Splish splash, John Wayne took a swimming pool bath
Unfasten your spurs for a priceless, unpublicized John Wayne tale straight from the corridors of The Carson Podcast. Gary Null spent 40 years documenting entertainment icons such as Elvis Presley [e.g. The ‘68 Comeback Special and Aloha from Hawaii], Betty White, Andy Griffith, Will Smith, and game-changing series like Bonanza, Star Trek, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Seinfeld, and ER — all for NBC. Null, with his reliable cameras in tow, journeyed twice to Vietnam at the behest of Bob Hope for the benefit of war-weary troops. Over 7,600 of his stills can be accessed on the Getty Images Archive.
In the early ’70s a weary Null was packing his bags to head home from a sagebrush escapade when his supervisor requested that he stick around in Arizona for a session with the True Grit Academy Award recipient. Null excitedly drove an hour southeast to the 11,000-acre Red River Ranch, owned by Wayne and partner Louis Johnson in the Maricopa‐Stanfield-Casa Grande area. “I was on a movie shoot in Phoenix that had ended,” verified Null during the forensically satisfying Jan. 7, 2021, episode of Mark Malkoff’s Carson Podcast [advance to the 48-minute point to listen].
“My boss called and said, ‘As long as you’re in Arizona, I need you to go to Casa Grande [70 minutes north of Tucson] and photograph John Wayne. He’s agreed to do a Bob Hope TV show but does not want to come to Hollywood. They’re gonna do his skit at his ranch in Casa Grande’ [not the only Wayne spread in Arizona; an eye-popping 36,000 acres accounted for Wayne and Johnson’s 26 Bar Ranch near Springerville, presently owned by the Hopi Native American tribe]. Bob stayed in Hollywood.
“I arrived at this beautiful Spanish ranch house. In a meadow, probably 75 or 100 yards away, I saw Mr. Wayne being photographed by a guy with a camera on a tripod. I thought, ‘Whoa, I must be missing something for the special.’ So I took off in their direction with my cameras and halfway there, the Duke was already walking towards me. One of those moments where you wish all your friends could see you right now approaching John Wayne. He was dressed in full Western regalia, including his cowboy hat.
“I introduced myself and said, ‘Mr. Wayne, I’m Gary from NBC, and I’m here for the Bob Hope show.’ He told me, ‘You’re early.’ I wanted to know, ‘What was that you were doing with the other photographer?’ ‘I was doing a bit for the Canadian Department of Interior.’ Nothing to do with Bob Hope. I breathed a sigh of relief as he continued, ‘Come on in.’ We went into the house and there were two ladies sitting by an indoor pool. I took the opportunity to sit on the floor and clean my cameras. I had been on an outdoor western set in Phoenix, and they were a little dusty. I was about 20 feet away from Mr. Wayne and the ladies and could hear them engrossed in conversation.
“I was busy with my cameras when I heard a splash. I looked up to see that Mr. Wayne had fallen into the shallow end of the pool. He was not quite knee deep. He had boots on, and the water was over the top of his boots. He looked at me, and I looked at him. Oh my God, I had a camera in my hand. I quickly put it down.
“He said, ‘I’ll be a god***n son of a b***h.’ Everybody was going, ‘Duke, are you okay?’ ‘I’m fine.’ He climbed out of the pool, sat on the side, took off his boots, and emptied the water into the pool. What a great photo that would have been. How crazy it looked with the Duke in full western regalia, sitting there emptying the water out of his boots” [laughs]. Once Wayne had regained his composure and sufficiently dried off, it’s safe to assume Null completed his photo shoot. NBC, who owns Null’s vast collection, has inexplicably not supplied any evidence of the Wayne session for public consumption.
© Jeremy Roberts, 2023. All rights reserved. To touch base, email [email protected] and mention which story led you my way. I appreciate it sincerely.