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His early film work, which began with an "extra" appearance in Mother Machree, 1928, can be divided into four categories. His first film appearances were bit parts at Fox and Warners. These were followed by second leads, usually played on loan-out from Columbia, his home studio. During his days on Poverty Row, he appeared in serials and for Lone Trail Productions as "Singin' Sandy" in five-reel Westerns. Finally, under contract to Republic Pictures, he did several pictures in the Three Mesquiteer and Stoney Brooke series. Stagecoach was released on February 15, 1939. While it was the picture which finally established John Wayne as a major screen actor, it was actually the 65th film in which he had appeared! John Ford's reputation was solidly established by 1937. The director had been at his trade since 1917, sometime writing and acting as well as directing, and he had brilliant successes both in silent and sound films, from The Iron Horse to The Informer. Wayne and Ford had long since become fast friends, though always with a tinge of the mentor-pupil relationship, if not one of idol and worshipper. (Wayne also was the only person who could beat Ford at pitch, a variant of poker that Ford loved.) So when the director summoned Wayne to his yacht that day in 1937, Duke expected nothing more fateful than another pleasant day of cards and booze with cronies Ward Bond, Grant Withers, and Victor McLaglen, the star of the masterful The Informer. But Ford was alone. He wanted Wayne to read a screenplay, the story of a perilous journey through hostile Indian country in the Southwest. Would Wayne suggest somebody for the role of the Ringo Kid? "Lloyd Nolan," Wayne proposed after he finished reading. Ford shook his head. The man he wanted, he said, was Duke Wayne. It was clear he'd had his old "third assistant prop man" in mind all along. The director had chosen Wayne over the objections of producer Walter Wanger who was, understandably, unimpressed by Wayne's screen credits so far, mostly the run of low-budget, formula Westerns. But Ford stood firm. Wayne was allowed to do many of his own stunts while shooting the picture, though the most dangerous ones were reserved for Canutt. At one point producer Wanger became alarmed. He saw Wayne atop a careening stagecoach firing at pursuing Indians and yelled, "Get that guy off there before he kills himself!" Duke was amused. "Hell, Wanger didn't know I'd been doing stunts like this for years just to eat," Duke said later. The film, Stagecoach, with Claire Trevor, Andy Devine, Thomas Mitchell, Tim Holt, and Donald Meek, among others, was a critical and financial success when it was released through United Artists in 1939. For Ford it was another in a steadily lengthening list of superior films, perhaps his best Western. For Wayne it was a turning point in his career, which had threatened to stagnate among low-grade horse operas. And Stagecoach helped change the image of the genre itself. In 1952, at a time he dominated the Hollywood film industry, John Wayne established one of the first independent film production companies. It was an unusual and farsighted venture that soon turned into a trend among the stars of the day. A major box office attraction for Republic Pictures, his contract already gave the Duke a minor say regarding which producers, directors, and scriptwriters he worked with, and up to a point he could pick and choose which roles he wanted. Robert Fellows, a producer at RKO, had often worked with John Wayne in the past. Both he and Duke had been around the lots in various capacities since 1926. Between them, they knew the business inside out. When Duke had moved into acting in 1929, Fellows had shifted into production at Warners. Duke said, "What Bob doesn't know about the business isn't worth knowing. He's been a stage manager, actor, assistant cutter, prop man, writer, and director." More importantly he had been a close friend of Wayne's since they first met in 1940 on the set of Seven Sinners. For years Wayne had toyed with the possibility of becoming an independent film producer. He wanted more input in his movies, more financial and artistic license. He was committed to Republic Studios, an outfit he considered scarcely even mediocre, a studio without the financial backing to make the sort of films he dreamed about. Wayne said that though he and Republic boss Herbert Yates had grown up in the industry together, Yates had learned nothing, commenting, "The man has the soul of an accountant." As soon as he returned to the studio in August 1951, after completing work on The Quiet Man with John Ford and Maureen O'Hara, he wanted to get busy working on his own pet project, The Alamo. He and Bob Fellows had drawn up a budget to make his film for three million dollars. Yates, who had originally agreed to let them shoot the movie within the Republic set up, hesitated once he saw the budget. He wanted to cut costs and, Duke felt, cheapen his product. He recognized Republic could not produce the film he envisaged and had set his heart on. This led to a final catastrophic showdown with Yates. The Quiet Man was the last film Wayne made for Republic. He had already been producing his own films at Republic and a small unit at Warners. He had teamed up with Robert Fellows in 1950 to produce The Bullfighter and the Lady, a film based on the early career of director Budd Boetticher. Wayne had forced Herbert Yates to assign the production