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John Wayne (May
26, 1907 – June 11, 1979) was an Academy Award and Golden Globe
Award-winning American film actor. He epitomized rugged masculinity and
has become an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive
voice, walk and physical presence. He was also known for his
conservative political views and his support in the 1950s for
anti-communist positions.
In 1999, the American Film Institute named Wayne 13th among the
Greatest Male Stars of All Time. A Harris Poll released in 2007 placed
Wayne third among America's favorite film stars, the only deceased star
on the list and the only one who has appeared on the poll every year.
His career began in silent movies in the 1920s and he was a major star
from the 1940s to the 1970s. He is closely associated with Westerns and
war movies, but he also made a wide range of films from various genres
- biographies, romantic comedies, police dramas, and more.
Biography
Early life
Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in Winterset, Iowa, but his name
was changed to Marion Michael Morrison when his parents decided to name
their next son Robert. His family was Presbyterian. His father, Clyde
Leonard Morrison (1884–1937), was of Irish and Scots-Irish and English
descent, and the son of American Civil War veteran Marion Mitchell
Morrison (20 January 1845–05 December 1915). His mother was the former
Mary Alberta Brown (1885–1970) of Lancaster County, Nebraska.
Wayne's family moved to Palmdale, California, and then to Glendale,
California in 1911, where his father worked as a pharmacist in a drug
store. A local fireman at the firehouse on his route to school in
Glendale started calling him "Little Duke", because he never went
anywhere without his huge Airedale Terrier dog, Duke. He preferred
"Duke" to "Marion," and the name stuck for the rest of his life.
As a teen, Wayne worked in an ice cream shop for a man who shoed horses
for Hollywood studios. He was also active as a member of the Order of
DeMolay, a youth organization associated with the Freemasons, which he
joined when he came of age. He attended Wilson Middle School in
Glendale. He played football for the 1924 champion Glendale High School
team.
John Wayne's birthplace in WintersetWayne applied to the U.S. Naval
Academy, but was not accepted. He instead attended the University of
Southern California (USC), majoring in pre-law. 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
curtailed his athletic career; Wayne later noted he was too terrified
of Jones' reaction to reveal the actual cause of his injury, which was
bodysurfing at the “Wedge” at the tip of the Balboa Peninsula in
Newport Beach. He lost his athletic scholarship and, without funds, had
to leave the university.
Wayne began working at the local film studios. Western star Tom Mix had
got him a summer job in the prop department in exchange for football
tickets. Wayne soon moved on to bit parts, establishing a long
friendship with the director who provided most of those parts, John
Ford. Early in this period, Wayne appeared with his USC teammates
playing on-screen football in The Dropkick, Brown of Harvard, and
Salute, and was one of the featured football players in Columbia
Pictures' Maker of Men (filmed in 1930 and released in 1931).
Film career
After two years working as a prop man at the Fox Film Corporation for
$75 a week, his first starring role was in the 1930 movie The Big
Trail. The first Western epic motion picture using sound established
Wayne's credentials, although it was a commercial failure. Before this
film, Wayne had only been given on-screen credit once (in Words and
Music), as "Duke Morrison". The director Raoul Walsh, who "discovered"
Wayne, suggested giving him the stage name "Anthony Wayne," after
Revolutionary War general "Mad Anthony" Wayne. Fox Studios chief
Winfield Sheehan rejected "Anthony Wayne" as sounding "too Italian."
Walsh then suggested "John Wayne." Sheehan agreed, and the name was
set. Wayne himself was not even present for the discussion. His pay was
raised to $105 a week.
Wayne continued making Westerns, most notably at Monogram Pictures, and
serials for Mascot Pictures Corporation, including The Three Musketeers
(1933), a French Foreign Legion tale with no resemblance to the novel
which inspired its title. Coincidentally, he also appeared in some of
the Three Mesquiteers westerns whose title was a play on the Alexandre
Dumas, père classic. He was tutored by stuntmen in riding and other
Western skills. He and famed stuntman Yakima Canutt developed and
perfected stunts still used today.
Beginning in 1928, and extending over the next 35 years, Wayne appeared
in more than twenty of John Ford's films, 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). His performance in Stagecoach made him a star.
His first color film was Shepherd of the Hills (1941), in which he
co-starred with his longtime friend Harry Carey. The following year he
appeared in his only film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, the Technicolor
epic Reap the Wild Wind, in which he co-starred with Ray Milland and
Paulette Goddard; it was one of the rare times he played a character
with questionable values.
