By Stephen Schochet
About the book:
At high noon on a cold November day in 1974,
sixty-seven-year-old John Wayne faced off with the staff of the Harvard Lampoon
on the famous campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The students had issued their
challenge by calling the beloved American icon a fraud. Wayne, who had his new
movie McQ to promote, responded by saying he would be happy to show his film in
the pseudo-intellectual swamps of Harvard Square. After the screening, without
writers, the former USC footballer delivered a classic performance. When one
smart young man asked where he got his phony toupee, Wayne insisted the hair
was real. It wasn't his, but it was real. The appreciative underclassmen loved
him and after the Q and A session, they all sat down to dinner. Later Wayne,
who was suffering greatly from both gout and the after effects of lung cancer
(sadly the Duke only had five years to live), said that day at Harvard was the
best time he ever had.
