John Wayne and his irrational hatred of this Oscar winner: “The worst actor in town. He’s awful”

Few Hollywood actors have been and remain as iconic as John Wayne, whose face and acting style are irrevocably linked to the classic Westerns of the 1950s and 1960s. Thanks to his collaborations with big names in the genre such as John Ford and Howard Hawks, Wayne became famous for his tough characters who defied the greatest threats of the Wild West, giving rise to such celebrated films as The Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, among many others. But John Wayne also had a reputation for being a complicated man up close, treating anyone who approached him in a very peculiar way.

John Wayne’s hatred of Gene Hackman

The fact is that John Wayne was afraid of nothing and no one. This is evident from his constant attacks on anyone who did not share his view of life, including other actors and filmmakers. So much so that, as the years went by, Wayne viewed the new Hollywood figures who were gaining prominence with suspicion, including those he perceived as potential threats to his Western reign.

This is recounted in the book John Wayne: My Father, written by the actor’s daughter, Aissa Wayne: “When it came to his contemporaries in film, I only heard him speak once with any real venom,” wrote his daughter, revealing that the actor in question was none other than Gene Hackman, the famous two-time Oscar-winning actor: “Gene Hackman could never appear on-screen without my father skewering his performance,” added Aissa. “I wish I could tell you why he so harshly criticized Hackman, but he never went into detail.”

Hackman rose to fame in the film industry in the same decade that Wayne’s fame in Hollywood declined, starring in ‘The French Connection’ (1971), ‘The Conversation’ (1974), and ‘Young Frankenstein’ (1974). For some reason, Wayne had no sympathy for Hackman, and Aissa recalls: “Back then, however, my father called Hackman ‘the worst actor in town. He’s awful.’” Despite his obvious hatred of Hackman, his daughter is certain that if her father were alive today, he might have liked his films, and she states: “Had my father lived to see more of his work, I think his view of Mr. Hackman would have changed,” concludes John Wayne’s daughter.

For his part, Gene Hackman never took Wayne’s words about his acting abilities into consideration, describing the Western legend as “one of the best actors in history.” In a 1992 interview, Hackman, who had just released Unforgiven, Clint Eastwood’s Oscar-winning film for Best Picture, added: “I could never be the man he was, because his politics and mine would be incompatible, but you must admire how really good he was as an actor, in command of the scene and with such great charisma,” concluded Gene Hackman.

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