In 1949, director Robert Rossen offered the starring role of All the
King's Men to Wayne. Wayne refused, believing the script to be
un-American in many ways. Broderick Crawford, who eventually got the
role, won the 1949 Oscar for best male actor, ironically beating out
Wayne, who had been nominated for Sands of Iwo Jima.
He lost the leading role in The Gunfighter to Gregory Peck because of
his refusal to work for Columbia Pictures because Columbia chief Harry
Cohn had mistreated him years before when he was a young contract
player. Cohn had bought the project for Wayne, but Wayne's grudge was
too deep, and Cohn sold the script to Twentieth Century Fox, which cast
Peck in the role Wayne badly wanted but refused to bend for.
One of Wayne's most popular 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. Wayne
also portrayed aviators in The Flying Tigers, Island in the Sky, Flying
Leathernecks and The Wings of Eagles and Jet Pilot.
John Wayne in The Searchers (1956)The Searchers continues to be widely
regarded as perhaps Wayne's finest and most complex performance. In
2006 Premiere Magazine ran an industry poll in which Wayne's portrayal
of Ethan Edwards was rated the 87th greatest performance in film
history. He named his youngest son Ethan after the character.
John Wayne won a Best Actor Oscar for True Grit (1969). Wayne was also
nominated as the producer of Best Picture for The Alamo, one of two
films he directed. The other was The Green Berets (1968), the only
major film made during the Vietnam War to support the war. During the
filming of Green Berets, the Degar or Montagnard people of Vietnam's
Central Highlands, fierce fighters against communism, bestowed on Wayne
a brass bracelet that he wore in the film and all subsequent films.
According to the Internet Movie Database, Wayne played the lead in 142
of his film appearances.
John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn in 1975Batjac, the production company
co-founded by Wayne, was named after the fictional shipping company
Batjak in Wake of the Red Witch. (A spelling error by Wayne's secretary
was allowed to stand, accounting for the variation.) Batjac (and its
predecessor, Wayne-Fellows Productions) was the arm through which Wayne
produced many films for himself and other stars. Its best-known
non-Wayne production was the highly acclaimed Seven Men From Now, which
started the classic collaboration between director Budd Boetticher and
star Randolph Scott.
In later years, Wayne was recognized as a sort of American natural
resource, and his various critics, of his performances and his
politics, viewed him with more respect. Abbie Hoffman, the radical of
the 1960s, paid tribute to Wayne's singularity. Reviewing The Cowboys,
made in 1972, Vincent Canby, film critic of the New York Times, who did
not particularly care for the film, wrote, "Wayne is, of course,
marvelously indestructible, and he has become an almost perfect father
figure." But years before he became anything close to a father figure,
Wayne had become a symbolic male figure, a man of impregnable virility
and the embodiment of simplistic virtues, packaged in an enormous frame.
He had a handsome and hearty face, with crinkles around eyes that gave
the impression of a man of action, an outdoor man who chafed at a
settled life. He was laconic on screen. And when he shambled into view,
audiences sensed the arrival of coiled vigor awaiting only provocation
to be sprung. His demeanor and his roles were those of a man who did
not look for trouble but was relentless in tackling it when it
affronted him. This screen presence emerged particularly under the
ministrations of directors John Ford and Howard Hawks.
1964 illness
Wayne had been a chain-smoker of cigarettes since young adulthood. In
1964, Wayne was diagnosed with lung cancer, and underwent successful
surgery to remove his entire left lung and four ribs. Despite efforts
by his business associates to prevent him from going public with his
illness (for fear it would cost him work), Wayne announced he had
cancer and called on the public to get preventive examinations. Five
years later, Wayne was declared cancer-free. Despite the fact that
Wayne's diminished lung capacity left him incapable of prolonged
exertion and frequently in need of supplemental oxygen, within a few
years of his operation he chewed tobacco and began smoking cigars.
Politics
from The Challenge of Ideas (1961)Wayne was a Conservative Republican.
He took part in creating the Motion Picture Alliance for the
Preservation of American Ideals in 1943 and was elected president of
that organization in 1947. He was an ardent anti-communist, and vocal
supporter of the House Un-American Activities Committee. In 1951, he
made Big Jim McLain to show his support for the anti-communist cause.
He also claimed to have been instrumental in having Carl Foreman
blacklisted from Hollywood after the release of the anti-McCarthyism
western High Noon, and later teamed up with Howard Hawks to make Rio
Bravo as a right-wing response. A supporter of then Vice President
Richard Nixon's bid for the White House, he famously expressed his
vision of patriotism when John F. Kennedy won the election: "I didn't
vote for him but he's my president, and I hope he does a good job."
