John Wayne

John Wayne stamp

John Wayne (May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), nicknamed "Duke," ¹ was an American film actor whose career began in silent movies in the 1920s. He was a major star from the 1940s to the 1970s. He is most famous for his Westerns, but he also made films of various other kinds. He epitomised a certain kind of rugged individualistic masculinity, and has become an enduring icon.

Life and career

Early life

John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in Winterset, Iowa in 1907, but the name became Marion Mitchell Morrison when his parents decided to name their next son Robert. However in later life, Wayne often stated that his middle name was Michael. His family was Presbyterian; father Clyde Leonard Morrison was of Scottish descent and the son of a Civil War veteran, while mother Mary Alberta Brown was of Irish ancestry. Wayne's family moved to Glendale, California in 1911; it was his neighbors in Glendale who started calling him "Big Duke," because he never went anywhere without his Airedale Terrier dog, who was Little Duke. He preferred "Duke" to "Marion," and the name stuck for the rest of his life.

Duke Morrison's early life was marked by poverty, his father was a pharmacist, but did not manage money well. Duke was a good student and popular, but had a bad reputation as a drinker. Tall from an early age, he played football for Glendale and was recruited by USC.

After nearly gaining admission to the U.S. Naval Academy, he attended the University of Southern California, where he was a member of the Trojan Knights and Sigma Chi Fraternity. Wayne also played on the USC football team under legendary coach Howard Jones. An injury while supposedly swimming at the beach curtailed his athletic career, however; Wayne would later note that he was too terrified of Jones' reaction to reveal the actual cause of his injury. He lost his athletic scholarship and with no funds was unable to continue at USC.

Film career begins

While at the university, Wayne began working around the local film studios. Western star Tom Mix got him a summer job in the prop department in exchange for football tickets, and Wayne soon moved on to bit parts, establishing a long friendship with director John Ford. After two years working as a prop man at the William Fox Studios for $35.00 a week, his first starring role was in the movie The Big Trail; it was the director of that movie, Raoul Walsh, who gave him the stage name "John Wayne," after Revolutionary War general "Mad Anthony" Wayne. His pay was raised to $75.00 a week, and he was tutored by the studio's stuntmen in riding and other western skills.

Although appearing in many war films and frequently being eulogized as an "American hero," Wayne never served in the Armed Forces. However, his friend Bob Hope speculated that Wayne did more for the WWII war effort as an actor, than he ever could on the battlefield. Between 1940, when the military draft was reinstated and the end of World War II in 1945, he remained in Hollywood and made 21 movies. (Among them was Cecil B. DeMille's Reap the Wild Wind (1942), in which he portrayed one of the few less-than-honorable characters in his career.) He was of draft age (34) at the time of Pearl Harbor in 1941, but asked for and received a deferral for family dependency, a classification of 3-A. This was later changed to a deferment in the national interest, 2-A.

John Ford films

His friendship with Ford led them to work together on films which featured some of Wayne's most iconic roles. Beginning with three minor parts in 1928, Wayne would appear in over 20 of Ford's films in the next 35 years, including Stagecoach (1939), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), The Quiet Man (1952), The Searchers (1956), The Wings of Eagles (1957), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962).

Diversity of roles

Wayne appeared in many strong masculine roles in western films and war films, but he also had a down-to-earth sense of humor that allowed him to appear in a pink bunny suit for an episode of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, as well as in comedy movies. According to the Internet Movie Database, Wayne played the male lead in 142 of his film appearances, an as- yet, unsurpassed record.

One of Wayne's best roles was ironically in one of the few films he made that wasn't a Western or war picture, The High and the Mighty, released in 1954. The movie was directed by William Wellman and based on a novel by Ernest K. Gann. Wayne played the co-pilot of a plane that develops serious engine problems in flight. His portrayal of the heroic airman won widespread acclaim.

Despite his prolific output, John Wayne won only a single Best Actor Oscar, for the 1969 movie True Grit. He received a nomination for Best Actor in Sands of Iwo Jima, and another as the producer of Best Picture nominee The Alamo, which he also directed. In 1973, he released a best-selling spoken word album titled America, Why I Love Her, that was nominated for a Grammy, and re-released with similar success in 2001.

