Popular Culture Review Vol. 26, No. 1, Winter 2015 | Page 33

friend. Strode characterized theirs as a father-son relationship. Clearly, it can be argued that John Ford used Woody Strode, perhaps as a symbol of Ford’s liberal views. In a 1972 interview with Frank Manchel, which incidentally, took place in John Ford’s home (where both Ford and Strode’s first wife, Princess Luana were present), Strode mentions how Ford told him, “Woody, we’d like to show what the black man did in American history . . . We would like to show that they helped build the American West also” (Manchel 363). In his autobiography, Gold Dust, Strode talks about coming back from Italy in 1973 just in time to make it to Ford’s side prior to his death. Strode speaks of how he “sat there on the side of his bed for six hours, holding his hand, until he went into a coma” (Goal Dust, 249). In the memoir, Strode continues, “He died. His sister and I took an American flag and draped him in it. We got some brandy, toasted him, and broke the glasses into the fireplace. I walked out of that house, and I never looked back. First Kenny [Washington] and then John Ford: my best friends were dead” (249). In his work, John Ford: The Man and His Films, Tag Gallagher writes the following, “The funeral [for John Ford] was held September 5, at Hollywood’s Church of the Blessed Sacrament. Richard Koszarski reports that, before the service, the church was empty except for the coffin and a single mourner, Woody Strode— a scene out of Liberty Valence” (455). The nature of the relationship between Woody Strode and John Ford was one of depth and complexity. Indeed, as much as Ford cast Woody Strode in roles in which the black actor was in the protective custody of a white co-star (usually a leading man), it can also be argued that Strode’s very career was in in the “protective custody" of John Ford, at least for a period time. Strode, in discussing his relationship with the famed Italian director, Sergio Leone, says the following: “Once Upon a Time in the West was the only picture I did for Sergio Leone . . . Unfortunately, Sergio is dead today, but if you checked with his office, you’d find he has an autographed picture from John Ford. On the picture, Ford wrote, 'If there’s anything I can do to help make Woody a star, I’ll do it for free” (237). The cross-racial relationship between Ford and Strode is one which demands more examination than this space affords, but suffice it to say, that perhaps, in the final estimation, John Ford and Woody Strode were in the protective custody of one another, marking a strange yet touching relationship. Clearly, there was love and respect and loyalty, and it is those qualities which are evident in Strode’s performances in Sergeant Rutledge and Liberty Valance. The theme song for Sergeant Rutledge, “Captain 29