were showing me around he said yeah I was watching your Barbara Stanwyck video from yesterday yeah so it's pretty cool it's nice to know that the owner of Hornblower is a big John Wayne fan and so he's committed to not only sharing this history with other people making this available for parties and cruises but he also goes out of his way to make sure that any maintenance that needs to be done on here is done in the same fashion that John Wayne would be happy with and that it will continue to have the same parts that the Navy ship had and that it will always be John Wayne's ship and Hornblower will just be the one that helps facilitate other people getting to enjoy its history what do you think now I just want to try and attempt to give you a little bit better view of some of the art that's here on the on the boat before we head out now my goal and what I'm hoping is to book myself a night on the cruise with everyone else and I want to come out and vlog what the experience is like if they'll let me so hopefully we will come back and we'll show you the John Wayne birthday evening cruise I know it's crazy but it's just kind of cool to just touch a doorknob that you know he would have been opening and this room is also the same room that he had to have the ceilings raised because as you can tell I'm six three and a half and when the Duke lived here this was his fireplace this was an operating fireplace look at that I just love the detail in here and then I love this in the old home movies you can see him right over here messing around [Music] oh man I can't believe we got to do this today I'd say this was one of the best vlogs we've ever gotten to do what do you think guys [Music] let the wild goose what a blast I can't help but think of all those old stories about when you just look at this and how when he would be on the boat his exercise regiment would he would walk around the entire boat like 2030 times a day and then he would lift weights right up there how crazy is that unbelievable all right Lionhearts we are gonna take off Newport Beach but like I said hopefully we'll come back and I have started talking to them about possibly doing a meet-up with you guys here maybe a limited of 20 25 people will find out a price we're gonna deal with the CF Hornblower oh maybe figure out something and maybe we'll do a meet-up out here how great would that be all right let's get out of here is it just me or does that chimney on the side of that building look like a necktie doesn't that look like a necktie well on the freeway my tire just blew out so I had to get in stop him buy a new tire and look who is eagerly awaiting my return did you miss me you did didn't ya good to see you John nobody's got to see you yet today you're not you weren't allowed on the boat unfortunately well you probably would have been but I didn't ask oh that's gonna do it for us here guys I hope you guys enjoyed seeing the wild goose I wanted to thank Amanda Heffron in for becoming my newest patreon and thank you horn blaring writing me out I you know they weren't a sponsor here or anything they just like what we're doing and they wanted to let us show it so thank you so much I had a blast that was that was kind of a bucket list er for me I always wanted to see the inside of that thing and I was not disappointed that was as beautiful and as personal as I thought it would be so have a great night everyone I hope you enjoyed this we have another road trip tomorrow another big two days worth of adventures and then we're going on another trip after that so have a great night we'll see you all tomorrow good [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Daze with Jordan the Lion

Views: 574,483

Rating: 4.8322372 out of 5

Keywords: Daze With Jordan The Lion, jordan the lion, daily vlog, vlog, vlogger, vlogging, lifestyle, hollywood, los angeles, travel, travel vlogger, daily vlogger, adam the woo, urbex, abandoned, old hollywood, history, tourism, scandals, golden age, silent movies, cinema, film, filming locations, adventures, forgotten, comedy, family friendly, the carpetbagger, John wayne, Wild goose, Navy, War, Ship, WWII, The duke, House, Celebrity, Boat, hornblower, Minesweeper, ww2, true grit

Id: 7ap3AuTlYSU

Length: 30min 56sec (1856 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 25 2018