Partly it was his roles. Wayne always played heroes who showed integrity, fairness, and courage—virtues prized by a generation that had confronted a depression, a world war, and a cold war. But it was also his talent for giving these roles credibility. His gestures, his walk, his speech—whether on- or off-screen—all seemed to intensify his heroic charisma.

No less a writer than Joan Didion (renowned “new journalist” and author of Slouching Towards Bethlehem) felt this charisma. She and Wayne had first met in 1943 when he was a cowboy in a black-and-white two-reeler and she was a nine-year-old kid on a sun-baked air base where movies were the only entertainment. She described their meeting for the Post in “John Wayne: A Love Song.”

In the darkened Quonset hut which served as a theater… while the hot wind blew outside… I first saw John Wayne. Saw the walk, heard the voice. Heard him tell the girl in War of the Wildcats that he would build her a house, “at the bend in the river where the cottonwoods grow.”

I tell you this neither in a spirit of self-revelation nor as an exercise in total recall, but simply to demonstrate that when John Wayne rode through my childhood, and very probably through yours, he determined forever the shape of certain of our dreams.

In John Wayne’s world, John Wayne was supposed to give the orders. “Let’s ride,” he said, and “Saddle up.” “Forward ho,” and “A man’s gotta do what he’s gotta do.” “Hello, there,” he said when he first saw the girl, in a construction camp or on a train or just standing around on the front porch waiting for somebody to ride up through the tall grass.

Didion wrote those words in 1965 after visiting Wayne on a movie set. In person, he seemed larger than life while giving the impression of a decent, unassuming guy.

There was Wayne, in his 33-year-old spurs, his dusty neckerchief, his blue shirt.”You don’t have too many worries about what to wear in these things,” he said. “You can wear a blue shirt, or, if you’re down in Monument Valley, you can wear a yellow shirt.”

There was Wayne, in a relatively new hat, a hat which made him look curiously like William S. Hart. “I had this old cavalry hat I loved, but I lent it to Sammy Davis. I got it back, it was unwearable. I think they all pushed it down on his head and said, “O.K. John Wayne. You know, a joke…”

(That hat, and several others, went up for auction this past week in Los Angeles, as Wayne’s family finally acceded to fan’s request to purchase some of their father’s movie memorabilia.)

Didion also noted several moments of pure, unrehearsed “Duke.” For example, when Michael Anderson, a young member of the cast, was given his own chair with his name on the back, he hurriedly brought it to Wayne’s attention.

“You see that?” Anderson asked Wayne, suddenly too shy to look him in the eye. Wayne gave him the smile, the nod, the final accolade. “I saw it, kid.”

There was also the moment when the crew, during a lunchtime break, discussed what they’d do to anyone who threatened their lives.

[Director Henry] Hathaway removed the cigar from his mouth. “Some guy just tried to kill me he wouldn’t end up in jail. How about you. Duke?”

Very slowly, the object of Hathaway’s query wiped his mouth, pushed back his chair, and stood up. It was the real thing, the authentic article, the move which had climaxed 1,000 scenes on 165 flickering frontiers and battlefields, and it was about to climax this one, in the commissary at Estudio Churubusco outside Mexico City.

“Right,” John Wayne drawled. “I’d kill him.”

Later, when Didion and her husband had dinner with Wayne and his family, she felt how his charm could fill an entire restaurant.

For a while it was only a nice evening, an evening anywhere. We had a lot of drinks, and I lost the sense that the face across the table was in certain ways more familiar than my husband’s.

John Wayne, photographed in 1978, shortly before his death.

And then something happened. Suddenly the room seemed suffused with the dream, and I could not think why. Three men appeared out of nowhere, playing guitars. I watched Pilar Wayne lean slightly forward, and John Wayne lift his glass almost imperceptibly toward her… We all smiled, and drank… and all the while the men with the guitars kept playing, until finally I realized what they had been playing all along: “Red River Valley” and the theme from The High and the Mighty. They did not quite get the beat right, but even now I can hear them, in another country and a long time later, even as I tell you this…

In a world we understand early to be characterized by venality and doubt and paralyzing ambiguities, he suggested another world, one which may or may not have existed ever, but in any case existed no more—a place where a man could move free, could make his own code and live by it; a world in which, if a man did what he had to do, he could one day take the girl and go riding through the draw and find himself there at the bend in the bright river, the cottonwoods shimmering in the sun.

