Unseen Treasures of the Duke
He's as American as apple pie, and a part of him is coming to the Upper East Side Sept. 23-25.
More than 100 items belonging to screen legend John Wayne will be displayed at the Fletcher Sinclair Mansion as part of a first-ever auction of the late actor's possessions. Close to 750 items that once belonged to the Duke are being put on the block by John Wayne Enterprises, the business owned by his family.
Among the items for sale include his Best Actor Golden Globe for True Grit and the eye patch he wore in the film. Costumes from the Sands of Iwo Jima and The Green Berets are also up for bid. More than 50 scripts from classics such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, The Quiet Man and Rio Bravo, many with handwritten annotations, will also be for sale. The actor's cowboy boots and hats, as well as numerous items from his six-decade career, will all be available. The estimated value of the items range from $100 to $50,000, depending on what they are. John Wayne died in 1979 and appeared in more than 150 films.
Ethan Wayne, who runs John Wayne Enterprises, said that the items were culled from the house in which he and his father lived.
"After my father died, the house was off limits until my older brother passed away in 2003," he said. Wayne said that when he went back into the house after more than two decades, the house was in disarray.
"There was a lot of important stuff in there," he said. "We found his Golden Globe for True Grit packed away with cleaning supplies. It didn't make any sense."
After they had catalogued all of the items in the house, Wayne began to think about what to do with the possessions.
"The National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City already has a lot of my father's belongings," Wayne said. "We've had fans calling every day for 33 years since he died asking to have something that belonged to my father. The question became, did we want to send more stuff to the museum where it would be stored behind a glass case or did we want to put it out there where it would inspire people?"
The estate chose the latter route.
Would his father have expected that he would still be looming over the cinema landscape more than three decades after his death?
"I don't think he imagined it would continue like this," Wayne said. "He was always appreciative of his fans and the fact that he wouldn't be able to make films or live the kind of life that he wanted without their support."
Now that Ethan Wayne is in charge, he hopes to promote his father's legacy in a way that is respectful of him.
"I didn't feel we've been representing my father in the way that he represented himself," Wayne said. He is tying his father's image to things he cared about, such as high-end artisanal whisky, greatcoats, pocket knives and boots.
When asked to name the items he found most poignant among those up for auction, he encouraged viewers to read the letters between his father and politicians and celebrities like Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan as well as Paul Newman, Katharine Hepburn and director John Ford.
"There was a lot more depth to him than people think," Wayne said. "He was a lot more than the right-wing and rough and tumble actor that he gets portrayed as." John Wayne's hat from "Rooster Cogburn" is just one of the more than 700 items for sale.