Connservative views

Wayne was well known for his pro-American, conservative political views. In 1968 he directed The Green Berets, the only feature film of the time to openly support the Vietnam War. It was produced in close collaboration with the Armed Forces. It was also ironic that he appeared in an episode of the TV series Maude, created by ultra-liberal Norman Lear, and starring the liberal actress Bea Arthur, who stood five feet, nine inches, and to whom Wayne referred as "little lady." Wayne seemed to enjoy acting with actresses of a liberal bent, such as Lauren Bacall, Colleen Dewhurst, and Katharine Hepburn.

Batjac productions

The High and the Mighty is one of four films (the others are Hondo, Island in the Sky, and McLintock!) that are owned outright by Batjac, a production company co-founded by Wayne and named after the fictional shipping company in The Wake of the Red Witch. Batjac now belongs to the Wayne family estate. Because of lawsuits and copyright issues with the estate, these films, with the exception of McLintock!, have not been seen for many years. Hondo was not shown from Wayne's death in 1979 until 1994, a fifteen-year hiatus. As of the summer of 2005, however, Batjac has allowed The High and the Mighty and Island in the Sky to be reissued on television and video in digitally remastered versions.

Family

Wayne was married three times, always to Spanish-speaking Latinas; to Josephine Alicia Saenz, Esperanza Baur, and Pilar Palette. His romance with Josie Saenz began when he was a college student and continued for seven years before their marriage. Miss Saenz was 15 or 16 at their first meeting at a beach party at Balboa. The daughter of a successful Spanish businessman, Josie resisted considerable reluctance on the part of her family to maintain her relationship with Duke. He had seven children from his marriages,the first two of whioch ended in divorce, and more than 15 grandchildren. All but one of his children went on to have minor Hollywood careers.

Although Wayne had not managed his money carefully earlier in his career, later in his life he invested in, among other things, a Panamanian shrimp busines. He lived with his third wife, Peruvian Pilar Palette Wayne, in an 11-room, seven-bathroom, $175,000 house in Newport Beach, California, where he had docked a 135-foot yacht. He also owned, true to style, cattle ranches in Stanfield and Springerville, Arizona.

Death

John Wayne died of stomach cancer on June 11, 1979 at the age of 72 at the UCLA Medical Center. He was interred in the Pacific View Memorial Park cemetery in Corona del Mar, Orange County, California. Some trace his cancer back to his work in The Conqueror, filmed about 100 miles downwind of Nevada nuclear-weapons test sites. However, it should also be noted that until 1964 Wayne was a chain smoker, which was more likely to have caused his cancer. Other actors who worked on that movie and later died of cancer were also heavy smokers, including Dick Powell, Agnes Moorehead, Pedro Armendariz, Susan Hayward and John Hoyt. He had converted to Roman Catholicism shortly before his death.

At the time of his death, John Wayne resided in a bayfront home in Newport Beach, California. His home remains a point of interest in Newport Harbor.

John Wayne in modern pop culture

In memoriam John Wayne

• There is an airport named after him, John Wayne Airport, in Orange County, California.
• John Wayne was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1974.
• He is the most celebrated utterer, and apocryphal coiner, of the tmesis "ri-goddamn-diculous."

Movies and television

Characters in numerous other movies and television shows have made imitations of John Wayne. Easily imitated, with his signature swaggered walk, especially the use of the word "pilgrim," and famous lines like, "fill your hands you son-of-a-bitch," have made their way into other performances.

• Jonathan Winters imitated Wayne on several occasions, and Robin Williams has even imitated Winters imitating Wayne (including in the film ''Good Morning Vietnam'').

• Clyde Kusatsu played eccentric Honolulu Detective Gordon Katsumoto on two episodes of Magnum P.I., titled "This Island Isn't Big Enough...." and "A.A.P.I." (both 1986), in which he imitated John Wayne throughout the show. The imitation went so far as to have a bronze bust of Wayne and a white cavalry hat (like the one Wayne wore in movies Rio Grande, Fort Apache, and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,) in his office.

