In December of 1976, he had surgery for an enlarged prostate but there were no signs of cancer. Two years later, his voice was deteriorating and he could hardly finish a sentence. At age 71, he needed open heart surgery to replace a defective valve. The surgery was successful but he was in bad shape. Doctors found a malignancy in his stomach. The cancer had spread to his lymph notes. Maureen O’Hara, his one true love, visited him in April 1979 at his Newport Beach house, and they cried for hours together. She had been a cancer survivor herself. They talked for a day and a half before she left. John Wayne was too weak for chemotherapy this time and asked his son Patrick to get his .38 gun he kept by his bed. He wanted to end it all now --- to commit suicide. Sons Patrick and Stacy both refused and Wayne raged at them until he fell back exhausted on his pillow. When he died in June, he had lost 100 lbs. The cancer had spread everyTwhere and he was on heavy narcotics for the pain. ‘Do I miss him’? Maureen is quoted. ‘Oh, God, yes. There are so many times I’d like to call Duke, or the old boy [director John Ford] to ask their advice, ask them what they think. But I had a wonderful life with them. Sometimes I wondered what they liked about me, and then I realized I was the only female man left in their lives’. John Wayne loved Gary Cooper, Clint Eastwood and Paul Newman among his contemporaries. But his very favorite actor was James Garner. ‘They rave about Brando and Scott, but they couldn’t hold a candle to him’. Author Scott Eyman pulls no punches in writinfg about the life and career of the man known as Duke in his 600-page biography. John Wayne: The Life and Legend by Scott Eyman is published by Simon & Schuster.
Posted on: Tue, 27 May 2014 18:05:54 +0000
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