‘Duke’s Still a Force’ in Hollywood Memory

Re Dennis McClellan’s fine John Wayne story (“Listen, Kid: The Duke’s Still a Force,” Jan. 26):

In the early 1930s, I was working in the Fox Film Studio publicity department when Raoul Walsh directed “The Big Trail,” John Wayne’s first picture. One day Walsh had seen Wayne, a grip’s boy, carrying something across the stage of a movie he was directing. Wayne’s hair was a bit shaggy, which Walsh liked, and Walsh liked the manner in which Wayne walked. Based just on that, he chose him for the lead in his next picture and thus Wayne graduated “overnight” from grips boy to movie star.

My uncle, Tyrone Power Sr., a great Shakespearean stage actor of those days, wasn’t always able to make a living on the stage as not that many people appreciated Shakespeare. So occasionally he had to “prostitute” himself (as they expressed it in those days) by coming to Hollywood to work in a movie. It was thus that he happened to play the heavy role, as the wicked bullwhacker in “The Big Trail.”

WALDO RUESS, Santa Barbara