For instance, he didn't let other people's views prevent him from being friends with them. Henry Fonda, Jane Fonda, Kirk Douglas, and Steve McQueen for instance.
He didn't let other people's sexuality make him prejudice. He liked Laurence Harvey a lot, and when Hollywood was shunning Rock Hudson for being gay, Wayne put him in one of his movies in a big role despite the studio not being happy about it. Hudson credited him for saving his life. Where were the Liberals in Hollywood in support of Hudson?
When Jimmy Carter was elected, Wayne wrote him a letter giving him his support, and he also sided with him on the Panama Canal Treaty.
He also came under fire from some Conservatives because even though Wayne wasn't too happy about strong violence in movies or pornography, he also refused to support censorship and spoke out against it.
The very Liberal Paul Newman said he found him to be much more balanced and intelligent politically than he ever imagined
Yes, I am aware of this aspect of his character, although I appreciate your details. I just meant, in response to the other poster, that Wayne's political conservatism was not some act for public consumption.
Ironically, in a 1998 interview, the American Enterprise Institute asked Clint Eastwood if he had ever read Wayne's infamous—if fascinating—
Playboy interview from 1971. Quoting from memory, Eastwood replied, "Yeah. Well, he was a big-time conservative." Eastwood then apparently defined his own sense of moderation and openness by stating that he considered a liberal to be someone who believed in equality and a conservative to be someone who was perhaps thoughtful and prudent with money.
I do not doubt that Wayne maintained friendships with people from across the political spectrum, and that sense of personal integrity and fairness pervaded his screen character and helps explain the near-universality of his appeal. And on a personal level, Wayne probably did believe in treating people from any walk of life with equality. On the other hand, his comments to
Playboy suggest that on a broader political or sociological basis, Wayne's views fell into a line of thought that proved—not bigoted, per se, but—traditionalist, ethnocentric, or reactionary. Helping Hudson constituted a great gesture, but in his
Playboy interview, Wayne suggested that homosexuality proved perverse, he used a term that today is considered an epithet, and he indicated that gay sex failed to represent the kind of sexual activity that God had intended. None of those feelings meant that Wayne was a bad guy—obviously. But many people can be sensitive individuals on a personal basis and then espouse intolerant or insensitive rhetoric in terms of public policy or political concern. It is what I call the "I'm not a racist—I have a black friend—therefore I cannot be a racist" syndrome. Of course, in Wayne's case, his advocacy on behalf of Hudson represented a matter of genuine friendship, not a syndrome.
(As for where Hollywood liberals happened to be regarding Hudson, your question is a good one, but everything evolves. Remember that prior to the Stonewall raid in 1969, the gay rights agenda proved nascent and extremely marginal. Only after Stonewall and the subsequent gay rights movement of the 1970s did mentalities and policies begin to change on a broad basis, leading to the current situation where we are closer to genuine equality than ever before. But the liberalism of the 1960s did not incorporate gay rights in the manner of contemporary liberalism, hence the reason why the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 failed to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. That point reminds me of the fact that employers can still fire people for being gay, which I consider a disgrace. The major obstacle to changing the law in that regard is the Republican Party, but I cannot absolve Obama and the Democrats of blame for failing to rectify the situation when they controlled Congress in 2009-2010. Back to my point about political evolution, though, consider that Harry Truman constituted a liberal president who furthered the cause of civil rights and racial integration in some very important ways, but he also opposed interracial marriage, which is what produced the current president, who advocated and implemented (pseudo) universal health insurance, a cause that Truman had championed as the first president to do so while in office. So as I indicated, everything evolves—or at least changes.)
Likewise, Wayne counted some prominent Hollywood liberals among his friends, but he never regretted having played a role in exposing some Communists, or Communist sympathizers, in Hollywood during the early Cold War years, even though those individuals were merely 'guilty' or possessing leftist political ideas, not working for the Soviet Union or some international Communist conspiracy. And of course, the result for those exposed was blacklisting and the loss of income and security.
I suppose that what surprised many folks about Wayne—once they came to know him—was that regardless of his views and actions, he proved thoughtful, he was not a hater, and he could bring some ironic or savvy perspectives that guarded against the absolutism that imprisons many ideologues. In other words, he possessed empathy, even if that quality did not always translate to his public comments or broader views.
Your citations have piqued my interest regarding a couple of points.
1) Did Wayne maintain cordial relations with, or a friendship with, Jane Fonda after she became a political radical and, specifically, visited Hanoi in 1972?
2) So why did Wayne support Carter on the Panama Canal Treaty? Had Wayne previously taken the hard line with Ronald Reagan (I imagine so, although I do not know for sure), and if so, why did he change his stance later?
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EmpireKing
9 years ago
Did Wayne maintain cordial relations with, or a friendship with, Jane Fonda after she became a political radical and, specifically, visited Hanoi in 1972?
Yes. "I don't agree with what she has to say but I will defend her right to say it"
Wayne chose to award her with the Golden Apple Award as Female Star Of The Year around 77/78.
And when Henry Fonda was receiving a tribute sometime later, Wayne was still on friendly terms with her and her kids. The political disagreements they had, were either left as that or forgotten.
So why did Wayne support Carter on the Panama Canal Treaty?
He simply believed Panama had always being a loyal friend to the US and deserved fair treatment. He liked the place and the people and had spent a lot of vacations there over the years. Despite his friendship with Reagan, he felt his arguments on the treaty were self-serving political nonsense. Wayne vocally supported ratification, and despite tons of hate mail from a lot of Conservatives labelling him a Commie, Marxist Stooge etc, he didn't change his stance. He wrote hundreds of letters to influential Republicans trying to convince them to change their views and personally wrote a seven page position paper on the treaty and sent it to every US senator. Later, Jimmy Carter thanked Wayne for his support, and invited him to the ceremony of the signed treaties but by that time Wayne was in serious ill health.
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joekiddlouischama
9 years ago
... very interesting, thanks. His activism on behalf of the Panama Canal Treaty is fascinating.
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