• Full Metal Jacket, the Stanley Kubrick 1987 effort has Matthew Modine doing his Wayne imitations.

• When filming the 2003 film The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the inspiration for many of the actions of the character Gothmog were based on John Wayne.

Screen persona

The persona that Wayne portrayed in numerous movies has become part of Americana. Like Cary Grant and Humphrey Bogart, Archibald Leach, Marion Morrison, and Bogart were different men in real life than their screen portrayals. In all three cases, their screen characterizations have taken on lives of their own. In real life, Morrison was a quiet man who enjoyed his yacht, fishing, playing cards, smoking, and drinking. It was the screen John Wayne, however, that became an American icon. Tough, rugged, larger-than-life, taming the West, and saving democracy from fascism, his characters represented the spirit of the men who built the country.

Song lyrics

• Wayne is mentioned in the Paula Cole song "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone" (lyrics) from the 1996 album This Fire. In the song, sung from the female point of view, the singer is both: wanting a man, or men, that act like they did in the John Wayne Westerns ("Where is my John Wayne"), and at the same time making fun of both the men of today, and the falseness of the men in the movies.

• In a uncomplimentary light in the Public Enemy (P.E.) song "Fight the Power" (lyrics), from the 1990 album Fear of a Black Planet. The lyrics state that Elvis Presley was an evil racist, then seems to lump Presley and Wayne together. Wayne has come under fire for comments he reportedly made in a 1971 interview with Playboy, when he stated that he believed in "white supremacy" until blacks were educated enough to take a more prominent role in American society.

Wayne's statement: "that blacks were not yet qualified to hold high public office because discrimination prevented them from receiving the kind of education a political career requires," was not an indication that he was racist, but was a statement of fact as to how he felt the system operates. Public Enemy is not saying that Wayne is a racist, but instead is responding to the idiom that John Wayne, and the characters he portrayed on film, are iconic heroes of America and the American way of life. P.E. is saying, Wayne is NOT our hero, he doesn’t speak for us, he doesn’t inspire us. He is the "white-mans" hero, not ours.

• Jimmy Buffett mentions John Wayne prominently in his song "Incommunicado" (lyrics), on the Coconut Telegraph album of 1981. Buffett is lamenting his loss and remembering such films as "Red River" and (The man who shot) Liberty Valence.

• Country duo Big & Rich mention Wayne in "Save a horse, Ride a cowboy" from their 2004 album, Horse of a Different Color.

Other

• John Wayne appears in the "Preacher" comic series by Garth Ennis. He serves as the spirit guide to the protagonist, Jesse Custer.
• The serial killer John Wayne Gacy was named after John Wayne.

Filmography

North to Alaska with John Wayne

1920s

• Brown of Harvard (1926)
• Bardelys the Magnificent (1926)
• The Great K & A Train Robbery (1926)
• Annie Laurie (1927)
• The Drop Kick (1927)
• Mother Machree (1928)
• Four Sons (1928)
• Hangman's House (1928)
• Speakeasy (1929)
• The Black Watch (1929)
• Noah's Ark (1929)
• Words and Music (1929)
• Salute (1929)
• The Forward Pass (1929)