The Cowboy and the Columnist, or Joan Didion ♥ John Wayne The Saturday Evening Post

Yet Americans still hear criticism about the way they celebrate Christmas. Critics, ministers, and even journalists tell us our Christmases are too commercial, too shallow, or not Christian enough.

The criticism appears with such regularity that it has become one more tradition of the season. In contrast, we offer a 1965 Post essay by April Oursler Armstrong. Author of “The Greatest Faith Ever Known,” a narrative of the New Testament begun by her father, Fulton Oursler, Oursler was a student of theology at Fordham University and had written several books on religious themes. So it’s surprising to read her argument to “Keep Christmas Commercial.”

Every year right after Halloween the world becomes Christmas-conscious—and people begin deploring. If only we could have a real Christmas, they say. The good old kind. Quiet, inexpensive, simple, devout. If only we could retrieve the holy day from the hands of vulgar money-grubbers, they say. They say, with earnest horror, that the price tag has become the liturgical symbol of the season.

As a Christian, I do find facets of the Christmas season ridiculous, offensive or disturbing, but I believe most complaints about the commercialization of Christmas are unconsciously hypocritical nonsense. I’m afraid that often the complainers are kidding themselves, striking spiritual poses.

I’m not ashamed to admit that if I had to spend Christmas somewhere far from the crowd and the vulgar trappings, I’d hate it. I love the lights… I love the Santa Clauses… Cut off from the whole wild confusion, I’d not be holier. I’d be forlorn. So, I suspect, would most of us.

What’s supposed to be so wrong with a commercialized Christmas?

With rare exceptions, it is foolishly pompous to get scandalized and accuse manufacturers, advertisers and vendors of desecrating Christmas by trying to sell what you or I may think is silly junk. Obviously some people like it and buy it, and that’s their business.

It’s said to be the fault of the commercializers that parents buy overpriced, unnecessary toys for children. And that’s a fancy alibi. If you don’t like what’s being hawked this Christmas, you don’t have to buy it. And if you’re a sucker, your problem isn’t seasonal.

Christians began giving presents to each other to celebrate Jesus’ birthday in imitation of the Wise Men who came to Bethlehem. The basic idea was and is to bring joy, to honor God in others, and to give in His name with love for all.

No one can buy or sell Christmas. No one can steal it from us, or ruin it for us, except ourselves. If we become self-seeking, materialistic, harried and ill-willed in this Christmas melee, that’s our problem, not the fault of the world in which we live.

Some people are dismayed today in a different way, because they honestly fear Christmas is being de-Christianized, made nonsectarian. They are upset when someone who does not share their faith sets up a tree and exchanges gifts and wishes them “Season’s Greetings” instead of naming the holy day. They resent the spelling “Xmas.” Others fret over the way Santa Claus and snowmen crowd out the shepherds. Put Christ back into Christmas, these offended people cry.

As far as I know. Christ never left it. He could never be cut out of Christmas, except in the privacy of individual hearts. The antics of the rest of the world can’t change Christmas. Why on earth should we expect everyone to share our special joy our way?

I believe the root of complaints about commercialized Christmas is that we’re falling into the dangerous habit of thinking that religion is somehow coarsened by contact with real people. I suspect that unconsciously we’re embarrassed at the prospect of trying to live with God here and now.

It’s always easier, if you’re not doing very well religiously, to insist that the world prevents you from devotion. Christmas is meant to be lived in the noisy arena of the shopping-day countdown, amid aluminum trees, neckties and counterfeit French perfume.

Christmas is a parable of the whole Christian venture. The Christian’s attitude toward it, his willingness to make it relevant repeatedly in his own time and space, is a symptom of his whole encounter with God. The first Christmas happened, so Christians believe, because God lovingly plunged Himself into human nature to transform it. He is not honored by men and women who want to disown other people’s human nature in His name.

