Cowboys Are Her Weakness

Joan Didion and John Wayne: A Love Story

Joan Didion in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco (April 1967) by Ted Streshinsky

We dream of an America that may or may not have existed. Not sure if dream is the appropriate word. Hallucinate — there, that’s better — which for most of the past century has been produced by Hollywood: the cosmic engineers of the dream. “I learned courage from Buddha, Jesus, Lincoln, Einstein, and Cary Grant” is a Peggy Lee quote that Joan Didion uses…