1930s

• Men Without Women (1930)
• Born Reckless (1930)
• Rough Romance (1930)
• Cheer Up and Smile (1930)
• The Big Trail (1930)
• Girls Demand Excitement (1931)
• Three Girls Lost (1931)
• Arizona (1931)
• The Deceiver (1931)
• Range Feud (1931)
• Maker of Men (1931)
• The Voice of Hollywood No. 13 (1932) (short subject)
• Running Hollywood (1932) (short subject)
• The Shadow of the Eagle (1932)
• Texas Cyclone (1932)
• Two-Fisted Law (1932)
• Lady and Gent (1932)
• The Hurricane Express (1932)
• The Hollywood Handicap (1932) (short subject)
• Ride Him, Cowboy (1932)
• That's My Boy (1932)
• The Big Stampede (1932)
• Haunted Gold (1932)
• The Telegraph Trail (1933)
• The Three Musketeers (1933)
• Central Airport (1933)
• Somewhere in Sonora (1933)
• His Private Secretary (1933)
• The Life of Jimmy Dolan (1933)
• Baby Face (1933)
• The Man From Monterey (1933)
• Riders of Destiny (1933)
• College Coach (1933)
• Sagebrush Trail (1933)
• The Lucky Texan (1934)
• West of the Divide (1934)
• Blue Steel (1934)
• The Man from Utah (1934)
• Randy Rides Alone (1934)
• The Star Packer (1934)
• The Trail Beyond (1934)
• The Lawless Beyond (1934)
• 'Neath the Arizona Skies (1934)
• Texas Terror (1935)
• Rainbow Valley (1935)
• The Desert Trail (1935)
• The Dawn Rider (1935)
• Paradise Canyon (1935)
• Westward Ho (1935)
• The New Frontier (1935)
• Lawless Range (1935)
• The Oregon Trail (1936)
• The Lawless Nineties (1936)
• King of the Pecos (1936)
• The Lonely Trail (1936)
• Winds of the Wasteland (1936)
• Sea Spoilers (1936)
• Conflict (1936)
• California Straight Ahead! (1937)
• I Cover the War (1937)
• Idol of the Crowds (1937)
• Adventure's End (1937)
• Born to the West (1937)
• Pals of the Saddle (1938)
• Overland Stage Raiders (1938)
• Santa Fe Stampede (1938)
• Red River Range (1938)
• Stagecoach (1939)
• The Night Riders (1939)
• Three Texas Steers (1939)
• Wyoming Outlaw (1939)
• New Frontier (1939)
• Allegheny Uprising (1939)

1940s

• Meet the Stars: Cowboy Jubilee (1940) (short subject)
• Three Faces West (1940)
• The Long Voyage Home (1940)
• Seven Sinners (1940)
• A Man Betrayed (1941)
• Lady from Louisiana (1941)
• The Shepherd of the Hills (1941)
• Meet the Stars: Past and Present (1941) (short subject)
• Lady for a Night (1942)
• Reap the Wild Wind (1942)
• The Spoilers (1942)
• In Old California (1942)
• Flying Tigers (1942)
• Pittsburgh (1942)
• Reunion in France (1942)
• A Lady Takes a Chance (1943)
• In Old Oklahoma (1943)
• The Fighting Seabees (1944)
• Tall in the Saddle (1944)
• Flame of Barbary Coast (1945)
• Back to Bataan (1945)
• They Were Expendable (1945)
• Dakota (1945)
• Without Reservations (1946)
• Angel and the Badman (1947) (also producer)
• Tycoon (1947)
• Red River (1948)
• Fort Apache (1948)
• 3 Godfathers (1948)
• Wake of the Red Witch (1948)
• The Fighting Kentuckian (1949) (also producer)
• She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)
• Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Rodeo (1949) (short subject)
• Sands of Iwo Jima (1949)

1950s

• Rio Grande (1950)
• Screen Snapshots: Reno's Silver Spur Awards (1951) (short subjects)
• Operation Pacific (1951)
• The Screen Director (1951) (short subject)
• Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Awards (1951) (short subject)
• Flying Leathernecks (1951)
• Miracle in Motion (1952) (short subject) (narrator)
• The Quiet Man (1952)
• Big Jim McLain (1952) (also producer)
• Trouble Along the Way (1953)
• Island in the Sky (1953) (also producer)
• Hondo (1953) (also producer)
• The High and the Mighty (1954) (also producer)
• The Sea Chase (1955)
• Screen Snapshots: The Great Al Jolson (1955) (short subject)
• Blood Alley (1955) (also director and producer)
• The Conqueror (1956)
• The Searchers (1956)
• The Wings of Eagles (1957)
• Jet Pilot (1957)
• Legend of the Lost (1957)
• I Married a Woman (1958) (Cameo)
• The Barbarian and the Geisha (1958)
• Rio Bravo (1959)
• The Horse Soldiers (1959)

