Wayne and Ford
The Films, the Friendship, and the Forging of an American Hero
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Narrated by:
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Kimberly Farr
About this listen
John Ford and John Wayne were two titans of classic film and made some of the most enduring movies of all time. The genre they defined - the Western - still matters today.
For over 20 years, John Ford and John Wayne were a blockbuster Hollywood team, turning out many of the finest Western films ever made. Ford, a son of Irish immigrants known for his black eye patch and for his hard-drinking, brawling masculinity, was renowned for both his craftsmanship and his brutality. John "Duke" Wayne was a mere stagehand and bit player in "B" Westerns, but he was strapping and incredibly handsome, and Ford saw his potential. In 1939, Ford made Wayne a star in Stagecoach, and from there the two men established a close, often turbulent relationship.
Their most productive years saw the release of one iconic film after another: Rio Grande, The Quiet Man, The Searchers, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence. But by 1960 the bond of their friendship had frayed, and Wayne felt he could move beyond his mentor with his first solo project, The Alamo. Few of Wayne's following films would have the brilliance or the cachet of a John Ford Western, but, taken collectively, the careers of these two men changed moviemaking in ways that endure to this day. Despite the decline of the Western in contemporary cinema, its cultural legacy, particularly the type of hero codified by Ford and Wayne - tough, self-reliant, and unafraid to fight but also honorable, trustworthy, and kind - resonates in everything from Star Wars to today's superhero franchises.
Drawing on previously untapped caches of letters and personal documents, Nancy Schoenberger dramatically narrates a complicated, poignant, and iconic friendship and the lasting legacy of that friendship on American culture.
©2017 Nancy Schoenberger (P)2017 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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- Narrated by: Marston York
- Length: 6 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Through roles in cherished films such as Mrs. Doubtfire, Jumanji, Aladdin and Hook, he became the genial face of family comedy. His childlike enthusiasm was infectious, sweeping viewers away. Allied to his lightning-quick improvisation and ability to riff lewdly off any cue thrown at him, Robin was that rare thing - a true comic genius who appealed to adults and children equally. He could also play it straight, and empathetic depth came to him naturally.
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Good... but too many quotes
- By DDub on 11-09-18
By: Emily Herbert
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Rebel
- My Life Outside the Lines
- By: Nick Nolte
- Narrated by: Nick Nolte, Christian Baskous
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In a career spanning five decades, Nick Nolte has endured the rites of Hollywood celebrity. Rising from obscurity to leading roles and Oscar nominations, he has been both celebrated and vilified in the media; survived marriages, divorces, and a string of romances; was named the "Sexiest Man Alive" by People magazine; and suffered public humiliation over his drug and alcohol issues, including a drug-fueled trip down a "long road of nothingness" that ended in arrest.
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Great read! No fooling.
- By Action Joe on 05-31-18
By: Nick Nolte
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The Sound of Music Story
- How a Beguiling Young Novice, a Handsome Austrian Captain, and Ten Singing Von Trapp Children Inspired the Most Beloved Film of All Time
- By: Tom Santopietro
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Now Tom Santopietro has written the ultimate Sound of Music fan audiobook with all the inside dope, from behind-the-scenes stories of the filming in Austria and Hollywood to new interviews with Johannes von Trapp and others. Santopietro looks back at the real-life story of Maria von Trapp, goes on to chronicle the sensational success of the Broadway musical, and recounts the story of the near cancellation of the film when Cleopatra bankrupted 20th Century Fox.
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A must for super-fans
- By Simone on 07-29-17
By: Tom Santopietro
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High Society
- The Life of Grace Kelly
- By: Donald Spoto
- Narrated by: George K Wilson
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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In just seven years---from 1950 through 1956---Grace Kelly embarked on a whirlwind career that included roles in 11 movies. From the principled Amy Fowler Kane in High Noon to the thrill-seeking Frances Stevens of To Catch a Thief, Grace established herself as one of Hollywood's most talented actresses and iconic beauties.
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Find a better Grace Kelly biography, I'd skip this
- By Daniel on 08-20-12
By: Donald Spoto
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Becoming Faulkner
- The Art and Life of William Faulker
- By: Philip Weinstein
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 12 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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William Faulkner was the greatest American novelist of the 20th century, yet he lived a life marked by a pervasive sense of failure. Throughout his career, he remained haunted by his inability to master a series of personal and professional challenges: his less-than-heroic military career; the loss of his brother in an airplane crash; a disappointing stint as a Hollywood screenwriter; and a destructive bout with alcoholism.
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Miss.'s BCS-Bundren.Compson.Snopes/Sutpen/Sartoris
- By W Perry Hall on 05-01-14
By: Philip Weinstein
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My Thoughts Be Bloody
- The Bitter Rivalry Between Edwin and John Wilkes Booth
- By: Nora Titone, Doris Kearns Goodwin - introduction/notes
- Narrated by: John B. Lloyd
- Length: 19 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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My Thoughts Be Bloody, a sweeping family saga, revives an extraordinary figure whose name has been missing, until now, from the story of President Lincoln's death. Edwin Booth, John Wilkes's older brother by four years, was in his day the biggest star of the American stage. Without an account of Edwin Booth, author Nora Titone argues, the real story of Lincoln's assassin has never been told.
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Wonderful!
