Take it away Johnny....
Here is your on the spot reporter, covering the unveiling today of the new John Wayne postage stamp. Ceremonies were held in the forecourt of the Chinese Theater in Hollywood-the stage setting directly over the hand and footprints of John Wayne. A facsimile of the cement slab was on display adjacent to the front door of the theater. At 10 o'clock, the color guard led the Wayne family members and assorted invited guests into the seating area. The customary singing of the National Anthem opened the ceremonies, and the emcee of the event (a local post office executive) introduced the Wayne family present. Patrick, Melinda, Aissa, Ethan and Marissa were all in attendance with their families. Also present were Pilar Wayne, producer A. C. Lyles, and actor Andrew Prine.
After the usual greetings and postal service banter, Andrew Prine got up and spoke a few words about working with Duke, and meeting him for the first time on the set of Chisum (where Duke proceeded to offer suggestions to Prine's performance!). Very entertaining-and Prine does a very nice Duke impression, by the way.
Ethan Wayne came to the podium on behalf of the family (he is now representing Wayne Enterprises, taking over for his late brother, Michael) and after a short talk, Duke's offspring came up on stage for the unveiling of the stamp.
After the unveiling, the artist of the stamp was invited up to say a few words, and he remarked how impressive the unveiled image (about 8 feet tall) was, considering the original painting he had to paint was only 5" x 7"!
Upon the conclusion of the outdoor ceremony, everyone was invited into the theater for a short 20-minute montage of Duke clips. Although I felt I had to leave to get back to work, I allowed myself a bit of pleasure, and headed into the theater. The montage, although technically deficient, was a great assemblage of scenes. I couldn't begin to list all of them, but some of the favorites were there ("The hell I won't" and bits of the clay pit fight from McLintock; "Mine hit the ground first" / "Mine was taller" banter from War Wagon; "I mean to kill you in one minute, Ned"; and quite a few more.....lots of great clips. The technical problem was that many of the images were not sharp-they were not shown from film, but put together and shown digitally, and some of the source materials were obviously from video tapes. I noticed some of the better clips were from films on dvd...but that wasn't always the case. Sometimes the color was too saturated--but again, just to see Duke up on the big screen again was a thrill. The climax of the piece was from the Variety Clubs International tribute to Duke back in 1976, when Maureen sang "I've Grown Accustomed to his Face" to Duke. They showed her singing from the event, then had her singing over more clips of Duke from his films-just beautiful, then finished from the tribute with Duke coming up to Maureen as she finishes the song. Just to look at those two and the love and admiration in their eyes was something--a moment I'll always remember.
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