Movies - TV
John Wayne Pushed Maureen O'Hara Down That Muddy Hill In McLintock!
By WITNEY SEIBOLD
The middle of “McLintock!,” a Western adaptation of William Shakespeare's “The Taming of the Shrew,” involves a brawl in the town, a mud slope, a lot of stunt performers, and John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara getting coated in glop. On a 1976 episode of “Donahue,” Wayne talked about how he and O'Hara took the dive, and how he had to literally push his co-star into it.
In the scene, Wayne and O'Hara stand on the edge of a muddy precipice during an attempted lynching, and Wayne pushes O'Hara into a mud pit. Wayne explained, “I said, ‘Maureen, you ready?’ and she said, ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘Get over there!’ She got over there. I said, ‘Stick me with a hatpin!’ She did and I went ‘Wham!’ Down she went, cursing at me all the way down.”
The hatpin gesture may have been Wayne trying to get his own motivation going. After “McLintock!,” Wayne and O'Hara would go on to star opposite each other in 1971's “Big Jake.” The two actors were said to be good friends who had similar political opinions, as they both were some of the most right-leaning people in Hollywood.