Wayne used his iconic status to support conservative causes, including
rallying support for the Vietnam War by producing, co-directing, and
starring in the critically panned The Green Berets (1968). In 1978
however, he enraged conservatives by supporting liberal causes such as
the Panama Canal Treaty and the innocence of Patty Hearst.
Due to his enormous popularity, and his status as the most famous
Republican star in Hollywood, wealthy Texas Republican Party backers
asked Wayne to run for national office in 1968, as had his friend and
fellow actor, Senator George Murphy. He declined, joking that he did
not believe the public would seriously consider an actor in the White
House. However, he did support his friend Ronald Reagan's runs for
Governor of California in 1966 and 1970. He was also asked to be the
running mate for Democratic Alabama Governor George Wallace in 1968.
Wayne vehemently rejected the offer. Wayne actively campaigned for
Richard Nixon, and addressed the Republican National Convention on its
opening day in August 1968. Wayne also was a member of the conservative
and anti-communist John Birch Society.
Wayne's strong anti-communist politics led to a particularly unnerving
situation. Information from Soviet archives, reported in 2003,
indicates that Joseph Stalin ordered Wayne's assassination, but died
before the killing could be accomplished. His successor, Nikita
Khrushchev, reportedly told Wayne during a 1958 visit to the United
States that he had personally rescinded the order.
In an interview with Playboy magazine in May 1971, Wayne made infamous
remarks. He noted that, as someone living in the 20th Century, he was
certainly not responsible for the way people who lived one hundred
years before him had treated Native Americans. In the second remark, he
noted that African-Americans had been denied educational opportunities
and resented that fact, "possibly rightfully so," but he went on to say
that past mistreatment did not justify turning over positions of
responsibility to blacks on the basis of skin color alone without
regard to accomplishment and schooling and training.
Military service controversy
Visiting Brisbane, Australia, in December, 1943 America's entry into
World War II resulted in a deluge of support for the war effort from
all sectors of society, and Hollywood was no exception. Established
stars such as Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. (USN, Silver Star), Henry Fonda
(USN, Bronze Star), and Clark Gable (USAAF, Distinguished Flying Cross)
as well as emerging actors such as Eddie Albert (USN, Bronze Star) and
Tyrone Power (USMC) rushed to sign up for military service. Most
notably, James Stewart (USAAC, USAAF, Distinguished Service Medal,
Distinguished Flying Cross, Croix de Guerre) had already enlisted in
the US Army Air Corps, surmounting great obstacles in order to do so.
As the majority of male leads left Hollywood to serve overseas, John
Wayne saw his just-blossoming stardom at risk. Despite enormous
pressure from his inner circle of friends, he put off enlisting. Wayne
was exempted from service due to his age (34 at the time of Pearl
Harbor) and family status, classified as 3-A (family deferment).
Wayne's secretary recalled making inquiries of military officials on
behalf of his interest in enlisting, "but he never really followed up
on them." He repeatedly wrote to John Ford, asking to be placed in
Ford's military unit, but continually postponed it until "after he
finished one more film." Republic Studios was emphatically resistant to
losing Wayne, especially after the loss of Gene Autry to the Army.
Correspondence between Wayne and Herbert J. Yates (the head of
Republic) indicates that Yates threatened Wayne with a lawsuit if he
walked away from his contract, though the likelihood of a studio suing
its biggest star for going to war was minute. Whether or not the threat
was real, Wayne did not test it. Selective Service Records indicate he
did not attempt to prevent his reclassification as 1-A (draft
eligible), but apparently Republic Pictures intervened directly,
requesting his further deferment. In May, 1944, Wayne was reclassified
as 1-A (draft eligible), but the studio obtained another 2-A deferment
(for "support of national health, safety, or interest"). He remained
2-A until the war's end. Thus, John Wayne did not illegally "dodge" the
draft, but he never took direct positive action toward enlistment.
Wayne was in the South Pacific theater of the war for three months in
1943–44, touring U.S. bases and hospitals as well as doing some
"undercover" work for OSS commander William J. "Wild Bill" Donovan, who
thought Wayne's celebrity might be good cover for an assessment of the
causes for poor relations between General Douglas MacArthur and
Donovan's OSS Pacific network. Wayne filed a report and Donovan gave
him a plaque and commendation for serving with the OSS, but Wayne
dismissed it as meaningless.
The foregoing facts influenced the direction of Wayne's later life. By
many accounts, Wayne's failure to serve in the military during World
War II was the most painful experience of his life. There were some
other stars who, for various reasons, did not enlist. But Wayne, by
virtue of becoming a celluloid war hero in several patriotic war films,
as well as an outspoken supporter of right-wing political causes and
the Vietnam War, became the focus of particular disdain from both
himself and certain portions of the public, particularly in later
years. While some hold Wayne in contempt for the paradox between his
early actions and his later attitudes, his widow suggests that Wayne's
rampant patriotism in later decades sprang not from hypocrisy but from
guilt. Pilar Wayne wrote, "He would become a 'superpatriot' for the
rest of his life trying to atone for staying home."
