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John Wayne (May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), popularly known as "The Duke," 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

John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in Winterset, Iowa in 1907, but his name was changed to Marion Michael Morrison when his parents decided to name their next son Robert. His family was Presbyterian; father Clyde Leonard Morrison was of Irish and Scottish descent and the son of an American Civil War veteran while mother Mary Alberta Brown was of Irish descent. Wayne's family moved to Glendale, California in 1911; it was 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 man who did not manage money well. Duke was a good and popular student. Tall from an early age, he was a star football player for Glendale High School and was recruited by the University of Southern California.

Wayne claimed that he nearly gained admission to the U.S. Naval Academy. He instead attended the University of Southern California, where he was a member of the Trojan Knights and joined the 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.

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. During this period, Wayne appeared with his USC teammates as one of the featured football players in Columbia Pictures' Maker of Men (filmed in 1930 and released in 1931), which starred Richard Cromwell and Jack Holt. In the film, Wayne was billed with his given name of Marion Morrison.

After two years working as a prop man at the William Fox Studios for $35 a week, his first starring role was in the 1930 movie The Big Trail; the director of that movie, Raoul Walsh, (who "discovered" Wayne) gave him the stage name "John Wayne", after Revolutionary War general "Mad Anthony" Wayne. His pay was raised to $75 a week. He was tutored by the studio's stuntmen in riding and other western skills.

The Big Trail, the first "western" epic sound motion picture, established his screen credentials, although it was a commercial failure. Nine years later, his performance in the 1939 film Stagecoach made him a star. In between, he made westerns, most notably at Monogram Pictures, and serials for Mascot Studios, where he played the role of d'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers, set in modern North Africa, with co-stars Ray Corrigan and Max Terhune. In this same year (1933), Wayne had a small part in Alfred E. Green's succes de scandale Baby Face.

Beginning in 1928, Wayne appeared in more than twenty of John Ford's films over 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).

According to the Internet Movie Database, Wayne played the male lead in 142 of his film appearances.

One of Wayne's most praised roles was in The High and the Mighty (1954), directed by William Wellman and based on a novel by Ernest K. Gann. His portrayal of a heroic airman won widespread acclaim. Island in the Sky (1953) is related to it, and both films were made one year apart with the same producers, director, writer, cinematographer, editor, and distributor.

John Wayne won a Best Actor Oscar in True Grit (1969). Many believe that award was given in recognition of his forty-year career, since his performance in the film was over-the-top and he had given better performances in Red River (1948) and The Searchers (1956). Wayne was also nominated for Best Actor in Sands of Iwo Jima, and as the producer of Best Picture nominee The Alamo, one of two films he directed. The other was The Green Berets (1968), the only film made during the Vietnam War to support the conflict.

Batjac, the production company co-founded by Wayne, was named after the fictional shipping company in The Wake of the Red Witch.

In 1964 Wayne was diagnosed with lung cancer, and underwent surgery to remove his entire left lung and two ribs. Rumors circulated that his illness was caused by having filmed The Conqueror in Utah (at a location that had previously been used for above-ground atomic testing), however he did not believe this, since from the early 1930s until his operation, he had smoked between three and five packs of cigarettes a day.

Perhaps due to his sheer popularity, or his status as the most famous Republican star in Hollywood, the Republican Party asked Wayne to run for President in 1968. He declined because he did not believe the public would seriously consider an actor in the White House. He did support his friend Ronald Reagan's runs for Governor of California in 1966 and 1970, however. In 1968 Wayne was also asked to be conservative Democratic governor George Wallace's running mate in the presidential election, however, this too did not come to pass.

John Wayne died of stomach cancer on June 11, 1979, and was interred in the Pacific View Memorial Park cemetery in Corona del Mar. At the request of his oldest son, Michael (who had been raised in the Catholic faith by his mother), the Presbyterian Wayne was baptized in his hospital room by the Archbishop of Panama, and given a Catholic funeral.

Wayne was married three times, always to Spanish-speaking brides; to Josephine Alicia Saenz, Esperanza Baur, and Pilar Palette. He had four children with Josephine and three with Pilar, most notably actor Patrick Wayne and Aissa Wayne, who wrote a memoir of her life as the daughter of John Wayne.

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 opposition from her family to maintain her relationship with Duke. In the years prior to his death, Wayne was happily involved with his former secretary Pat Stacy.

