You’re looking at John Wayne’s script for Rio Bravo (1959). It’s just one of the many incredible things being auctioned off by his family.
You can see more of it here, and I encourage you to do so.
Not just to marvel at things very few of us could ever afford — like his uniform from Sands Of Iwo Jima (1949) or hat from Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) — but to read various contracts, letters from John Ford, get well cards from Hank Worden and much more.
I’m a bit bleary-eyed this morning from hours of doing just that.
This article appears in the October 2011 issue of Cowboys & Indians
(with Mark Harmon on the cover)
The listing of the John Wayne Auction in the market for mementos of one of the West’s biggest icons? Check out The John Wayne Signature Auction this October.
(Please click onto link and read more)
http://www.cowboysindians.com/Cowboys-Indians/October-2011/John-Wayne-Auction/
By the way Cowboys & Indians is a great magazine, with many articles on the current and past cowboys we’ve come to love.
I was up reading the letters last night as well. It’s a great defacto bio, overall, really illuminating his relationships with Ford and others but also giving insight into what he chose to save. Of course we don’t get letters inside the family, just celebrity stuff, but that’s what we want anyway. Sad imagining that in the future, no one will be auctioning anyone’s emails and texts. The personal letter isn’t a dying form–it’s dead.
It DOES give you a better sense of what Wayne was about. An interesting guy. Genuine and nice, it seems.
Ford’s letters are priceless. And I was touched by Warden’s cards.
Sad to see all this stuff being broken up and auctioned off rather than donated or sold to an archive. I guess if it’s been digitized the Wayne estate could at least make that available to researchers.
Very true. It’d be great for those costumes to find a home where they can be seen by whoever wants to see them. The eye patch from True Grit is about as iconic as it gets.
The letters and documents are there in very high resolution. I snagged all I could.
I interviewed Ethan Wayne this morning and he told me that several museums have extensive Wayne collections already, including the Autry, and that he put this material on the market to gratify fan needs and wishes and requests. I don’t know how many street-level Wayne fans can pony up several thou for this hat or that shirt, but I guess the auction will tell. I know if I had the $$ there are a few things I wouldn’t mind putting on the mantle, which is where I currently have a 8X10 glossy of Ethan Edwards. Funny, one of the least dear items is a really terrific painting of Wayne from The Long Voyage Home–but by the time of the sale, it might be worth considerably more.
[...] Some of John Wayne’s personal and professional effects are being auctioned off by his family, including his script to Rio Bravo. You can browse the items at the Heritage Auctions site. Link via 50 Westerns from the Fifties. [...]
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