James Burleigh
Well-known member
I grew up in Southern California (Palos Verdes) and was accustomed to seeing and meeting movie stars. But one night my buddy Jim (whom you saw recently in a recent video riding in front of me on the BMW K1200RS) and I ran into that movie star's movie star, John Wayne, in a bar in Beverley Hills. It was a magical evening, never to be forgotten. Here's how I described it in my family-trunk autobiography:
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One weekend evening in 1974 I got a call from Jim. It seems his father, Jerry, had called from the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, where he was attending a TRW work function, to say he had locked his keys in the car. He needed Jim to drive down with a spare set of keys. Jim called me to ask if I’d like to go along on the hour drive all the way to the north side of the L.A. basin. I said sure.
Once at the hotel we entered the glamorous lobby and soon found the location of the TRW function—a huge ballroom filled with round tables at which sat several hundred people in tuxedos and evening gowns having dinner. Jim went left and I went right, weaving around the tables in search of Jerry. We were conspicuously out of place in our blue jeans and cowboy shirts. Soon we found Jim’s dad, and he hustled us out of the ballroom into the small bar off the lobby. The bar was dim, paneled in wood. We were sitting in a kind of alcove, with a common bench running the length of the wall. Along this wall, sharing the bench, were three small round tables. We sat at one end of the alcove. The other two tables were empty.
Jerry sat with us and ordered us each a beer. We were not old enough to drink at the time, but the waiter didn’t card us. Jerry had a drink with us, then thanked us and returned to his dinner. Jim and I took our time and had another beer.
At one point I got up to use the restroom, and when I returned Jim was talking to someone at the table at the other end of the alcove, about 10 feet way. I sat down and, without looking at Jim’s interlocutor, asked, “Who you talking to, Jim?”
“John Wayne.”
“Oh yeah?”
“That’s right, pardner,” Jim says.
I looked up, and sure enough, there was John Wayne. He was sitting with a young woman (his daughter?).
“John Wayne!” I jumped up and advanced to his table with my hand outstretched. “I’d like to shake your hand. You don’t know how many hours I’ve enjoyed in front of the TV set watching you slaughter Japs and Indians!” We shook hands and I sat down again. Jim asked him if we could call him “Duke,” to which John Wayne replied in that classic drawl of his, “You can call me anything you like, so long as you smile when you say it.”
I rattled off a list of my favorite John Wayne movies:
The Alamo, Sands of Iwo Jima, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Hatari, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,
and of course
The Fighting Seabees.
I said I loved that scene at the end when he drives the bulldozer into the Japanese gasoline storage tank and blows everything up, including himself. I asked how come he had to die at the end, to which he replied that he didn’t want to have to kiss his co-star, Susan Hayward, at the end of the movie.
At one point he asked us what we were drinking, and we said beer. He said if we were going to drink, then we should drink like men, and he called out, “Waiter! Two boilermakers.” A boilermaker is a beer with a whisky chaser. We downed them like soldiers.
When he asked us what we were doing there, we told him we had come to pick up TRW secretaries. Not five minutes later two attractive young women—older than us by a few years, probably in their 20s—sat down at the table between the Duke and us. They conversed between themselves, oblivious of us talking through them, and oblivious of the Hollywood icon next to them. Sure, Jim and I had seen plenty of movie stars up to this point—hell, you couldn’t drive a half a mile down Sunset Boulevard without seeing a movie star—and we could be just as nonplussed as the next person, but after all this was the Duke, the movie star’s movie star.
Not long after the two girls sat down John Wayne signaled for the waiter to come over to his table. A few minutes after that two drinks were delivered to the table of the two girls. The waiter said something to them, and to our surprise they turned, not to the Duke, but to us to thank us for the drinks. Leaning to see around the girls, we asked the Duke what was up. “I’m just trying to get you two in trouble with these nice young ladies,” he said.
After about a half hour of lively conversation with the Duke, I guess we finally drove him out of the bar. Well, we never did get in trouble with the two girls. But that was okay. We met our hero, John Wayne, who bought us a drink and tried to get us laid.
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One weekend evening in 1974 I got a call from Jim. It seems his father, Jerry, had called from the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, where he was attending a TRW work function, to say he had locked his keys in the car. He needed Jim to drive down with a spare set of keys. Jim called me to ask if I’d like to go along on the hour drive all the way to the north side of the L.A. basin. I said sure.
Once at the hotel we entered the glamorous lobby and soon found the location of the TRW function—a huge ballroom filled with round tables at which sat several hundred people in tuxedos and evening gowns having dinner. Jim went left and I went right, weaving around the tables in search of Jerry. We were conspicuously out of place in our blue jeans and cowboy shirts. Soon we found Jim’s dad, and he hustled us out of the ballroom into the small bar off the lobby. The bar was dim, paneled in wood. We were sitting in a kind of alcove, with a common bench running the length of the wall. Along this wall, sharing the bench, were three small round tables. We sat at one end of the alcove. The other two tables were empty.
Jerry sat with us and ordered us each a beer. We were not old enough to drink at the time, but the waiter didn’t card us. Jerry had a drink with us, then thanked us and returned to his dinner. Jim and I took our time and had another beer.
At one point I got up to use the restroom, and when I returned Jim was talking to someone at the table at the other end of the alcove, about 10 feet way. I sat down and, without looking at Jim’s interlocutor, asked, “Who you talking to, Jim?”
“John Wayne.”
“Oh yeah?”
“That’s right, pardner,” Jim says.
I looked up, and sure enough, there was John Wayne. He was sitting with a young woman (his daughter?).
“John Wayne!” I jumped up and advanced to his table with my hand outstretched. “I’d like to shake your hand. You don’t know how many hours I’ve enjoyed in front of the TV set watching you slaughter Japs and Indians!” We shook hands and I sat down again. Jim asked him if we could call him “Duke,” to which John Wayne replied in that classic drawl of his, “You can call me anything you like, so long as you smile when you say it.”
I rattled off a list of my favorite John Wayne movies:
The Alamo, Sands of Iwo Jima, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Hatari, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,
and of course
The Fighting Seabees.
I said I loved that scene at the end when he drives the bulldozer into the Japanese gasoline storage tank and blows everything up, including himself. I asked how come he had to die at the end, to which he replied that he didn’t want to have to kiss his co-star, Susan Hayward, at the end of the movie.
At one point he asked us what we were drinking, and we said beer. He said if we were going to drink, then we should drink like men, and he called out, “Waiter! Two boilermakers.” A boilermaker is a beer with a whisky chaser. We downed them like soldiers.
When he asked us what we were doing there, we told him we had come to pick up TRW secretaries. Not five minutes later two attractive young women—older than us by a few years, probably in their 20s—sat down at the table between the Duke and us. They conversed between themselves, oblivious of us talking through them, and oblivious of the Hollywood icon next to them. Sure, Jim and I had seen plenty of movie stars up to this point—hell, you couldn’t drive a half a mile down Sunset Boulevard without seeing a movie star—and we could be just as nonplussed as the next person, but after all this was the Duke, the movie star’s movie star.
Not long after the two girls sat down John Wayne signaled for the waiter to come over to his table. A few minutes after that two drinks were delivered to the table of the two girls. The waiter said something to them, and to our surprise they turned, not to the Duke, but to us to thank us for the drinks. Leaning to see around the girls, we asked the Duke what was up. “I’m just trying to get you two in trouble with these nice young ladies,” he said.
After about a half hour of lively conversation with the Duke, I guess we finally drove him out of the bar. Well, we never did get in trouble with the two girls. But that was okay. We met our hero, John Wayne, who bought us a drink and tried to get us laid.