1960s

• The Alamo (1960) (also director and producer)
• North to Alaska (1960)
• The Challenge of Ideas (1961) (short subject) (narrator)
• The Comancheros (1961) (also director)
• The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
• Hatari! (1962)
• The Longest Day (1962)
• How the West Was Won (1962)
• McLintock! (1963)
• Donovan's Reef (1963)
• Circus World (1964)
• The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)
• In Harm's Way (1965)
• The Sons of Katie Elder (1965)
• Cast a Giant Shadow (1966)
• El Dorado (1966)
• A Nation Builds Under Fire (1967) (short subject) (narrator)
• The War Wagon (1967)
• The Green Berets (1968) (also director)
• Hellfighters (1968)
• True Grit (1969)
• The Undefeated (1969)

1970s

• No Substitute for Victory (1970) (documentary)
• Chisum (1970)
• Rio Lobo (1970)
• Big Jake (1971) (also co-director)
• Directed by John Ford (1971) (documentary)
• The Cowboys (1972)
• Cancel My Reservation (1972) (Cameo)
• The Train Robbers (1973)
• Cahill U.S. Marshall (1973)
• McQ (1974)
• Brannigan (1975)
• Rooster Cogburn (1975)
• Chesty: Tribute to a Legend (1976) (documentary) (narrator)
• The Shootist (1976)

Character deaths

A frequently asked trivia question is: In how many films did John Wayne's character die? The answer is as follows:

His death is seen in the following films:

1. The Shootist - After winning a seemingly hopeless gunfight with three opponents simultaneously, he is shot by the bartender, and is then avenged by Ron Howard's character.
2. The Cowboys - He is killed by Bruce Dern's character.
3. The Alamo - Playing Davy Crockett, he is killed by a Mexican soldier's lance.
4. Sands of Iwo Jima - He is killed by a bullet fired by a Japanese soldier who is hiding under concealment at the end of the film.
5. Wake of the Red Witch - He dies as the ship sinks.
6. The Fighting Seabees - He is shot by a sniper.
7. Reap the Wild Wind - He is trapped inside the wreck of a sunken ship after a fight with a giant squid and drowns.

His character death is not shown in the following:

1. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance - His character is dead at the beginning of the film and the story is told in flashback by James Stewart who is attending his funeral.
2. The Sea Chase - Lana Turner and Wayne are on a ship when it sinks, but the possibility that the characters survived is left open.
3. The Deceiver - Ian Keith's character died, but the corpse was played by John Wayne.
4. Central Airport - John Wayne has a very minor role as the co-pilot of an aircraft that crashes into the ocean.

Character quotes

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday."

"I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people and I expect the same from them." (From The Shootist)

"Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway."

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Campbell, James T. "Print the Legend: John Wayne and Postwar American Culture" in: Reviews in American History - Volume 28, Number 3, September 2000, pp. 465-477
• Carey Jr., Harry. A Company of Heroes: My Life as an Actor in the John Ford Stock Company, Scarecrow Press, 1994. ISBN 0810828650
• Clark, Donald, & Anderson, Christopher. John Wayne's The Alamo: The Making of the Epic Film, Carol Publishing Group, 1995. ISBN 0-8065-1625-9
• Eyman, Scott Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford, Simon & Schuster, 1999. ISBN 0-684-81161-8
• McCarthy, Todd. Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood, Grove Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8021-1598-5
• Shepherd, Donald, & Slatzer, Robert. Duke: The Life and Times of John Wayne, Doubleday, 1985. ISBN 038517893X
• Zolotow, Maurice. Shooting Star: A Biography of John Wayne, Simon & Schuster, 1974. ISBN: 671-80211-9

External links

• John Wayne at the Internet Movie Database
• Classic Movies (1939 - 1969): John Wayne

Footnotes

• Note 1: He was, and is, called "Duke" by his friends and when he was present, he was, and is, called "The Duke" when being referred to in third person on television shows, in magazines, or by people in casual conversation.

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