NONFICTION - Nov. 17, 1991

JOHN WAYNE, MY FATHER by Aissa Wayne with Steve Delsohn (Random House: $20; 220 pp.). John Wayne was 49 when his daughter Aissa was born, so it comes as no surprise that her reminiscences read almost like those of a granddaughter. Wayne’s four children from his first marriage lived with their mother, so Aissa, born to Wayne’s third wife Pilar, was something of a love child; few fathers, even those in Hollywood, bring baby elephants to their children’s seventh birthday parties. That sort of gesture was infrequent, however, for Wayne was more demanding, at least when it came to family members, than giving; a repressed, emotionally needy man, Wayne required strict obedience from Aissa and frequent professions of love. Aissa’s childhood wasn’t particularly happy--she felt trapped in the family compound in Encino, though somewhat less so upon moving to Newport Beach--but when Wayne was around he could be attentive . . . to the point of being smothering. Readers looking for gossip will find little to entertain them here, for John Wayne seems to have played his father’s role very much in character: tough, straightforward and ultimately sentimental.