a limited budget. The movie was directed by Boetticher himself and starred Robert Stack. Wayne and Boetticher worked hard and put together an impressive film. Stack said, "There wasn't one phony thing in that film." Both artistically and financially the project was a success, and Duke's plans for his future accelerated accordingly. Naturally he had learned many lessons from his mentor, John Ford, particularly that making successful movies required teamwork of the highest order. With dogged determination he and Fellows set about assembling a team of artists, technicians, and experts second to none. They were mostly friends or people he really wanted to work with, including script writer James Edward Grant and leading cameraman William H. Clothier. Wayne-Fellows began work on a second production, Plunder of the Sun, starring Glenn Ford, who was contracted to Wayne-Fellows. There had always been some independent production in Hollywood, but now, with Wayne's increased activity, the practice gathered importance within the industry. The major studios were all cutting costs, producing fewer pictures and hiring less staff, and there was a decline in contract directors, writers, and crew. At the same time the popularity of the big stars increased, and they became more powerful. The decade after the war saw an unprecedented rise in star-controlled companies. In 1945 there were forty independent producers; by 1957 there were 165. There were certain perils attached to independent production; without his own distribution arm Duke remained dependent on studios like Warner Brothers, but certainly for Wayne, the artistic and economic benefits of his new venture made everything worthwhile. Most importantly as things stood in his recently divorced state, he discovered his financial rewards rocketing. Duke had never been wealthy. His day-to-day existence was far from extravagant and nothing like his fans would have expected of Hollywood's leading box-office star. The plan in setting up his own company was that he would make creative decisions and Bob Fellows would look after the financial details. Wayne-Fellows's first business move was conservative, reflecting the trends of the day. Most independents found the risks a little scary and looked to sign multi-picture contracts with a single studio. This made it easier for the company to obtain studio financing as well as distribution. Shortly after going into business, Robert Fellows tied Wayne-Fellows to a similar contract at Warner Bros. Wayne already had his own agreement in place there. In May 1949 he had signed a lucrative contract to make seven pictures over seven years. He would be paid a salary plus 10 percent of the gross on each film. Part of the agreement was that Wayne's own production unit would be allowed to make films at the studio, which Warners would distribute. Meanwhile, Duke remained free to make pictures elsewhere, and he hoped he would ultimately be given a chance to try his hand at directing. The new deal that Fellows had signed troubled him deeply. Fellows had agreed to an exclusive seven-picture contract that would prevent Wayne-Fellows from making movies for other studios. Duke thought this negated his becoming an independent, and eventually, after much heated argument, he agreed to sign a five-picture, non-exclusive contract. Warners agreed to finance and distribute Wayne-Fellows productions and to pay Duke $150,000 per film and 10 percent of gross receipts. Sometime during the early fifties, Duke began his emergence as an increasingly political animal. America's domestic and foreign policies troubled him deeply; he felt under threat, his entire existence in danger from Communism. Through Wayne-Fellows he would be able to make any political statement he wanted to in his films. While he planned to use his new position as an independent producer for his own political ends, from October to December 1952 he was tied up starring as a pool-shooting, divorced football coach in Trouble Along the Way at Warner Bros. He was still mid-divorce and throughout filming he couldn't get his "psychiatric opponent" Chata out of his mind. He fretted about the damage she was doing to his reputation and became short-tempered and given to sudden noisy outbursts. He was difficult to deal with.
Melville Shavelson, producer of Trouble Along the Way, had no doubt at all that Chata's activities had the desired effects on her husband. She had put detectives on his tail, and he was "going out of his mind." Shavelson commented, "One day he shook the detective and didn't show up on the set for a week. . . . This affected his work on the picture." The Duke bitterly resented the harm Chata did to his private and public life. "It was an embarrassing ordeal to live through. I think I tried to live in a dignified, respectable way. My life was almost ruined," he said. The story that continued to interest Duke more than any other was The Alamo. He was willing to take on any commitment that would help finance that project. Throughout the fifties, running all through his problems, he was hard at work on The Alamo. As much as anything else, Wayne-Fellows became about making enough money to make dreams come true. The next project Wayne-Fellows moved on to was Island in the Sky. Duke's company bought the rights to the best-selling novel by Ernest K. Gann, certain the resulting movie would put money in the bank. Duke then looked around for cast and crew.
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