The Big Picture

John Wayne was originally meant to star in the Western film The Frisco Kid but was replaced by Harrison Ford due to financial reasons and creative differences. Harrison Ford had a challenging experience on set, feeling constant comparisons to Wayne from the director and crew. John Wayne ended his Western career with notable performances before his death, while Ford’s involvement in The Frisco Kid marked a passing of the guard between Hollywood eras.

It’s kind of strange to think that Western icon John Wayne and Indiana Jones star Harrison Ford had overlapping careers. Ford began his road to stardom in the mid-1960s around the same time that the Duke starred in pictures like McLintock! and El Dorado, but didn’t receive much notoriety until the late-1970s with Star Wars. By then, Wayne’s career was winding down, and the Duke eventually left Hollywood behind. But there was one picture that Wayne was meant to have starred in in the summer of 1979, a Western called The Frisco Kid. Only Ford took the role for himself. Here’s how it happened.

The Frisco Kid A Polish rabbi wanders through the Old West on his way to lead a synagogue in San Francisco. On the way, he is nearly burned at the stake by Native Americans and almost killed by outlaws. Release Date July 13, 1979 Director Robert Aldrich Runtime 119 minutes Main Genre Western Writers Michael Elias , Frank Shaw

John Wayne Was Supposed to Lead ‘The Frisco Kid’
By the 1970s, a screenplay called No Knife was making its rounds around Hollywood, and had garnered the interest of a few different directors and stars. As film critic Roger Ebert once noted, “It’s really nobody’s movie,” due to how long the script was wandering about. But eventually, pre-production began on the film that would later be known as The Frisco Kid, and Gene Wilder was soon cast in the leading role as the Polish rabbi Avram Belinski. But to accompany the out-of-this-depth yeshiva graduate on his way across America, The Frisco Kid was hoping to land Hollywood’s biggest leading man: John Wayne.

“Legendary actor John Wayne was approached and showed interest in the film,” wrote Brad Duke in his biography Harrison Ford: The Films, though apparently not before Harrison Ford was first considered. Evidently, it was director Robert Aldrich who suggested Wayne as an option, reported Gene Wilder in his own autobiography Kiss Me Like A Stranger: My Search for Love and Art. “Are you kidding?” Wilder said. “How could we ever get John Wayne?” Evidently though, the production couldn’t afford the Western star in the long-term, even after he demanded a million dollars and a large percentage of the film’s grossing profits. Wayne originally accepted the part of Tommy Lillard after reading the script, and Wilder was elated to be working with the Duke on a production that “would be perceived as a Western and not a Jewish film.” But it wasn’t meant to be.

Wayne left the picture soon after following an altercation with some Warner Bros. executive who tried to haggle him down for less money than he’d asked for. A conflicting report from Harrison Ford: The Films states that Wayne’s departure was primarily because he didn’t believe the picture would suit his own “archetypal” Western fan base more than anything, but Wilder asserts that John Wayne loved the original script and was excited to play his part. Sadly, it didn’t happen. “So we lost John Wayne, and the search for a new costar began,” Wilder recounted. “I was asked to look at the work of an up-and-coming young actor by the name of Harrison Ford…Since we all liked him, he was hired.”

Harrison Ford’s ‘The Frisco Kid’ Experience Wasn’t Great

Fresh off the original Star Wars, Harrison Ford was cast as Tommy Lillard in a role that could easily have been the biggest Western icon in Hollywood history. It’s strange to think that Wayne, who was just over 70 at the time, was simply recast with a younger actor in his mid-30s. Rather than napping another aged Western star, Ford was chosen to replace the Duke in a shocking turn of events. Since The Frisco Kid was filmed in the United States and not Europe (where he’d shot his last few pictures), Ford jumped on the idea, and the rest is history.

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But not everything was wonderful on the set of The Frisco Kid. In fact, there was some unspoken animosity towards Ford by some of the crew, particularly director Robert Aldrich. “Ford had felt as if he was always in competition with Wayne,” Brad Duke explained in Harrison Ford: The Films. “Although Ford had played a plethora of cowboy roles during his episodic television years, his director jokingly harassed him with constant comparisons as to how Wayne would have done it.” As Duke noted, Ford had previously found himself guest starring on shows like The Virginian and Gunsmoke, appearing on both shows more than once in different roles. No doubt, Ford knew how to play the Western part, just not the way Aldrich dreamed of John Wayne doing it.

“I think Harrison always felt when Aldrich was shooting a scene, that Aldrich was looking at him and seeing the picture of John Wayne,” expressed producer Mace Neufeld (via Harrison Ford: The Films). “He gave him a pretty hard time on the film…” The Frisco Kid ended up making just over $9 million at the box office, which wasn’t exactly an impressive sum, but it didn’t hurt Ford’s career in the slightest. Soon after, he starred in The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Blade Runner to name a few. It wouldn’t be his last venture into the Western either, no matter how much the on-set politics frustrated him. Ford revisited the genre years later (with a sci-fi twist) in 2011’s Cowboys & Aliens and a decade after that in the Yellowstone prequel series 1923.

John Wayne Still Ended His Western Career Strong
Image via Paramount Pictures

Prior to his revoked commitment to The Frisco Kid, John Wayne had made a few crime thrillers in the mid-70s and finished out his career by revisiting his trademark True Grit character in 1975’s Rooster Cogburn, followed the next year by his final role as J.B. Books in The Shootist. By the time The Frisco Kid was released, the Duke had been out of the movies for three years, evidently satisfied with his final performance in a Western classic. Whether Wayne turned down the role of Tommy Lillard for money or pride, there’s no denying that the Duke’s career ended in style, with The Shootist being a particularly noteworthy addition to his career.

John Wayne died on June 11, 1979, just a month before the theatrical release of The Frisco Kid. In the end, it was for the best that Harrison Ford took over, and in a way this forgotten Western acts as a sort of passing of the guard between the Golden Age of Hollywood and the New Hollywood era that would take its place. Wayne and Ford couldn’t be more different as actors, but they each play their parts well. Though Wayne and Ford never appeared on-screen together, John Wayne’s vocals have apparently entered Star Wars through the character Garindan, the mosquito-looking spy on the desert planet Tatooine who turns Han Solo (Ford) and his pals into the Stormtroopers on their tail. Of course, Wayne’s warped dialogue went uncredited.

“I had found some loop lines in the trash from the studio that had been thrown away,” explained Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt. “So the buzzing was triggered by some [John Wayne] dialog like ‘All right, what are you doin’ in this town’ or something like that.” Turns out, Ford and Wayne ended up in the same picture after all, just not in a way that either of them knew about or expected. Star Wars is, after all, basically a Western, so it’s fitting that none other than the biggest Western star might show up at some point. Just don’t expect to see the Duke opposite Harrison Ford or Gene Wilder in The Frisco Kid…

The Frisco Kid is available to rent on Prime Video in the U.S.

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