weeder gander has made an impassioned defense of Spacey and William Katz's comment re how these Left wing Gollywood types get appointed. See my 2:00AM post. (Below)
My response was a yawn. I thought it funny and well put and still do. And if anyone thinks that Spacey would be having these honors heaped upon him if he was conservative their head rattles when they shake it.
But just for fun, here is a a write up of the exploits of John Wayne by Burt Prelutsky.
I await dear weeder's agreement on the content.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Sorry to keep you awake, but you're right, aside from sweeping the stage or acting on it, Mr. Spacey has no more right to his academic position than you and I have to one at that same fine institute.
ReplyDeleteAbout John Wayne:
As the majority of male leads left Hollywood to serve overseas, John Wayne saw his just-beginning stardom at risk. Despite enormous pressure from his inner circle of friends, he put off enlisting. Wayne was exempted from service due to his age (34 at the time of Pearl Harbor) and family status, classified as 3-A (family deferment). Wayne's secretary recalled making inquiries of military officials on behalf of his interest in enlisting, "but he never really followed up on them."[17] He repeatedly wrote to John Ford, asking to be placed in Ford's military unit, but continually postponed it until "after he finished one more film."[18] Republic Studios was emphatically resistant to losing Wayne, especially after the loss of Gene Autry to the army.[19] Correspondence between Wayne and Herbert J. Yates (the head of Republic) indicates that Yates threatened Wayne with a lawsuit if he walked away from his contract, though the likelihood of a studio suing its biggest star for going to war was minute.[20] The threat was real, but whether Wayne took it seriously or not, he did not test it. Selective Service Records indicate he did not attempt to prevent his reclassification as 1-A (draft eligible), but apparently Republic Pictures intervened directly, requesting his further deferment.[21] In May, 1944, Wayne was reclassified as 1-A (draft eligible), but the studio obtained another 2-A deferment (for "support of national health, safety, or interest").[22] He remained 2-A until the war's end. John Wayne did not "dodge" the draft, but he never took direct positive action toward enlistment. Wayne was in the South Pacific theatre of the war for three months in 1943–44, touring U.S. bases and hospitals as well as doing some "undercover" work for OSS commander William J. "Wild Bill" Donovan, who thought Wayne's celebrity might be good cover for an assessment of the causes for poor relations between General Douglas MacArthur and Donovan's OSS Pacific network. Wayne filed a report and Donovan gave him a plaque and commendation for serving with the OSS, but Wayne dismissed it as meaningless.[23]
The foregoing facts influenced the direction of Wayne's later life. By all accounts, Wayne's failure to serve in the military during World War II was the most painful experience of his life.[2]