John Wayne’s Grandson, Brendan Wayne, Joins Cast for
Remake of 1943’s ‘Angel and the Badman’
Stars Luke Perry, Lou Diamond Phillips Star join
Wayne to discuss why westerns endure
July 2, 2009 - Thirty years after John Wayne – the
face the of the American Western – rode off into the sunset for the last
time, his grandson, Brendan Wayne, dusts off his grandfather’s cowboy
hat for a role in “Angel and the Badman,” a remake of ‘The Duke’s’ 1947
classic. The Hallmark Channel’s Original Movie premiers this Sunday,
July 5.
The “Western,” like Mom, apple pie and the flag,
has grown to become practically part of our nation’s collective DNA.
While fictional, they tell stories set primarily in the latter half of
the 19th century that depict morality, bravery, honor and sacrifice
during a particularly primitive time. Men rode horses tall in the
saddle, guns blazing, cooking their meals by campfire and living their
lives by specific codes of good and evil. You were either a hero or a
villain; there was no time for neutrality or nuance out on the prairie.
The undisputed king of the Western was a fellow by
the name of John Wayne, as all senior citizens know. He starred in more
than 150 films over a career that stretched for a half-century, from the
1920s to the ‘70s, centering such classics as “Stagecoach” (1939), “Red
River” (1948) and “Sands of Iwo Jima” (1949) along with countless
others.
He died of lung and stomach cancer nearly 30 years ago to the
day – in July 1979 – but his legacy lives on with an institute bearing
his name still searching for a cure for the disease that claimed his
life.
But while he was here, The Duke (as Wayne was long
known) cast a towering shadow over the Western as its greatest
personality, embodying the spirit of the era. And while screens big and
small no longer are flooded with horse operas (so to speak), the Western
continues to leave its mark on entertainment culture – primarily on TV.
But even by Western standards, what the Hallmark
Channel is doing on July 5 qualifies as a true rarity, daring to remake
one of the Duke’s iconic pieces of work: The 1947 saga “Angel and the
Badman.”
Brendan Wayne's role
It comes back to life in a Hallmark Channel
Original Movie airing Sunday, July 5 (8 p.m. central/mountain, 9 p.m.
eastern/pacific). And not only does this “Angel” star real-life Western
aficionados Lou Diamond Phillips and Luke Perry, it also features in the
cast Wayne’s grandson, Brendan Wayne, in a key role.
“People always used to ask me, especially when I
was younger, if it was hard being John Wayne’s grandson,” Wayne, now 37,
says.
“I was always like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ It’s
been nothing but a blessing, truly. I mean, here I am in this movie
with guys like Lou and Luke – and they came to me! How lucky an SOB am
I?
“When the producers came to me and asked if I was
interested in being in a remake of something my granddaddy did, I’m
like, ‘Is this a trick question? I just hope people who watch understand
I want to honor this man not only in a movie, but in my life.’”
Phillips plays in role portrayed by John Wayne
Wayne co-stars in “Angel and the Badman” as Randy,
the former partner of a notorious gunman named Quirt Evans (portrayed by
John Wayne in the original, Phillips in the new version) who – after
being wounded and on the run from his deadly foe, Loredo (Perry) – takes
refuge with a family of peace-loving Quakers.
It inspires Quirt to change his violent ways and
turn the other cheek, playing into Wayne’s long-held ideal of playing
characters who eschewed violence except when absolutely necessary.
Phillips, whose resume’ also includes such Westerns
as “Young Guns” (1988), “Young Guns II” (1990) and Hallmark Channel’s
“The Trail to Hope Rose” (2004), wasn’t intimidated by the idea of
filling the shoes once worn by the Western’s perpetual king.
“This stuff just doesn’t phase me,” Phillips, 47,
insists. “I mean, I’m the guy who followed Yul Brynner in “The King and
I” on Broadway and got nominated for a Tony Award. Besides, ‘Angel’ was
actually one of Wayne’s more obscure films.
“If you look at the original, you’ll see that it’s
OK for what it is but absolutely could use a reinterpretation. We made
this one grittier, more thoughtful and sexier. That’s what made it
worth redoing. It isn’t like we were trying to remake ‘True Grit,’
which would have been a mistake.”
Perry a devoted fan of Duke
By contrast, it was the daunting idea of trying to
better a John Wayne film that gave Perry pause.
The 43-year-old former regular on the original
“Beverly Hills, 90210” in the 1990s and star of the Hallmark Channel
Western “A Gunfighter’s Pledge” that aired on July 5, 2008 (a year to
the day before “Angel” premieres) is such an avowed fan of Wayne’s that
he was concerned with disrespecting Wayne’s memory.
“I don’t step lightly toward remaking anything
Wayne was involved with,” he admits. “What finally steered me toward
doing it was, well, it’s going to get done, and maybe it’s good if I do
it since my heart’s in the right place and no one will take more
seriously the responsibility of maintaining the integrity of the
original movie. So I flipped a coin, and it came up, ‘Go!’.”
