Duking the Duke

Well, we finally received another reply to our enquiry 'Have You Ever Been Shagged by a Celebrity'? This time it's a real corker from 'Grand Duchess', revealing a little known side to one of Hollywood's biggest stars:

"Back in the Summer of 1973 I was hitch hiking home to San Francisco from Seattle when, late one afternoon, a black Trans Am soddenly pulled up beside me. The door opened a vaguely familiar voice asked "Do you want a ride kid?" Imagine my surprise to discover the driver was none other than John Wayne - the Duke himself! Although I was a freaked out, long-haired hippie peacenik, the Duke had no hesitation in offering me a lift back to 'Frisco.

Several times during the trip he touched my thigh with his right hand - he claimed that it had slipped whilst changing gear, but the car was an automatic. When we finally arrived outside my apartment building, he leaned across from the driver's seat and kissed me on the cheek. I immediately asked him up to my apartment for "a coffee".

Of course, as soon as we got through the door we began to rip eachother's clothes off and engaged in mad passionate lovemaking for the next four hours. We continued this homosexual affair in secret until his death in 1979. The Duke claimed that he had wanted to 'come out' for years and said that he'd thought he'd given enough clues as to his true sexuality in all those westerns and war movies where he never got the girl, but preferred to hang out with guys and horses. Indeed, he claimed that he'd been shooting a movie about a gay cop in Seattle, but I don't recall ever seeing him in such a movie -maybe the studio suppressed or re-shot it. Knowing your encyclopedic knowledge of crap movies, Doc, perhaps you could enlighten me?"

Well 'Grand Duchess', the film in question was McQ, which, as you surmised, was completely re-edited by the studio to remove any references to homosexuality. However, it is notable that film never mentions what 'McQ' is short for, I think we can all guess what the Q is short for. Moreover, all the women in the film are either treacherous or whores. Indeed, one of the latter refers to the Duke as being a 'bear' - a gay slang term for large rough men. The Duke spends a lot of the film beating up hippies and other 'non-manly' men - in the original script this was a cover for his own repressed homosexuality. The original climax featured him embracing his sexuality and running off with the obviously gay Mafia boss played by the late Al Lettieri.