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John Wayne terrorized the KGB hitmen ordered by Stalin to assassinate Duke | Movies | Entertainment

John Wayne terrorized the KGB hitmen ordered by Stalin to assassinate Duke | Movies | Entertainment

Joseph Stalin was a great cinephile and a great admirer of American westerns, which he screened regularly for the Soviet elite during their reign of terror.

However, the communist dictator was bothered America’s Powerful Incarnation of John Wayneafter being warned by Russian film director Sergei Gerasimov about the great cultural influence of the Hollywood star.

Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk, Duke’s son Ethan Wayne told us: “I think his films made the American idea very acceptable to a wide swath of the world, and he was anti-communist.”

As a result, Stalin wanted to assassinate the actor and ordered KGB agents to carry out the coup around 1949. However, they were no match for Duke.

According to John Wayne by Michael Munn: the man behind the mythWayne survived several attempts on his life. Duke’s fellow stuntman Yakima Canutt even “saved his life once” in the early 1950s. When the FBI first discovered that Soviet agents had been sent to Hollywood to kill Wayne, they offered protection to Duke. star. However, Duke told the G-men that he would deal with the KGB hitmen himself, if they showed up, since “no communist is going to scare me.” It was later revealed that, along with screenwriter Jimmy Grant, Wayne had planned to kidnap his would-be killers, take them to a beach and there “stage a mock execution to scare them.”

The historian does not know exactly what happened after this altercation, but the rumor was that the two KGB men defected and ended up staying in the United States to work for the FBI. Even after this assassination attempt, Duke did not bother with FBI protection; He didn’t even tell his family about the threat so they wouldn’t worry. Instead, the American icon moved into a house surrounded by a massive wall for added security. He also relied on his specialist friends, who infiltrated American communist cells, to inform him of future attempts on his life. According to Munn: “Then he gathered all the specialists, went to the communist meetings and had a big fight.” That’s when Canutt saved Wayne’s life. But that was not the end of his problems, as there was another attempt on Duke’s life by a communist cell in Mexico when he was filming 1953’s Hondo, which was released the year Stalin finally died.

Ethan Wayne told us: “Stalin actually had an attack on John Wayne for several years. But then when (his successor) Khrushchev came to power, the first thing he wanted to do when he met the president of the United States in 1959 was (go to Disneyland and) meet John Wayne.” Although President Eisenhower did not allow the new Soviet premier to see the Mickey Mouse theme park on his visit to Los Angeles, he did arrange for the Russian dictator to have an audience with Duke at a luncheon of Hollywood stars.

Speaking on Wayne’s arm and walking him to the bar, a beaming Khrushchev told the actor through his interpreter: “I’m told you like to drink and that you can hold your liquor.” According to the Los Angeles TimesDuke confirmed this before the pair matched drink for drink as they “compared the virtues of Russian vodka and Mexican tequila.” It was during their conversation that the Soviet leader told the Western Star about the assassination attempts on his life by the KGB: “That was Stalin’s decision during his last five crazy years. When Stalin died, I rescinded that order.”

Ethan Wayne, promoting the official John Wayne: an American Experience museum, added: “He went from someone who wanted to kill him to someone who wanted to meet him. And what was John Wayne? John Wayne, that character, what he portrayed on screen to people were quintessentially American ideals, values, and character. Duke Morrison was just a human being, but that’s what he did right. It’s like people now want to have a Superman franchise or whatever those things are. from Marvel. He can make several movies in the same theme. But John Wayne became in the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. And John Wayne was really the American ideal of what a man should be and he talked about it openly the man that the guy wanted to have as a best friend and. the girl wanted to marry, the father wanted to have as a son, the son wanted to have as a father.

John Wayne: An American Experience is now open in Fort Worth, Texas and tickets can be purchased here.