- By Tad Davis on 11-30-10
By: Nora Titone, and others
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Looking for the Good War
- American Amnesia and the Violent Pursuit of Happiness
- By: Elizabeth D. Samet
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In Looking for the Good War, Elizabeth D. Samet reexamines the literature, art, and culture that emerged after World War II, bringing her expertise as a professor of English at West Point to bear on the complexity of the postwar period in national life. She exposes the confusion about American identity that was expressed during and immediately after the war, and the deep national ambivalence toward war, violence, and veterans - all of which were suppressed in subsequent decades by a dangerously sentimental attitude toward the United States' "exceptional" history and destiny.
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Essential reading for military officers and political decision makers.
- By Arlene S. Burke on 02-23-22
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Orson Welles's Last Movie
- The Making of The Other Side of the Wind
- By: Josh Karp
- Narrated by: Keith Szarabajka
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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In the summer of 1970, legendary but self-destructive director Orson Welles returned to Hollywood from years of self-imposed exile in Europe and decided it was time to make a comeback movie. It was about a legendary self-destructive director who returns to Hollywood from years of self-imposed exile in Europe. Welles swore it wasn't autobiographical.
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Engaging and human portrait of Welles
- By TrevorTrujillo on 06-20-20
By: Josh Karp
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The Great Escape
- Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World
- By: Kati Marton
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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The stunning story of the breathtaking journey of nine extraordinary men from Budapest to the New World, what they experienced along their dangerous route, and how they changed America and the world. In a style both personal and historically groundbreaking, acclaimed author Kati Marton (born in Budapest) tells the tale of their youth in Budapest's Golden Age of the early 20th century, their flight, and their lives of extraordinary accomplishment, danger, glamour, and poignancy.
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very interesting, well-narrated
- By D. Littman on 12-17-06
By: Kati Marton
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Something Wonderful
- Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway Revolution
- By: Todd S. Purdum
- Narrated by: Todd S. Purdum
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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They stand at the apex of the great age of songwriting, the creators of the classic Broadway musicals Oklahoma!, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music, whose songs have never lost their popularity or emotional power. Even before they joined forces, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II had written dozens of Broadway shows, but together they pioneered a new art form: the serious musical play.
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Fabulous book about Rodgers & Hammerstein!!!
- By BigWally on 06-27-18
By: Todd S. Purdum
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Everybody Thought We Were Crazy
- Dennis Hopper, Brooke Hayward, and 1960s Los Angeles
- By: Mark Rozzo
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 12 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Los Angeles in the 1960s: riots in Watts and on the Sunset Strip, wild weekends in Malibu, late nights at The Daisy discotheque, openings at the Ferus Gallery, and the convergence of pop art, rock and roll, and the New Hollywood. At the center of it all, one inspired, improbable, and highly combustible couple—Dennis Hopper and Brooke Hayward—lived out the emblematic love story of ’60s L.A.
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Wonderful!
- By Rob on 06-07-22
By: Mark Rozzo
What listeners say about Wayne and Ford
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Buretto
- 08-29-19
A bit trite, and perhaps mis-subtitled
I appreciate many of their films and their statuses as cultural icons, though I'm not the biggest fan of either man. I suppose I listened to this book in order to fill the gaps in my knowledge of inner workings of the Hollywood western machine. I'm not sure I got that. Nor did I get all that much about the friendship, other than that Ford would incessantly humiliate Wayne on set. What I did get was a rather strident, though sympathetic, investigation of what it means to be manly in society, from a female perspective. I'm guessing this is meant to be the forging an American Hero part.
The author leaves no doubt where her sympathies lie with regard to the two men. You need look no further than the title and the cover art to discover that, but her message is clear throughout. Wayne is portrayed as a sensitive, self-effacing, often uncertain character haunted by his lack of military service. She almost made me feel sorry for him. Almost, but then I remember there are plenty of live interviews and recordings to see the real person. But more troubling is the subject of homosexuality the author coyly dances around for several chapters regarding Ford, only addressing it in more detail later in the text. While she isn't so brazen to condemn this orientation, she does make clear her belief that this is the root of his misogyny, which is probably the true source of her scorn.
But where the book misses the mark is relating the influences, beneficiaries and devotees of the work. In a text that freely name checks filmmakers, actors and performers from Howard Hawks and Lauren Bacall to Bruce Dern, Bob Dylan, Peter Bogdanovich and Martin Scorsese, and dozens in between, it seems odd that a lot of obvious names were passed over, or just slightly touched upon. I expected to hear more about Sam Peckinpah, particularly in reference to Dylan's work in Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, or in discussing the career of Ben Johnson, or when recounting a list of western tv and film makers in the 50s and 60s. It seemed as if he wouldn't be mentioned at all, until a short note about The Wild Bunch, and realistic, cathartic violence in westerns. But I was probably more surprised there was no mention of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune (arguably the most creative director/actor pairing in film history, along with Bogart/Huston and the subjects of this book). Kurosawa greatly admired Ford, and famously staged samurai scenes as reflections of westerns. Those kind of stories would have been far more interesting. Perhaps it is beyond the brief of this book, but as mentioned, it strayed into many other areas of the entertainment industry.
All in all, a decent enough book, but not a lot new to be learned.
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- Conyers Davis
- 11-19-17
Fast paced history of two film legends
Nancy Schoenberg has produced a fast paced and concise history of film legends John Ford and John Wayne that helps contextualize their work together and which helps makes their films both more interesting and accessible.
The book is well narrated by Kimberly Farr.
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- Jens Eriksen
- 10-01-18
A great book
Great work and still as relevant today as when Wayne and Ford where alive a very satisfying read
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