Let’s not make the mealy-mouthed error of complaining that paganism threatens Christmas today. Christmas has already absorbed and recharged the vestiges of Druid feasts, Norse gods, and sun worship. Christmas took the world as it was and built on it, and it’s still doing just that.

In good taste or bad, by your standards or mine, the fact of Christ, the good news of the meeting of heaven and earth, the tidings of love and peace for human nature, are announced everywhere. It is still true that he who has ears to hear will hear.

“Let’s Keep Christmas Commercial” The Saturday Evening Post

Elizabeth Taylor – December 3, 1966

Elizabeth TaylorPhoto: Paul RonaldDecember 3, 1966

Elizabeth Taylor may have been a shrew on the December 3, 1966 cover, but she was also a stunner. She and Richard Burton were starring in The Taming of the Shrew. The Paul Ronald photo gives credence to those who argue she was the most beautiful screen actress of all. To my surprise and delight, the cover folded out to show the man attempting to tame her (Burton as Petruchio). Well, it certainly never happened in real life.

Sophia Loren – October 21, 1967

Sophia LorenPhoto: M-G-M PhotoOctober 21, 1967

Just when you stick your foot in it and assert that Liz was the greatest screen beauty ever, you run across a gorgeous cover of Sophia Loren from 1967. The battle rages on. The movie star had a rough beginning, “even for a poor Neapolitan,” wrote John Cheever in the accompanying article. “She was seven years old when the three-year of bombardment of Naples began during World War II, and she and her mother suffered the hazards of poverty and war.” Forty-three years later, she’s still gorgeous.

Ann-Margret – May 4, 1963

Ann-MargretPhoto: Lawence J. SchillerMay 4, 1963

Looking sassy, sexy and joyful all at once is Ann-Margret, an “explosive new star.” Her rise to Hollywood fame was considered lightning fast. “At 22, having emerged from nowhere by way of Sweden and Illinois, Ann-Margret has worked the film town’s official chroniclers into a froth of admiration,” wrote Dean Jennings. As ingenuous as the young star was, she planned “to be the girl who sustains, year after year.” We’re delighted she succeeded.

Faye Dunaway – September 7, 1968

Faye DunawayPhoto: Jerry SchatzbergSeptember 7, 1968

I have been known to rue the day photography replaced art and illustration on the covers of The Saturday Evening Post, but a photo like this reminds even a curmudgeon like myself that photography is an art form, too. The beautiful star was nominated for Best Actress for Bonnie and Clyde from the year before.

Julie Andrews – January 29, 1966

Julie AndrewsPhoto: Philippe HelsmanJanuary 29, 1966

I love the fresh-faced Julie Andrews of this 1966 cover. She was a long way from the Mary Poppins of only a couple of years before, starring in a cold-war themed Hitchcock movie. With her in “Torn Curtain” was Paul Newman (who’ll be one of our “leading men” next week). She was the first to make fun of her squeaky clean image. When Hitchcock complained during a scene, “That light is making a hell of a line over her head,” she responded with hands primly on hips, “That’s my halo.” Okay, no halo, but she certainly had a radiance.

Brigitte Bardot – May 8, 1965

Bridget BardotPhoto: Dan Ornitz and OrlandoMay 8, 1965

“For people like me,” Bardot was quoted as saying, “there is no place left to hide.” The sex kitten was still a hot property at the ripe old age of thirty. According to the article, “police almost lost control of the mob when she got off the plane in Mexico City to assume her part in Viva Maria! Being hounded by the paparazzi isn’t a new thing—the alluring actress was brutally pursued by photographers. She retired less than ten years later and became an outspoken advocate for animal rights.

Classic Covers: Leading Ladies of the ’60s The Saturday Evening Post

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Escape into the life of a man who always wins. In the elaborate mythology of a suave British spy, with his miraculous gadgets that rub out bad guys, and miraculous girls who sleep with good guys, modern man has found a perfect security blanket for the nervous 1960s. …

Read more in Zinsser’s 1965 critique of the Bond phenomenon.

The James Bond Cult The Saturday Evening Post