John Ford had known John Wayne since Marion Morrison had been a set decorator and prop boy at Fox Studios. He was preparing to bring the young man along slowly, to train him to become an actor and movie star. Instead Director Raoul Walsh cast the 23 year old to be the lead actor in his blockbuster spectacular The Big Trail. The reason was that the prop boy had done some bit parts, and quite frankly he looked like this:
The Big Trail cost over $2 million 1930 dollars, and it was a huge…flop. It was shot in a 70 mm format that virtually no theater was equipped with that system. The failure of The Big Trail wasn’t the newly renamed John Wayne’s fault but it pretty much destroyed his career. He became a mainstay in B and C westerns at the Poverty Row studios, like Monogram, Mascot, Liberty, and Majestic, Chesterfield, and Invincible, that eventually became Republic Pictures. And the nearly ten years that Wayne spent doing those Poverty Row movies helped him hone his skills to the point where he was near the same level at Republic as Gene Autry.
During this nine year period, John Ford hadn’t forgotten John Wayne, far from it. Ford had developed a friendship with Wayne. He was one of the people who crewed Ford’s yacht, the Araner (along with Ward Bond, Henry Fonda and others) on the director’s legendary “fishing” trips on the Mexican coast that were mostly about drinking and whoring. But Ford wasn’t the sort of director to rush potential (unlike Walsh had). He waited until he had the right part for him.
When he presented the script of Stagecoach and the role of The Ringo Kid to Wayne, Ford said that it was a star-making role. Wayne thought that Ford was actually looking for advice, and suggested another actor, Lloyd Nolan. It took Wayne a while to figure out that Ford was offering it to him. And once he got John Wayne in the role Ford fought to keep him in it. One Producer (Walter Wanger) said that he would only make the movie if Gary Cooper(!) was given the part of Ringo and Marlene Dietrich replaced Claire Trevor as Dallas. Wanger didn’t make the movie (and good thing too; I could see Lloyd Nolan as Ringo, but Cooper was about ten years too old and too established for the role).