Ron Howard Recalls Behind-the-Scenes Tension on John Wayne’s Last Film

Oscar-winning director Ron Howard has worked with many of the world’s most iconic entertainers. Recently, he shared some stories about one of them. Howard starred with the legendary actor John Wayne in the 1976 Western movie The Shootist, and he recalled it was an “intense” experience.

Howard talked about working with Wayne and director Don Siegel during a visit to the Talking Pictures Podcast.

Siegel and Wayne started off the project at odds with one another, and according to Howard, it never got better. Luckily for Howard, he felt he managed to work well with each of them individually.

Although The Shootist was released 50 years ago, Howard believes it still “holds up well.”

He explained, “It’s paced slowly, deliberately, but it builds beautifully. The acting is good. Don Siegel was a very strong director…[I] learned so much from him.”

Howard added, “I also learned a lot in a rather uncomfortable way because Wayne and Siegel were feuding. They did not get along.”

The “feud” apparently stemmed from a quote Siegel gave to a newspaper before filming began.

Howard recalled that Wayne was upset about Siegel telling the paper, “You know, they say, John Wayne eats directors for breakfast. If he takes a bit out of me, he’s going to get indigestion.”

“It upset Duke, and it just got worse,” Howard recalled. While Howard learned a lot from both Siegel and Wayne, “There were some days where [Siegel] and John Wayne were really at loggerheads.”

Howard was just 22 years old when he filmed The Shootist. He had already been acting for years at that point, having starred in The Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days. Despite his years of acting experience, Howard was still in awe of Wayne and his legacy.

He remembered, “No one really would talk to him in between setups. It was John Wayne. It was Duke.”

Despite that, Howard recalled, “I also had the guts to sort of say, ‘Hey, do you want to run lines?'”

Wayne maintained a “very closed little bubble that he was operating in” on the set. However, Howard noted, the legendary actor was “perfectly friendly to me.” They shared many scenes in The Shootist, and Wayne took Howard up on the opportunity to run lines together.

“It was very interesting to see him take a scene and shape it into a John Wayne performance in the most positive ways,” Howard noted.

During their time together, Howard revealed that Wayne frequently gave him an “earful” about his “dissatisfaction with Don Siegel and the way he was shooting” the movie.

During the intense filming experience, Howard recalled Siegel admitting that, if push came to shove, the studio would back Wayne over him. Despite that, Howard recalled, Siegel didn’t manage the discord with Wayne particularly well.

“It was pretty intense, but I remember saying, there’s a better way to deal with even superstars than this,” Howard said.

The experience stuck with Howard as he developed his own directing career. He’s become intent on not letting differences of opinion “become something that’s petty and emotional.”

“I felt that the key was that a lot of things were allowed to fester for a long period of time. The strategy that I’ve followed over the years is when there’s a difference of opinion, go right into it,” Howard shared.

The Shootist ended up being Wayne’s last movie. The film also starred Lauren Bacall, Jimmy Stewart, John Carradine, and even The Young and the Restless star Melody Thomas Scott.