Best Known As: Western movie icon and star of True Grit
Name at birth: Marion Michael Morrison
John Wayne is one of the genuine icons of 20th-century American film. Famed as a star of westerns, especially the westerns of director John Ford, "The Duke" also played cops and soldiers with regularity. No matter what the role, Wayne nearly always played the same character: a big, tough, but sentimental hero who talked straight and met the bad guys head on. Offscreen Wayne was considered a superpatriot and was closely associated with conservative political causes. His many films include classics such as Stagecoach (1939, with Wayne as the Ringo Kid), the Irish fable The Quiet Man (1952), and The Searchers (1956, with a young Natalie Wood). Wayne won an Oscar late in his career for his portrayal of hard-drinking marshal Rooster Cogburn in the 1969 film True Grit.
Wayne was honored with a United States postage stamp released in April of 2004... Wayne was married three times, all to Latinas... Wayne was the uncle of heavyweight boxer Tommy Morrison, who also starred in the movie Rocky V... Wayne did not serve in World War II; though he was within draft age (34) at the time of Pearl Harbor, he was eventually classified 3-A (deferred for family dependency -- Wayne had four children) and later 2-A (deferred in the national interest). The issue is a touchy one, and many of Wayne's fans insist that he was actually classified 4-F due to an old football knee injury, a bad ear, or a chronic back injury... A heavy smoker, Wayne recorded a famous anti-smoking TV ad after being diagnosed with lung cancer... After surving lung cancer and heart surgery, Wayne developed gastric cancer, his final illness.
John Wayne passed away more than 20 years ago, and his spoken word recording was last available at that time. Even though America: Why I Love Her is long gone, the patriotic album with a title track paying homage to the matchless beauty and bounty of the U.S. was remembered by many of the nation's citizens, especially in the wake of the tragic terrorist attacks against the U.S. that took place on September 11, 2001. Radio stations dug out their copies and proudly aired the Duke's voice as he recited the poetry of fellow actor John Mitchum: "From Alaska's cold to the Everglades/From the Rio Grande to Maine/My heart cries out, my pulse runs fast/At the might of her domain." In the days and weeks following the attacks, it was easy to comprehend the appeal of a recording that hailed a Kansas sunset or an Arizona rain and other details unique to each state in the union. It would be just as easy to assume that in 1973, when the album was first released, and again six years later when Wayne died and it was reissued, that the recording held appeal only to die-hard patriots and fans of the actor -- not so. The poetry that was the foundation of America: Why I Love Her stood on its own merits and earned a Grammy nomination. In two weeks, the total number of copies sold topped 100,000, and Simon and Schuster published a companion book in 1977.
According to one story about how the macho Wayne came to record poetry, the patriotic words made his eyes well with tears the first time he heard them, and he vowed on the spot to record them. Unfortunately, the declining state of Wayne's health resulted in some delays, and three years passed before the album was finished. Today the recording is once again available, this time in CD form, thanks to Mitchum's daughter, Cindy Mitchum Azbill. The Duke and poetry -- an odd pairing at first glance. But this particular match of man and words ultimately turned out to be perfect. Wayne was, after all, one of the nation's mighty symbols as he portrayed tough American men with grit in role after role. He appeared in numerous movies, from films set in the Old West like Red River, Stagecoach, The Searchers, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Shootist, True Grit, and Rio Grande, to World War II epics like Sands of Iwo Jima, Back to Bataan, Flying Tigers, The Green Berets, and Fighting Seabees.