Personal life
Roadside sign on the way to John Wayne IslandWayne was married three
times and divorced twice. His wives, all of them Hispanic women, were
Josephine Alicia Saenz, Esperanza Baur, and Pilar Pallete. He had four
children with Josephine and three with Pilar, including the producer
Michael Wayne and actor Patrick Wayne. Wayne is also the great-uncle of
boxing heavyweight Tommy Morrison. Wayne's son Ethan was billed as John
Ethan Wayne in a few films and played one of the leads in the 1990s
update of the Adam-12 television series.
John Wayne's hair began thinning in the 1940s and he started wearing a
hairpiece by the end of that decade (though his receding hairline is
quite evident in Rio Grande). He was occasionally seen in public
without the hairpiece (notably, according to Life Magazine photos, at
Gary Cooper's funeral). The only time he unintentionally appeared on
film without it was for a split second in North to Alaska. On the first
punch of the climactic fistfight, Wayne's hat flies off, revealing a
brief flash of his unadorned scalp. Wayne also has several scenes in
The Wings of Eagles where he is without his hairpiece. (During a widely
noted appearance at Harvard University, Wayne was asked by a student,
"Is your hair real?" Wayne responded in the affirmative, then added,
"It's not mine, but it's real!")
Wayne had several high-profile affairs, including one with Marlene
Dietrich that lasted for three years. In the years prior to his death,
Wayne was romantically involved with his former secretary Pat Stacy
(1941–1995). She wrote a biography of her life with him, DUKE: A Love
Story (1983).
During the early 1960s John Wayne traveled extensively to Panama.
During this time, the actor reportedly purchased the island of
Taborcillo off the main coast of Panama. It was sold by his estate at
his death and changed hands many times before being opened as a tourist
attraction.
Death
John Wayne died of stomach cancer on June 11, 1979, at the UCLA Medical
Center, and was interred in the Pacific View Memorial Park cemetery in
Corona del Mar. According to his son Patrick, he converted to Roman
Catholicism shortly before his death. He requested his tombstone read
"Feo, Fuerte y Formal", a Spanish epitaph meaning "ugly, strong and
serious". However, the grave, unmarked for twenty years, is now marked
with a quotation from his controversial 1971 Playboy interview:
"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."
A relatively large number of the cast and crew of Wayne's 1956 film The
Conqueror developed various forms of cancer. The film was shot in
Southwestern Utah, east of and generally downwind from where the U.S.
Government had tested nuclear weapons in Southeastern Nevada, and many
contend that radioactive fallout from these tests contaminated the film
location and poisoned the film crew working there. Despite the
suggestion that Wayne’s 1964 lung cancer and his 1979 stomach cancer
resulted from this nuclear contamination, he himself believed his lung
cancer to have been a result of his six-pack-a-day cigarette habit. The
effect of nuclear fallout on The Conqueror's cast and crew, and
particularly on Wayne, is the subject of James Morrow's science-fiction
short story Martyrs of the Upshot Knothole.
Congressional Gold Medal and Presidential Medal of
Freedom
John Wayne's enduring status as an iconic American was formally
recognized by the United States Congress on May 26, 1979 when he was
awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. Hollywood figures and American
leaders from across the political spectrum, including Elizabeth Taylor,
Frank Sinatra, Mike Frankovich, Katharine Hepburn, General and Mrs.
Omar Bradley, Gregory Peck, Robert Stack, James Arness, and Kirk
Douglas, testified to Congress of the merit and deservedness of this
award, most notably Robert Aldrich, then president of the Directors
Guild of America, who stated, "It is important for you to know that I
am a registered Democrat and, to my knowledge, share none of the
political views espoused by Duke. However, whether he is ill disposed
or healthy, John Wayne is far beyond the normal political sharp
shooting in this community. Because of his courage, his dignity, his
integrity, and because of his talents as an actor, his strength as a
leader, his warmth as a human being throughout his illustrious career,
he is entitled to a unique spot in our hearts and minds. In this
industry, we often judge people, sometimes unfairly, by asking whether
they have paid their dues. John Wayne has paid his dues over and over,
and I'm proud to consider him a friend, and am very much in favor of my
Government recognizing in some important fashion the contribution that
Mr. Wayne has made." Maureen O'Hara, Wayne's close friend, initiated
the petition for the medal and requested the words that would be placed
onto the medal: "It is my great honor to be here. I beg you to strike a
medal for Duke, to order the President to strike it. And I feel that
the medal should say just one thing, 'John Wayne, American.'" The medal
crafted by the United States Mint has on one side John Wayne riding on
horseback, and the other side has a portrait of Wayne with the words,
"John Wayne, American." This Congressional Gold Medal was presented to
the family of John Wayne in a ceremony held on March 6, 1980 at the
United States Capitol. This medal is now at the John Wayne Museum in
Winterset, Iowa. Copies were made and sold in large numbers to the
public.
