Binging on John Ford, Part 6: Gay Rumors and an Alleged Affair w/Hepburn

Maureen O'Hara, John Wayne and 
John Ford during the filming of
The Quiet Man in Ireland

The more I learn about John Ford, the more twisted, fascinating and complex the legendary director becomes. I originally set out to watch all of his movies and read about him because so many film scholars have said he was the greatest director of Hollywood's Golden Era and perhaps even of all movie history. He also reminds me of my late dad who enjoyed his works tremendously and had a similar individualistic streak. But as I read books and articles on Ford, he emerges as a deeply troubled, fickle, jealous man who could be extremely manipulative, abusive and vindictive, if you got on his wrong side, even unintentionally. 

Maureen O'Hara starred in five Ford films--How Green Was My Valley, Rio Grande, The Quiet Man, The Long Grey Line and The Wings of Eagles. In her autobiography, Tis Herself, she reveals an early connection with Ford over their shared Irish heritage. O'Hara was born in Ireland and came to Hollywood to star in The Hunchback of Notre Dame under the tutelage of Charles Laughton who discovered her as a teenager in Great Britain. Ford developed an affection for O'Hara and her family many of whom later emigrated to the US and got into the picture business. 

Ford worked with O'Hara in preparation for The Quiet Man, his valentine to the Old Sod and drew close to her. But the director seems to have had more in mind than just a professional collaboration with the beautiful redhead. O'Hara reports that Ford, who was old enough to be her father, began writing her inappropriate, passionate love letters before Quiet Man began filming in Ireland.

Ford on the set of Mary of Scotland
with Hepburn: Friends or Lovers?

Katharine Hepburn was in a similar predicament with Ford, but she managed to not get in so deep as O'Hara. The two strong-minded filmmakers met on Hepburn's costume vehicle Mary of Scotland and reports differ as to the nature of their off-camera relationship. Many Hepburn biographers including Barbara Leaming and Peter Bogdanovich in his collection of essays Pieces of Times claim Hepburn and Ford had an affair during filming of Mary and even planned to get married. Only Ford's Catholic guilt over the sin of divorce and his wife Mary prevented the union. Bogdanovich goes so far as to say the two made a noble sacrifice of their personal happiness to further their separate film careers. Hepburn says in her autobiography Me: Stories of My Life that the two were just good friends and that she later tried to sober him up during one of his many periodic drunks. Hepburn repeats there was nothing physical between herself and Ford in Charlotte Chandler's bio I Know Where I'm Going. I have a feeling the affair and the near marriage were Ford's invention and Bogdanovich believed his hero's version of history.

O'Hara sheds further light on Ford's bizarre sexual psyche when she shockingly reveals in Tis Herself that she walked in on the macho auteur in the arms of another man. She fails to name Ford's kissing partner but describes him as one of Hollywood's best-known leading men. This was just before the filming of The Long Grey Line so it could have been that film's star, Tyrone Power of whom bisexual rumors have been rife. O'Hara also shares that Ford was doodling numerous drawings of penises during a production conference with her. She also repeats her experiences with the crew warning against young, handsome men working on his films being alone with Ford after dark.

The actress theorizes that Ford was really in love with her character in The Quiet Man, not the real woman, and was locked in a fantasy that she would rescue him from his true homosexual longings. Perhaps there was a similar imagined passion with Hepburn. When the fantasy did not equal reality--O'Hara looked on Ford as a father figure and a genius director, but no more--Ford lashed out at her. He harassed her on the set of The Long Grey Line and lied to her about John Wayne badmouthing her which caused a rift in their friendship. But she tolerated his transgressions and ultimately made peace with him. I just listened to her interview for the DVD of Rio Grande and she makes him sound like a tough, but gentlemanly saint.

If Ford had deeply suppressed gay tendencies, it would explain a lot--His epic drinking, his nasty behavior, his need for absolute control on the set and his affinity for ultramasculine material in his films. Ben Mankiewicz mentions O'Hara's anecdote about the man-to-man kiss in the Decoding John Ford podcast series from TCM, but doesn't go into its implications and it doesn't seem to be in any of the Ford bios. But then they were written before O'Hara's book came out.