When Harry Cohn found out about John Wayne's newest relationship with a Columbia Pictures actress, the studio head was livid, according to "John Wayne: American." Cohn told him, "When you're at this studio, you keep your pants buttoned."
The incident left Wayne stunned (per "John Wayne: American"). He lied to Cohn, politely denying that he'd been dating the actress, but that just made Cohn madder. Cohn apparently thought politeness was a sign of weakness — he was pretty well known to be a jerk to almost everyone around him. John Wayne later said, "I'd been brought up to respect older people and he talked to me like a sewer rat."
The fight didn't even end there, and Cohn was not exactly subtle about his feelings toward Wayne. In Wayne's next movie, Cohn arranged for him to play a corpse who had been stabbed in the back. Then, he reassigned him to the portion of the studio which made low-budget B movies, but it was clear Wayne's relationship with Cohn and Columbia Pictures was too fractured to continue. In Wayne's final movie with the studio, he was cast as a football player who sold out his teammates for money, a character that Wayne would have hated playing. After that 1931 movie, "Maker of Men," Cohn ended Wayne's studio contract, effective immediately. Wayne never forgave Cohn for the way he was treated at Columbia Pictures, and as he grew more popular as an actor, he repeatedly turned down movie offers from the studio.
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