Video: Hear a Drinking Story Involving John Wayne, William Holden, John Ford and The Horse Soldiers (1959)

By Nicholas Stix

The Horse Soldiers (1959) had excellent potential, with two of the most dynamic stars of the ‘50s, Jack Ford, etc., but fell apart.

“The Horse Soldiers was marred by the death of stuntman Fred Kennedy, who broke his neck doing a simple horse fall. Ford and Wayne had worked with Kennedy for years and both were devastated. Ford lost interest in the picture.” [Scott Eyman, John Wayne: The Life and Legend (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014).]

Note too that beginning with Mister Roberts (1955), the older Ford got, the more erratic he became. Sometimes he get it all together, as with The Searchers, and sometimes, most notoriously in his last collaboration with Wayne, Donovan’s Reef (1963), the old man was lost.
 

John Wayne and William Holden vs. Director John Ford, as Told by Stefanie Powers


 

 


A Word on Westerns
Published on May 17, 2015

Untold behind-the-scenes shenanigans on THE HORSE SOLDIERS of how director John Ford was tricked into giving actors John Wayne & William Holden a wild Road Trip. Stefanie Powers shares the story on A WORD ON WESTERNS.