Dan, thanks for posting her review. Joan confirmed her nearly life long love affair with John Wayne in the magazine article JOHN WAYNE: A LOVE STORY, which is reprinted in her book SLOUCHING TOWARDS BETHLEHEM. She wrote it after visiting the filming of THE SONS OF KATIE ELDER. She says the affair began in 1943 when she was eight years old and watching WAR OF THE WILDCATS. It's nice to learn that at least one good thing came out of that movie. Perhaps she will be eternally smiling and drinking wine with The Duke while guitars are playing the theme from The High and the Mighty.
SFGate did a big Christmastime article on the Donner Party:
https://www.sfgate.com/sfhistory/article/What-happened-to-Donner-Party-survivors-16714121.php?IPID=SFGate-HP-Editors-Picks
Casey,
the article didn't mention Joan Didion, which prompted me to wonder how exactly is she a descendant of a Donner Party member. Per a 1979 New York Times profile,
https://www.nytimes.com/1979... more
Thanks, Dan — Casey Tefertiller,Mon Dec 27 2021 5:37
Another of Joan Didion's lodestars was Ernest Hemingway. Here's something she wrote about him in 1998:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1998/11/09/last-words-6
Two things you might not know about Joan Didion (three if we include the Donner Party), in the 1950s and 1960s she wrote for National Review and she was a John Wayne fan. Here is her review of The Al... more
Joan Didion wrote about Wayne more than once; she was a true fan. Her review of The Alamo was spot on. What she really liked a out the film was Wayne. Which is fair enough, I guess, although she short... more
JOHN WAYNE: A LOVE SONG — Jerry Prather,Fri Dec 24 2021 14:47
Jerry,
Thanks. Joan Didion and John Wayne, quite a combo. Aside from being a cold-eyed observer of the human race, she had provocatively contrarian instincts. She once wrote for the New York Review ... more