The legend of the American Western married the Peruvian actress in the mythical 50s.
This is the story of the idyll, 40 years after the actor's departure.
He had yet to win his only best actor Oscar, but John Wayne was already one of the biggest stars in the Hollywood firmament by the time he met Pilar Palette in Tingo Maria. It was 1952. The lord and master of celluloid westerns had arrived in Peru to find locations for "The Alamo", a film that he wanted to direct, produce, and star in. He would not find them here, but instead, he found the future with a beautiful and charming woman born in the port of Paita, with whom even Marlon Brando himself would later fall in love.
Aissa Wayne, their first daughter (and fifth of the seven offspring he had in total), tells in her book "John Wayne: my father", that the artist's second marriage, that time with the Mexican Esperanza Bauer (the one they called 'the flat'), no longer worked. The divorce papers were about to enter the court when the protagonist of Diligence set foot on these lands of the sun. While here, Wayne contacted an Irish-American immigrant by the name of Richard Weldy, who worked for Pan American Airways and, at the same time, organized tours in the Amazon.
“Weldy took my father to Tingo Maria, where a Peruvian film crew was making a movie. In the middle of registering a scene, and in the light of the bonfires, a vision dazzled dad. A young Latina actress danced for the camera barefoot, with long black hair and slim, sculpted legs. She was my mother, ”she details in her memoirs, published in 1998, the 63-year-old Republican lawyer today. And she continues: “In a photo taken minutes after they met, mom appears in a flowery dress that reveals one of her shoulders and her very red lips. Their exotic dark eyes of hers look at my father, who has his shirt untucked. He has very short hair and his large left hand is holding what appears to be a cocktail. His gaze, downwards, is fixed on mom as if she were a laser ”.
That night, they both had dinner with the rest of the cast of Green Hell.
That was the name of the tape–, as well as the technical team, but they felt that they were alone. “My mother was nervous. My father was patient. He was 46 and she was 20. She was 1.61 m tall and weighed about 45 kilos. He, 1.96 m and 104 kilos. Not knowing that her first two wives had been Latina, Pilar was amazed at her knowledge of her local culture. Then, in broken English, she told him that he had been fantastic in the film For Whom the Bell Tolls. My father gave her a crooked smile and explained that the actor in that film was her friend Gary Cooper.
Pilar, the daughter of a former Peruvian senator, was married to Welby at the time, although she was also on the verge of separation, according to Aissa. She and John would not see each other again until a year later when already divorced, Pilar traveled to Los Angeles to look for work as an actress at the Warner Bros. studios. It was there where both would meet so as not to let each other go. Two years later, on November 1, 1954, they were married in Hawaii just a few hours after the divorce papers between Wayne and 'the flat' had come out.
FILM STORY
Pilar and John's union lasted until 1973. The first years were lived in Hollywood, where it happened that, once, Marlon Brando sent to ask for her in a film studio. Unaware that the former were newlyweds, the Godfather star 'groped' through a friend if they could introduce him to the seductive young woman sitting next to Wayne. “My father only said one word: No!” recounts Aissa.
Pilar would accompany him, later, during his treatment and recovery from lung cancer. In addition, they would have two more children together: Marissa and Ethan (the former is currently a businesswoman, and the latter is president of the John Wayne Cancer Foundation and the John Wayne Corporation). Life would become calmer for the family in 1965 when they all moved to the Newport Beach resort in California. Over time, however, the relationship would eventually wear out, so they went their separate ways. The two continued to be friends, although he did not leave her anything inherited in a controversial will that made news at the time of her.
At age 72, Wayne died losing the battle against cancer on June 11, 1979. That's 40 years since. Since they never got divorced, Palette had the power to decide how to bury him. Thus, fearful that the grave would be desecrated, she determined that the body rest in an anonymous space in the Pacific View Memorial Park Cemetery, in Florida. The tombstone only said in Spanish: "Ugly, strong, and formal." And so she stayed for 20 years until they replaced her with a new one. Pilar lives today, at the age of 91, in California, together with her family, but until recently she made public appearances to honor her name. In 2007, to quote one of her, she attended the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the actor's birth and there she recounted in a tribute: “My life was never the same without him. He was the best father my children could have had. I miss him a lot."
