MY OLD MAN & THE SEA
In the early ’60s, John Wayne bought a 9,000-square-foot waterfront home in Newport Beach, California along with what would become a powerful force in his life: a 136-foot former U.S. Navy minesweeper, which he refitted and renamed Wild Goose. By then, Wayne was already an established Hollywood icon. But beneath the high-profile, leading man exterior, Wayne was a devoted family man who longed for a simpler life at sea. His third wife, Peruvian actress Pilar Pallete, gave birth to three children: Marisa, Aissa and Ethan—the latter named after his father’s character in the movie The Searchers.
While Wayne kept steadily working on movies through his late 60s, Ethan and his sisters grew up aboard Wild Goose. Along the way, Wayne would survive a 1964 bout with lung cancer that cost him part of his lung and several ribs. His health slowly failing, Wayne doubled down, spending every available moment aboard the yacht with family and friends. He would describe this time as the happiest point of his life. For Ethan Wayne, now the president of John Wayne Enterprises and director of the John Wayne Cancer Foundation, fond memories of the boat and its numerous voyages, parties and the important snapshots from the Duke’s life still linger.
PMY: What was your first boating experience with your dad?
ETHAN WAYNE: It’s hard for me to say because it was just always there. Right about the time I was born he bought the house down in Newport Beach and the minesweeper, and I was on it from the get-go. As a child, when I was not even a year old, we were over in the Azores on Wild Goose. So, it wasn’t like “Oh, we go boating in July.”
PMY: How much of your childhood was spent on Wild Goose?
EW: I would say at least 30 percent of my life was [spent] on
