
08/12/2025
The Day Maureen O’Hara Brought a “Get Well” Steak to John Wayne
September 1964.
John Wayne was flat on his back in a Los Angeles hospital, stitched up from lung cancer surgery. One lung gone. Four ribs gone. His pride? Still fully loaded.
He hated the smell of antiseptic, the sound of beeping machines, and worst of all — the way people tiptoed around him.
So when Maureen O’Hara showed up, she didn’t tiptoe. She kicked the door open with her hip, marched in, and plopped a brown paper bag right on his lap.
“Here, Duke. A little something to speed up your recovery.”
Wayne peeked inside. A raw, two-pound steak stared back at him.
“Red… are you trying to feed me or kill me?”
O’Hara grinned.
“Don’t be dramatic. I just thought since you’re missing a lung and some ribs, you’ve got extra room in there now.”
The nurses burst out laughing. Wayne tried to glare, but his mouth twitched.
“Careful, Red. I can still throw you out of here.”
O’Hara leaned in, mock-whispering:
“With one lung? You couldn’t throw me off a barstool.”
Wayne’s booming laugh filled the room, shaking his stitches. The doctor rushed in, worried something had happened — only to find the Duke laughing so hard he had tears in his eyes.
By the time O’Hara left, the steak was in the nurses’ break room, and Wayne was sitting up straighter, plotting his return to the set.
It was pure John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara — friendship that could survive a thousand arguments, a hundred movies, and even a missing lung.