William Friedkin takes over as Alec Baldwin’s guest co-host on TCM’s The Essentials beginning tonight, and the director of The French Connection and The Exorcist arrives on the day TCM is saluting John Wayne. So, fittingly, Friedkin’s choices in prime time on tonight’s The Essentials are two Wayne movies directed by the great John Ford – who has won more Oscars than any other movie director in history. He’s won four times, including for 1952’s The Quiet Man, starring Wayne and Maureen O’Hara (pictured), which begins The Essentials tonight. Ford also won for 1935’s The Informer, 1940’s The Grapes of Wrath, and 1941’s How Green Was My Valley. He didn’t win for 1956’s The Searchers, which TCM and Friedkin are showing at 10:30 pm ET – in fact, that John Wayne Western movie wasn’t nominated for a single Oscar, even though it’s a fabulous movie and one of Ford’s all-time best cinematic achievements.