On June 9, 1980, Wayne was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal
of Freedom by Jimmy Carter (at whose inaugural ball Wayne had appeared
"as a member of the loyal opposition", as Wayne described it in his
speech to the gathering). Thus Wayne received the two highest civilian
decorations awarded by the United States government.
American icon
Statue of John Wayne at John Wayne Airport, CaliforniaJohn Wayne rose
beyond the typical recognition for a famous actor to that of an
enduring icon who symbolized and communicated American values and
ideals. By the middle of his career, Wayne had developed a
larger-than-life image, and as his career progressed, he selected roles
that would not compromise his off-screen image. By the time of his last
film The Shootist (1976), Wayne refused to allow his character to shoot
a man in the back as was originally scripted.
Wayne's rise to being the quintessential movie war hero began to take
shape four years after World War II when Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) was
released. His footprints at Grauman's Chinese theater in Hollywood were
laid in cement that contained sand from Iwo Jima. His status grew so
large and legendary that when Japanese Emperor Hirohito visited the
United States in 1975, he asked to meet John Wayne, the symbolic
representation of his country's former enemy.
Wayne was a popular visitor to the war zones in World War II, Korea,
and Vietnam. By the 1950s, perhaps in large part due to the military
aspect of films such as the Sands of Iwo Jima, Flying Tigers, They Were
Expendable, and the Ford cavalry trilogy, Wayne had become an icon to
all the branches of the U.S. Military, even in light of his actual lack
of military service. Many veterans have said their reason for serving
was in some part related to watching Wayne's movies. His name is
attached to various pieces of gear, such as the P-38 "John Wayne"
can-opener, so named because "it can do anything," paper towels known
as "John Wayne Toilet Paper" because "it's rough and it's tough and
don't take shit off no one," and C-Ration crackers are called "John
Wayne crackers" because presumably only someone as tough as Wayne could
eat them. A rough and rocky mountain pass used by army tanks and jeeps
at Fort Irwin in San Bernardino County, California, is aptly named
"John Wayne Pass."
Various public locations have been named in memory of John Wayne. They
include John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, where his
life-size statue graces the entrance; the John Wayne Marina near
Sequim, Washington; John Wayne Elementary School (P.S. 380) in
Brooklyn, NY, which boasts a 38-foot mosaic mural commission by New
York artist Knox Martin entitled "John Wayne and the American
Frontier"; and a 100-plus-mile trail named the "John Wayne Pioneer
Trail" in Washington state's Iron Horse State Park. A larger than
life-size bronze statue of Wayne atop a horse was erected at the corner
of La Cienega Boulevard and Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills,
California at the former offices of the Great Western Savings &
Loan Corporation, for whom Wayne had done a number of commercials. (The
building now houses Larry Flynt Enterprises.)
On December 5, 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and
First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Wayne into the California Hall of
Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts.
For his new anthology Very Best of Billy Idol: Idolize Yourself,
released on June 24th 2008, popular British rockstar Billy Idol
recorded a brand-new, celebrative song titled "John Wayne". Idol
himself claimed to be a fan of Wayne's movies.
Celebrations and landmarks
Several celebrations took place on May 26, 2007, the centenary of John
Wayne's birth.
In his birthplace of Winterset, Iowa, the John Wayne Birthday
Centennial Celebration was held on May 25-27, 2007. The celebration
included chuck-wagon suppers, concerts by Michael Martin Murphey and
Riders in the Sky, a Wild West Revue in the style of Buffalo Bill's
Wild West show, symposia with John Wayne co-stars, cavalry and trick
horse demonstrations as well as many of John Wayne's films. This event
also included the ground-breaking for the John Wayne Museum and
Learning Center at his birthplace house.
In 2006, friends of Wayne's and his former Arizona business partner,
Louis Johnson, inaugurated the "Louie and the Duke Classics" events
benefiting the John Wayne Cancer Foundation and the American Cancer
Society. The weekend long event each fall in Casa Grande, Arizona
includes a golf tournament, an auction of John Wayne memorabilia and a
team roping competition".
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