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. Sadly his home was torn down and replaced with a new one by the current owners of the property.

Various things have been named in memoriam of John Wayne. They include John Wayne Airport, in Orange County, California, and the 100-plus mile trail named the "John Wayne Pioneer Trail" in Washington state's Iron Horse State Park.

Filmography

1920s

1930s

1940s

1950s

1960s

1970s

John Wayne in pop culture

Movies and television

Characters in numerous other movies and television shows have made imitations of John Wayne. They have easily imitated his signature swaggered walk, and especially his use of the word "pilgrim" and his famous lines like "Fill your hands you son-of-a-bitch."*

  • In the 1994 film, The Professional, Jean Reno's character Leon does an impersonation of John Wayne in game of charades. Wayne is one of the few American icons whom his detached character in the film knows of aside from Gene Kelly, as he fails to recognize obvious impersonations of Charlie Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe and Madonna.
  • In the 1996 film The Birdcage, Robin Williams encourages Nathan Lane to become more "manly" by walking like Wayne. When Lane does a rather limp impression of the Duke's characteristic stride, Williams comments, "I didn't know John Wayne walked like that."
  • In the 1985 John Hughes film Weird Science, Lisa taunts the boys who are hiding in the closet from the party crashers with, "John Wayne wouldn't be hiding in the closet? Gary, played by Anthony Michael Hall, replies, "The man's dead"!
  • In the comic Preacher, the main character speaks to the ghost of John Wayne. During a flashback to Vietnam, John Wayne is featured speaking to the troops. Jesse has a lighter that was presented to his father (and other troops) by "The Duke".
  • In the 2006 film, Running Scared, Anzor Yugorsky is a very devoted John Wayne fan, lashing out at anyone who would bash Wayne. Anzor was working with the mob, but turns on them after refusing to kill his stepson. He removes his shirt and turns around, revealing a tattoo of John Wayne's face on his back. One of the mobsters kills Anzor by shooting him twice in the back, the bullets going through the eyes of the tattoo.

Many comedians have imitated Wayne. Jonathan Winters did so on several occasions; Robin Williams has even imitated Winters imitating Wayne (including in the film Good Morning Vietnam). Impressionist Rich Little's take on Wayne appeared in his 1978 TV special Christmas Carol and 1982 special Robin Hood, with Wayne as Little John. Ryan Stiles impersonated Wayne on the improv comedy series Whose Line is it Anyway on a regular basis.

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 that he had 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. Holly Hunter and Brad Johnson both attempted, although poorly, to imitate "The Duke" in the movie Always (1989).

Kurt Russell does a John Wayne impersonation throughout the entirety of John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China (1986).

Various characters have been named after Wayne, including a security guard in North of Pittsburgh (1992), a character in an intergalactic zoo for Earth Minus Zero (1996), cowboy John Wayne Hart in Harts of the West (1993), the lead in French film Les Folles années du twist (1986), and in Spanish television series Marina (1980). In Shanghai Knights (2003), Jackie Chan plays Chon Wang (simplified pronunciation "John Wayne"); when he and Owen Wilson's character Roy O'Bannon consider going into the silent film industry, O'Bannon comments that the name "could work".

Wayne even parodied himself occasionally, with appearances in I Married a Woman (1958), Cancel My Reservation (1972), and episodes of the television series Gunsmoke (1955), I Love Lucy (1955), The Jack Benny Program (1960), The Dean Martin Show (1965, 1966), The Lucy Show (1966), The Beverly Hillbillies (1967), Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (1972, 1973), and Maude (1974). This was in addition to his appearances on talk shows, game shows, variety shows, award shows, and tribute shows.

