The Duke’s Gritty Image Returns for Color Sequel

The tarp was gone, along with the photographers who had come to chronicle its departure Tuesday. The rave reviews from the VIPS were in. And the new and improved John Wayne statue, after a brief hiatus in Texas for a makeover, was back at the airport. But Roy Hill was not impressed.

After months of waiting for this moment with his fellow airport construction workers--and occasionally trying to sneak a peak before the security guards invariably chased them off--the 59-year-old construction inspector simply shook his head in disappointment.

“I liked the looks of him better before--when he had that wear-and-tear look to him outside,” the Wayne movie buff said as he surveyed the new Duke. “His face, it just doesn’t look right--the color of it.”

Four days before the public gets to make up its own mind about the new Wayne statue--and $20,000 in taxpayer money spent on its renovation--the hulking, nine-foot, copper sculpture was unveiled in all its “colorized” glory Tuesday before about 100 reporters, photographers, airport officials, county dignitaries and several Wayne family members.

As the tarp that had shrouded the Duke for weeks came off, a few in the crowd murmured that the new version--with its colors gently fading one into the next--didn’t look much different from the old.

But publicly at least, the lobby centerpiece drew nothing but raves at the new Thomas F. Riley Terminal, which is due to be publicly dedicated Saturday at a 11:30 a.m. ceremony and opened for business Sept. 16.

From Melinda Wayne Munoz of Newport Beach, daughter of the screen legend: “I don’t think it’s so bad. Everyone was saying the coloring was going to be so bad, but it’s subtle. I think it’s just beautiful.”

From Bruce Nott, a local real estate investor who helped raise money for the statue before its 1982 dedication: “Fabulous, just wonderful. I love the colors--that made it. I can imagine how many photographs will be taken next to that over the eons.”

And the terminal’s namesake, county Supervisor Riley, clasping the statue’s hand as he posed for photographers, called the renovated statue a fitting tribute to a “hero” who represented a patriotism that Riley said has sometimes been “sorely needed in this country.”

County leaders decided to rename their airport after Wayne after the longtime Newport Beach resident’s 1979 death from cancer. Amid considerable wrangling over control of the memorial, they dedicated his statue in 1982.

The old Wayne statue--left faded, worn and a bit greened by the elements after eight years outside the old terminal--was shipped to Dublin, Tex., earlier this year for its $20,000 retouching.

Now, the “True Grit” star’s likeness is dominated by a blend of browns, beiges and rustic reds, interrupted only by a few glimpses of silver on the Duke’s cowboy boots and gun, and of gold on his bullet-lined belt.

One key player was not present Tuesday: Robert Summers, the Texas sculptor who created the statue and worked on its restoration, was reportedly on an expedition in Turkey.

Of Wayne himself, his eldest son, Michael, said: “I know that he’d have been very, very proud.”

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