John Wayne once gifted Richard Boone a Rolls Royce

In addition to being an excellent actor, Wayne was also an impeccable gift-giver.

CBS Television Distribution

The classic saying goes that Hollywood stars are human beings, just like us! But while stars are people like us in the sense that they need food and water and probably the occasional bubble bath, working as a full-time movie star is simply not the same as you or me going to work at our daily nine-to-five.

For example, if you were going to get a gift for a friend or loved one, you might splurge on something like a tech device or even a more expensive piece of clothing. However, according to an interview with The Taylorville Daily Breeze Courier, John Wayne's definition of a gift for a friend was much more elaborate.

While Richard Boone made a name for himself as Paladin in the series Have Gun – Will Travel, he was also able to make the elaborate leap from television into movies.

Boone once recounted a story about Wayne's gift to a friend and fellow Flagler professor, Tom Rahner. Years later. Rahner recalled that Boone had made a very brief appearance in Wayne's film, The Alamo. Boone played Sam Houston, a character with a real-life counterpart that lived from 1793 until 1863.

Because the role was smaller, Boone had refused outright compensation for playing the character in the film. However, Wayne wouldn't let his actor and friend leave empty-handed and surprised him with an incredibly generous gift.

Rahner stated, "When Boone arrived back home after the shooting, a brand new Rolls Royce, a gift from Wayne, was in his driveway!"

So while we're sure that John Wayne puts his pants on one leg at a time just like us, you have to acknowledge that there are some very impressive differences between movie stars and regular people.

Still, despite his fame, Boone never let celebrity get to his head. Rahner stated, "Dick talked about his career, as might have been expected, but not to excess. He was proud of his accomplishments, but I would not characterize him as a braggart."

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3 Comments

McGillahooala 8 months ago
Contrast the character of people like John Wayne and Richard Boone to that of Pernell Roberts, Jack Nicholson, and the father and son Reiner ilk.
Runeshaper 8 months ago
WOW! That was super cool of Wayne and Boone was a solid dude!
DocForbin 8 months ago
Then of course there was the rather unusual role (at least by fans' standards) Wayne had in the movie "The Barbarian and the Geisha". In that movie Wayne played Townsend Harris, who was the US's first Consul-General to Japan. Harris was responsible for negotiating the first trade treaty between Japan and another nation and helped to open Japan to the outside world toward the end of the Tokugawa shogunate. Harris has ties to my area since he was born in Hudson Falls NY. In fact, it was the late Kingsbury Town Historian Paul Loding who first told me about "The Barbarian and the Geisha" and I got to see it on The Family Channel (now Freeform) in the mid-1990s.
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