Help me identify mystery man.

May 4, 2008 9:18 PM

Help me identify the man in this photo.

After my previous question I decided to proceed with John Wayne as an avenue for my final thesis. I am presenting it in the next few weeks and have been scouring the internet for visuals. I came across this image and I cannot figure out who the man in the middle is for the life of me. He looks incredibly familiar and this is going to irritate me. Either he is someone notable that I am blanking on or he is a nobody.

posted by bigcheesegump to society & culture (10 comments total)

I'm assuming you're referring to the man standing closest to Wayne. He looks familiar to me, too, and honestly my first thought upon seeing him was that he looks like Eliot Ness, but not only is his hair parted differently, but more importantly Ness was four years older than Wayne, and that man certainly appears younger. Plus, of course, why would Ness have been at a party in Singapore with Wayne?

Do you have any more context to the picture? Date taken, maybe? Or the reason why Wayne was in Singapore?
posted by cerebus19 at 9:59 PM on May 4, 2008

No way is it Ness. He looks a lot like Joe McCarthy in some ways (a man Wayne admired and supported ... which led me to this priceless letter to the New American). The ears and eyebrows are close, but ... this guy can wear a suit, and Tailgunner Joe never could.

I double-checked all the H'wood moguls I could remember. The short ones. Nothing so far.
posted by dhartung at 10:15 PM on May 4, 2008

i'm seconding joe mccarthy, although if it is then it would be from his later years and i'm having trouble finding a picture, but try this:
here vs yours
posted by Dillonlikescookies at 12:52 AM on May 5, 2008

I wondered if the older guy in back could be Willy Brandt, but the eye structure isn't the same.

I suspect the woman may be Mystery Guy's wife, the way the three of them are in this tete-a-tete, but I'm just guessing. He's wearing a very European double-breasted suit jacket with peak lapels (which again isn't McCarthy's style at all). On the other hand he has a very American look to him. On the third hand the American look is mostly northern European anyway.

The polka dot dress, and the peak lapels, seem to support a 1960s date rather than something in the Duke's last decade. It seems to be a fairly formal party; to me, I think Wayne is actually wearing a three-piece suit.

Wayne could have been swinging by as part of one of his trips to Vietnam as in this 1966 photo. But he looks a lot heavier there, so the photo is probably even earlier.
posted by dhartung at 1:19 AM on May 5, 2008

I think he might be the General Manager of the Great Eastern Life Assurance Company, based on this picture.

Most of the shots in that photostream are from the 50's, and I don't think Wayne shot any movies in Singapore.
posted by aninom at 1:26 AM on May 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

damn if Wayne doesn't look like LBJ there, but lacking any info, that does look like Joe M. Which should be easy, but time consuming (read, official itineraries ) to document. If you run terribly short on time MeMail me and I'll investigate further... w/ no promisies.
posted by dawson at 1:31 AM on May 5, 2008

Quoting the text added by the owner (6 minutes ago -- I just got lucky):

Wayne is with the General Manager of the Great Eastern Life Assurance Co and his wife (not Eliot Ness or Joe McCarthy!!). I think Wayne was in Singapore briefly on a stop over. Party was probably at the American embassy. Some local Singapore society was invited to meet the guest of honour.

The surviving party goer in the photo, the wife, (my mother) recalls that John Wayne was a man of great charm, very unassuming and someone who was easy to talk to.

posted by 5MeoCMP at 5:39 AM on May 5, 2008 [2 favorites]

Which, I guess, means that Tyersall (the flickr user) is an AskMe reader :)
posted by 5MeoCMP at 5:40 AM on May 5, 2008

Looks like aninom's right — the photo's owner just posted a comment to the Flickr page.
posted by Johnny Assay at 5:41 AM on May 5, 2008

Hey, I was right about the wife. Something about the body language ...

I didn't realize that the Flickr account you pointed to wasn't your Flickr account, or I might have done some poking around there myself.
posted by dhartung at 10:32 PM on May 5, 2008