Chapter One: God, Lincoln, and the Golden Gate
It was happening again. Another slight. Another slight in a string of slights that stretched back to the time before he was John Wayne, even before he was Marion Mitchell Morrison-the name he was finally given at age five-back probably to his mother's unforgiving impatience with his father, which had transferred unerringly to him. "How children dance to the unlived lives of their parents," poet Rainer Maria Rilke once observed. John Wayne always danced to his mother, Molly's, unrealized dreams.
She made sure the dance was painful, holding tight the strings of his emotions and jerking them sharply whenever she wanted to keep him in line. He was his mother's son, so like her in his ambition and drive, his stubbornness and toughness. Unlike his father, Wayne fulfilled his mother's dreams of success, and she never forgave him for it. She refused to acknowledge his accomplishments or praise his achievements, rejecting his attempts to demonstrate his love. In Molly's eyes even his spectacular success was only a prelude to his ultimate failure. Until it came-as she was certain it would-she would continue to remind Duke, as he was later called, that he was nothing special.
The latest slight involved his most recent display of love. Each year he sent his mother and her second husband, Sidney Preen, on a spectacular vacation. Wherever they wanted to go and however long they wanted to stay, it was his treat. He was a dutiful son. He always remembered her birthday, invited her to family gatherings, and inquired about her welfare. The people in Long Beach, California, where the Preens lived, knew her and her famous son and were aware of the attention he paid her. In 1962 Wayne sent Sidney and Molly Preen on an around-the-world, all-expenses-paid vacation that took them to every major tourist attraction on the planet. They flew first class, traveled on luxury ships, rented big cars, ate in the finest restaurants, watched the most popular shows, and shopped in the best stores. Duke wanted his mother to have a good time, and he laid out thousands of dollars to ensure the success of the trip.