Song lyrics

  • Wayne is featured in Denis Leary's 1993 song Asshole. Leary's rapid-fire diatribe towards the end of the song contained the words, "John Wayne's not dead, he's frozen! And as soon as we find a cure for cancer, we're gonna thaw out the Duke and he's gonna be pretty pissed off. You wanna know why? You ever taken a cold shower? Well, multiply that by 15 million times; that's how pissed off the Duke's gonna be. I'm gonna get the Duke, and John Cassavetes, and Lee Marvin, and Sam Peckinpah and a case of whisky, and drive down to Texas..."
  • The punk rock band, MDC released a song called John Wayne Was a Nazi, saying that John Wayne had a picture of Adolf Hitler in his vest, and murdered "our Indian brothers", among other things. The song celebrated Wayne's "long and painful death". *
  • Tom Lehrer’s 1965 song “Send the Marines” (from That Was the Year That Was), includes the lyric, “We’ll send them all we’ve got / John Wayne and Randolph Scott / Remember those exciting fighting scenes?” satirically conflating Wayne’s war movies with the reality of military action, especially in popular consciousness.
  • 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, who 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 1989, Ray Stevens released the album Beside Myself, in which the song "Marion Michael Morrison" is dedicated to John Wayne. The lyrics contained the quote "Here's to you, Marion Michael Morrison. Here's to you, for all of our battles that you fought and won."
  • Jimmy Buffett mentions John Wayne prominently in his song "Incommunicado" (lyrics) on the Coconut Telegraph album of 1981. Jimmy is lamenting his loss and remembering such films as Red River and (The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valence.
  • Wayne appears in a very uncomplimentary light in the Public Enemy song "Fight the Power" (lyrics), from the 2002 album Revolverlution. The lyrics state that Wayne's friend Elvis Presley was an evil racist who stole black music to become famous, then seems to lump Presley and Wayne together. The lyrics state that "Elvis was a hero to most, but he never meant shit to me. Straight-up racist the sucker was simple and plain. Mother fuck him and John Wayne". Wayne has frequently come under fire for extremely racist remarks he made about black people and Native American Indians in a controversial Playboy interview in May 1971. He has also been criticised for openly supporting Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election, after Goldwater had voted against the Civil Rights Act, and for later supporting the segregationist Governor of Alabama George Wallace.
  • Country duo Big & Rich mention Wayne in "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy" from their 2004 album Horse of a Different Color.
  • Southern rock group Drive-By Truckers mention Wayne in "The Sands of Iwo Jima", a tribute song to a grandfather who fought in the battle and "never saw John Wayne on the Sands of Iwo Jima".
  • Queen's song "Bicycle Race" contains the lyrics "you say John, I say Wayne".
  • The song John Wayne is Big Leggy, a whimsical prodding into Wayne's personal life, was the ninth track on British new wave group Haysi Fantayzee's 1983 record Battle Hymns for Children Singing.
  • The chorus to the 1994 Bruce Dickinson song Sacred Cowboy goes "Where is our John Wayne, where's our sacred cowboy now? Where are the indians on the hill? There's no injuns left to kill."
  • Warren Zevon mentions John Wayne in his song "My Ride's Here" not only as John Wayne but later on as Marion, his birth name.
  • The punk rock band MDC trashes Wayne in their song "John Wayne Was a Nazi", containing lyrics such as "Hypocrite coward never fought a real fight, when I see John I'm ashamed to be white." This song is also referenced in the NOFX song "13 Stitches".
  • The Rolling Stones mention him in the lyrics of "Star Star"
  • John Wayne is the title of a song by the mainstay gogo group, the Junkyard band.

Trivia

  • Wayne was inducted into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1974.
  • Owned the Culver Hotel for several years before donating it to the YMCA.
  • Friend of Ward Bond
  • Along with Bob Hope, Wayne was one of Hollywood's vocal Republican supporters.
  • His official height was 6'4". However, Wayne was known to wear 4 inch lifts inside his boots, especially as he got older because old age, increased weight and health problems made it difficult for him to tower over his co-stars, and in certain photographs appears shorter than the 6'3" actors Gregory Peck, James Stewart, Gary Cooper and Charlton Heston. Many people believe Wayne's real height was closer to 6' even.
  • In 1978, Wayne uncharacteristically sided with the Democrats and President Jimmy Carter against his fellow conservative Republicans over the issue of the Panama Canal, which Wayne believed belonged to the people of Panama and not the United States of America.
  • Had a life-long friendship and professional collaboration with John Ford, this spanned 50 years. *

Character deaths

  • Contrary to popular belief, Wayne's character did die in several of his films. 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's stabbed with a lance, then staggers into the ammunition room with a lit torch and blows it up.
  4. Sands of Iwo Jima — He is killed by a bullet fired by a Japanese sniper who was hiding in a concealed hole at the end of the film.
  5. Wake of the Red Witch — He dies when the sunken ship he is trying to salvage shifts and drops further into the ocean, carrying him with it.
  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.

  • NO character deaths:

It is believed that the 1963 film McLintock! with Maureen O'Hara, played mostly for laughs, is the only John Wayne western where no one is shot or killed.

See also

Footnotes

Further reading

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

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