How a Script Swap Sparked John Wayne’s On-Set Fury

If you were to pick a face for the ultimate tough bloke in film, John Wayne would be a shoo-in. With his unmistakable voice, no-nonsense style, and a jaw that could probably stop a ute, he was the sort of bloke who made villains think twice. But that same hard-as-nails persona sometimes landed him in a bit of strife off camera.

Clashing Egos on Set

Back in 1966, Wayne took on a role in Cast a Giant Shadow, a historical drama where Kirk Douglas played David ‘Mickey’ Marcus, an American soldier who helped set up the Israeli Defence Forces. The cast was packed with big names—Frank Sinatra, Angie Dickinson, Yul Brynner, and Wayne himself as a US Army General. Melville Shavelson, who’d made a name for himself with It Started in Naples, was both directing and had a hand in the script.

Wayne wasn’t too keen on the script as it stood. He wanted his mate James Grant to have a crack at it. Shavelson, not wanting to butt heads, came up with a workaround. According to Michael Munn’s John Wayne: The Man Behind the Myth, Shavelson decided to run with two scripts: one tweaked for Wayne’s scenes, and his own version for everyone else. Wayne thought the whole thing had been rewritten to suit him, while the rest of the cast stuck to the original plan.

The Day the Plan Unravelled

Things were ticking along until Wayne rocked up on set unexpectedly and caught them using the original script. Shavelson remembered,

“He was furious and grabbed me, and to be grabbed by a guy who stands over six feet and is running the goddamn picture was pretty terrifying. After that we used Grant’s script. But for a long time after that Wayne and I never spoke.”

From then on, they stuck with Grant’s version for the rest of the shoot. The fallout was so bad that Wayne and Shavelson never worked together again. It was a proper bust-up, but at least no one ended up in hospital.

Wayne’s Reputation for Trouble

This wasn’t the only time Wayne butted heads with the boss. Even John Ford, the director who gave him his big break and whom Wayne called ‘Pappy’, copped his fair share of grief. Plenty of his co-stars weren’t exactly fans either. Wayne was known for being outspoken, especially in an industry that leaned the other way, and he didn’t have much time for niceties. It’s a wonder anyone managed to get along with him at all.

That dust-up on Cast a Giant Shadow marked the last time Wayne and Shavelson crossed paths professionally. Both went on to do just fine, and, as luck would have it, Shavelson lived to tell the tale.