Ron Howard: Earning John Wayne’s respect on set

so I know you love rehearsing um somebody else that loved it quite a lot was John Wayne well yeah the very first time that I met him I arrived in Carson City Nevada I was met by the director Don Siegel um in in the hotel and Siegel says let's take you up and meet Duke and uh you know this is this was his last movie The Shootist um but but you know he was it was epic in every in every way so we're heading toward the elevator through the hotel lobby we walked by this sort of the gift in Sundries shop and there is the magazine stand and right there is is a TV guide and that week Henry Winkler and I happened to be posing in our Happy Days costumes on the cover and he said oh this is great I'm gonna buy this and and and show Duke and I was like well I don't know are you sure you want to show the Happy Days thing I you know I I don't know he said oh no he'll love it he'll love it so he bought it we got in the elevator we went up opened the door meet John Wayne he's giant he doesn't have his hair piece on those he's a giant bald man and it reaches out his hand good to meet you and it just dwarfs my hand I mean just uh uh I don't know how tall he was six six seven but his hands were like a seven footer I mean he was just huge and it's like I've shook hands with Shaq O'Neal it's kind of like that yeah and so then Don Siegel says hey look Duke uh look at this and he hands on the hands him the TV Guide John Wayne sort of Squints at it looks at me looks back down at it looks at me he says Ah big shot huh and I thought oh man I'm screwed now uh but I had a fine meeting and as we started shooting you know I realized we had a lot of dialogue together but I just could see that he was fighting the lines and and I was a little nervous about it too and I said you want to run lines and he said yeah we went to his trailer and started running the lines and he loved it so that became my ritual and people were otherwise kind of on edge or terrified of him people were really careful around him and you know it's not that he was throwing fits and kicking over c-stands and you know throwing boxes around or anything but you know they gave him space he was the Duke right and I just realized that other people weren't engaging with them but he was an actor and you know and wanted to make sure he had the scene under control and we developed a a great Rapport you know six months after filming wrapped he was interested in working with you again yeah we we crossed paths at uh AFI dinner honoring Henry Fonda I had done a TV show with Henry Fonda so I was invited and I saw him and he said I found a book I want to make it into a movie and it's you and me or it's nobody and by this time we also kind of knew he was ill and declining and so it was really poignant to first to see that he still had that drive um but also to know that he you know he wanted to work together again which made meant a lot to me you know I worked with John Wayne I worked with Glenn Ford Shirley Jones um Henry Fonda briefly with Jimmy Stewart I directed Betty Davis um there was something that I was learning early in my career from all of these people very different personalities and so I was working with people who were you know fully established Superstars had won all the Oscars they were going to win and yet still wanting to work and when they showed up it was it was winning time it was time to be good it was time to try to be great how much did John Wayne's wish that he had directed more stick with you well it certainly impressed me um and you know and he was such a big star and and also at a time when actors just didn't really do that but um you know this really fueled my dream and my ambition

Channel: Graham Bensinger

Views: 852,170

Keywords: Graham Bensinger, In Depth with Graham Bensinger, Sports Interview, Feature Interview, Sports Journalism, Ron Howard, Ron Howard Interview, Ron Howard Director, Ron Howard acting, Childhood actor, John Wayne, The Shootist, Ron Howard and John Wayne, Ron Howard The Shootist

Id: AS2ZUCqZX9E

Length: 4min 36sec (276 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 30 2023