Wayne's real name was Marion Morrison. Sources differ concerning his middle name, with some saying it was Michael or Mitchell, while others claim it was Robert. The son of a pharmacist, he relied on a football scholarship in 1925 to enroll at the University of Southern California, although he almost made it into Annapolis. The actor wed three times, the first in 1933 to Josephine Saenz. They divorced in 1945, and the actor married Esperanza Bauer the following year, but after eight years, the marriage ended in divorce. In 1954, Wayne took his third bride, Pilar Palette, and their union lasted until his death from cancer in 1979. The actor raised four daughters and three sons. ~ Linda Seida, All Music Guide
Career Highlights: The Quiet Man, Stagecoach, Rio Bravo
First Major Screen Credit: Words and Music (1929)
Biography
Arguably the most popular -- and certainly the busiest -- movie leading man in Hollywood history, John Wayne entered the film business while working as a laborer on the Fox lot during summer vacations from U.S.C., which he attended on a football scholarship. He met and was befriended by John Ford, a young director who was beginning to make a name for himself in action films, comedies, and dramas. Wayne was cast in small roles in Ford's late-'20s films, occasionally under the name Duke Morrison. It was Ford who recommended Wayne to director Raoul Walsh for the male lead in the 1930 epic Western The Big Trail, and, although it was a failure at the box office, the movie showed Wayne's potential as a leading man. During the next nine years, be busied himself in a multitude of B-Westerns and serials -- most notably Shadow of the Eagle and The Three Mesquiteers series -- in between occasional bit parts in larger features such as Warner Bros.' Baby Face, starring Barbara Stanwyck. But it was in action roles that Wayne excelled, exuding a warm and imposing manliness onscreen to which both men and women could respond.
In 1939, Ford cast Wayne as the Ringo Kid in the adventure Stagecoach, a brilliant Western of modest scale but tremendous power (and incalculable importance to the genre), and the actor finally showed what he could do. Wayne nearly stole a picture filled with Oscar-caliber performances, and his career was made. He starred in most of Ford's subsequent major films, whether Westerns (Fort Apache [1948], She Wore a Yellow Ribbon [1949], Rio Grande [1950], The Searchers [1956]); war pictures (They Were Expendable [1945]); or serious dramas (The Quiet Man [1952], in which Wayne also directed some of the action sequences). He also starred in numerous movies for other directors, including several extremely popular World War II thrillers (Flying Tigers [1942], Back to Bataan [1945], Fighting Seabees [1944], Sands of Iwo Jima [1949]); costume action films (Reap the Wild Wind [1942], Wake of the Red Witch [1949]); and Westerns (Red River [1948]). His box-office popularity rose steadily through the 1940s, and by the beginning of the 1950s he'd also begun producing movies through his company Wayne-Fellowes, later Batjac, in association with his sons Michael and Patrick (who also became an actor). Most of these films were extremely successful, and included such titles as Angel and the Badman (1947), Island in the Sky (1953), The High and the Mighty (1954), and Hondo (1953). The 1958 Western Rio Bravo, directed by Howard Hawks, proved so popular that it was remade by Hawks and Wayne twice, once as El Dorado and later as Rio Lobo. At the end of the 1950s, Wayne began taking on bigger films, most notably The Alamo (1960), which he produced and directed, as well as starred in. It was well received but had to be cut to sustain any box-office success (the film was restored to full length in 1992).
During the early '60s, concerned over the growing liberal slant in American politics, Wayne emerged as a spokesman for conservative causes, especially support for America's role in Vietnam, which put him at odds with a new generation of journalists and film critics. Coupled with his advancing age, and a seeming tendency to overact, he became a target for liberals and leftists. However, his movies remained popular. McLintock!, which, despite well-articulated statements against racism and the mistreatment of Native Americans, and in support of environmentalism, seemed to confirm the left's worst fears, but also earned more than ten million dollars and made the list of top-grossing films of 1963-1964. Virtually all of his subsequent movies, including the pro-Vietnam War drama The Green Berets (1968), were very popular with audiences, but not with critics. Further controversy erupted with the release of The Cowboys, which outraged liberals with its seeming justification of violence as a solution to lawlessness, but it was successful enough to generate a short-lived television series.
Amid all of the shouting and agonizing over his politics, Wayne won an Oscar for his role as marshal Rooster Cogburn in True Grit, a part that he later reprised in a sequel. Wayne weathered the Vietnam War, but, by then, time had become his enemy. His action films saw him working alongside increasingly younger co-stars, and the decline in popularity of the Western ended up putting him into awkward contemporary action films like McQ (1974). Following his final film, The Shootist (1976) -- possibly his best Western since The Searchers -- the news that Wayne was stricken ill with cancer (which eventually took his life in 1979) wiped the slate clean, and his support for the Panama Canal Treaty at the end of the 1970s belatedly made him a hero for the left.
Wayne finished his life honored by the film community, the U.S. Congress, and the American people as had no actor before or since. He remains among the most popular actors of his generation, as evidenced by the continual rereleases of his films on home video. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
