Friday, October 22, 2004
Did Stalin really try to kill John Wayne?
From a BBC report on a biography of Wayne that I somehow missed...
Stalin was enraged when he heard about Wayne's anti-communist activities in the late 1940s ... "Stalin decided Wayne had to die" ... the FBI got wind of a Soviet plot and was prepared when two hit men called at Wayne's office at Warner Brothers studios in 1951, posing as federal agents ... the would-be killers were captured, and later requested asylum in the US."Hey, let's go bungle killing John Wayne, ask for asylum, move to Hollywood for the decadent capitalist good life, and get into pictures. We can be technical advisors on spy movies!"
...the Soviet campaign was cancelled after Stalin's death in 1953, because his successor Nikita Khrushchev was a fan of the film star...Khrushchev in turn was deposed before he could kill Jerry Lewis.