If he had his way, Perry insists, he would act in
nothing but Westerns for the rest of his career. That’s how big a buff
the man is.
“Any story that you want to tell in the human realm
can be told through the Western,” Perry believes. “It’s not limited by
language, or the caliber of story, or its nature. As an actor, it’s the
best part of filmmaking. It isn’t all about the makeup and hair.
“For someone like me, who spent years in series TV,
you’re way out there on the horse maybe a quarter-mile away, and they
can’t easily call you back for a touch-up.”
The best part of it for Phillips is the way making
a Western transports him to a whole different world, as it did on “Angel
and the Badman” during its shoot up in Vancouver, B.C.
“When you’re doing one of these, you really know
you’re making a movie,” he says. “It’s always a blast. We shot this in
late November and December in Canada. We hit snow, rain and freezing
weird stuff. Our director had to keep re-shooting stuff to explain the
change in weather. But it makes you feel like you’re part of the land,
part of history, part of something bigger than life. Plus, you get to
shoot guns, fight in bars, ride horses. It’s a kick.”
At the same time, Phillips is a firm believer that
“not everybody is cut out for the Western. Not everybody fits well in
the saddle. Some actors look less like they’re in the Old West and more
like they’re going to a Halloween party. Now, Brendan Wayne, he’s cut
out for it. He’s a real actor. It was great to have him there with us,
carrying to torch for his grandpa and giving us legitimacy with the
Wayne family.”
That’s certainly music to Brendan’s ears.
While he’s been a working actor since the beginning
of the decade, it’s the first time he’s been privileged to be involved
in a project where he’s able to follow a trail blazed directly by his
gramps. That obviously made it extra special.
“The thing with my grandfather was, he really
walked the walk that you saw in his characters onscreen,” Wayne
maintains. “He lived his patriotism and believed in doing the right
thing in the toughest moments, and I think people sensed that in how
they embraced him. He wasn’t just an actor but an example, and somebody
who impacted people’s lives in a profoundly positive way.”
Wayne still sounds giddy when describing his time
on the “Angel and the Badman” set. He fulfilled a dream in working with
stunt man and horse wrangler Danny Virtue and to ride one of the equines
on film.
“Danny’s a guy who works with real cowboys,” he
says, “and here he is working with me. It was awesome. He was doubling
me when I got thrown out of a bar. It doesn’t get any better than
that.”
While there is some genuine facial resemblance
between Brendan and the young version of his legendary grandpa, it isn’t
as if anyone is mixing the two up.
“He was 6’5 and 260,” he notes, “while I’m 6’0 and
170. I’ve gone into auditions where they think they’re getting John
Wayne and watched the casting director’s eyes drop about five inches.
It’s like, ‘Oh, he’s down there’.”
Naturally, Wayne is a major fan of Westerns. It
isn’t like he had any choice; it’s clearly in his blood. But the first
of those movies he recalls were the so-called Spaghetti Westerns with
Clint Eastwood like “The Outlaw Josie Wales.”
“There are mythologies in every empire,” he
believes. “The Romans had them. The Greeks had them. I think that
ours here in America lie in the pioneering, tough, hardscrabble spirit
of men succeeding in spite of long odds.”
Those odds would finally catch up to John Wayne
with his death from cancer at age 72, after a lifetime of heavy smoking
and drinking. But in his wake, the Duke has been able to plant a seed
of hope with the founding of the John Wayne Cancer Institute at St.
John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, CA, a research and education center
dedicated to finding the cure.
“And they will find it,” Wayne stresses with
assurance. “When they do, my grandfather’s death will have helped to
make that happen.”
The movie appears on the Hallmark Channel, Sunday,
July 5 – 9 p.m. eastern and pacific, 8 p.m. central and mountain times.
Hallmark Channel, owned and operated by Crown Media
United States, LLC is a 24-hour basic cable network that provides a
diverse slate of high-quality entertainment programming to a national
audience of 86 million subscribers. The top tier program service is
distributed through more than 5,450 cable systems and communities as
well as direct-to-home satellite services across the country. Hallmark
Channel consistently ranks among the top 10 ad-supported cable networks
in Prime Time and Total Day household ratings and is the nation’s
leading network in providing quality family programming. Crown Media
also operates a second 24-hour linear channel which plays the greatest
family movies of all time, Hallmark Movie Channel, and launched Hallmark
Movie Channel HD in April, 2008.
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boomers
July 2, 2009 - Thirty years after John Wayne – the
face the of the American Western – rode off into the sunset for the last
time, his grandson, Brendan Wayne, dusts off his grandfather’s cowboy
hat for a role in “Angel and the Badman,” a remake of ‘The Duke’s’ 1947
classic. The Hallmark Channel’s Original Movie premiers this Sunday,
July 5.