John Wayne

Actor

  • Born: May 26, 1907
  • Birthplace: Winterset, Iowa
  • Died: June 11, 1979
  • Place of death: Los Angeles, California

American actor

Wayne, one of the most popular film actors of all time, achieved his greatest work in Westerns, many of which are among the finest such films made. He also came to embody what many people saw as basic American, especially masculine, values, such as strength, courage, patriotism, and willingness to accept personal responsibility.

Area of achievement Film

Early Life

John Wayne was born Marion Michael Morrison to Clyde and Mary (Molly) Morrison, of Winterset, Iowa. Five years later, the Morrisons had a second son, Robert. Clyde moved to California in 1913 after a Rexall drugstore he had purchased failed. He was joined by his wife and sons the following year, and the family settled in the Antelope Valley north of Los Angeles, where Clyde attempted farming. They moved to Glendale, close to downtown Los Angeles, in 1916, as young Wayne’s father returned to what he knew best, working in a drugstore. During these childhood years, Wayne gained the nickname Duke after his dog, Little Duke.

At Glendale High School, Wayne excelled. He earned high grades, was a member of the Glendale High Dramatic Society, represented his school in a William Shakespeare competition, and was elected president of his senior class. He also starred at guard on the football team, earning an athletic scholarship to the University of Southern California (USC). During his Glendale years, two of his closest friends were the brothers Bob and Bill Bradbury, who were appearing in their father Robert’s short films, The Adventures of Bob and Bill. Wayne would later act in about one dozen low-budget B-Westerns directed by the elder Bradbury.

Wayne entered USC in 1925, but his football success was limited; after his freshman year, he was cut from the team by the famous football coach Homer Jones. Wayne had begun working at Fox Film Corporation while attending college, and he continued after leaving USC in 1927, moving crates and furniture and appearing as an occasional extra in films. Six feet four inches tall, handsome, slim, and graceful in movement, Wayne drew the attention of John Ford, the legendary director who would earn six Academy Awards. Ford gave the young actor brief speaking roles in the films Salute (1929) and Men Without Women (1930). In Salute, Wayne began his association with Ward Bond, a USC football player who became one of Wayne’s closest friends and who regularly appeared in Wayne’s films.

Life’s Work

Although Ford is the director most associated with Wayne, it was Raoul Walsh who transformed Marion Michael Morrison into John Wayne, renaming the aspiring actor and teaching him how to ride a horse. Walsh made Wayne into a star by giving him the lead role in The Big Trail (1930), but the star would be clouded by a sky of B-Westerns for the next decade.

The Big Trail was an artistically successful film, and Wayne performed convincingly in his role as the noble hero scouting for a wagon train heading west. In his first major role, Wayne already demonstrated a professionalism that would permanently characterize his work. The Big Trail ultimately failed, primarily because of the onset of the Great Depression in 1929. Walsh filmed the story in both traditional 35 millimeter and the new 75 millimeter that permitted a wider camera range. Many theaters could not afford the new technology and were forced to show The Big Trail in the standard 35-millimeter version, which deprived the film of its sense of grandeur. Fox studios went into receivership, and although the studio continued to turn out motion pictures, it did not have the money to promote its new stars.

During the 1930’s Wayne moved from studio to studio, spending most of his time making B-Westerns but at the same time learning and growing as an actor. He managed to stay employed throughout the Depression. Wayne’s roles for Mascot, Warner Bros., and Monogram brought him into daily contact with Yakima Canutt, the legendary stuntman with whom he began a lasting friendship. From Canutt, Wayne learned to perfect his horsemanship and master the art of staging fistfights (a continuing staple of Wayne films). Throughout his career, even when age and declining health robbed him of his agility, Wayne insisted on performing many of his own stunts.

During the 1930’s Wayne married Josephine Saenz, the first of his three wives, with whom he had four children: Michael, Toni, Patrick, and Melinda. Subsequent marriages were to Esperanza “Chata” Bauer and Pilar Palette. Wayne had three children with Palette: Aissa, John Ethan, and Marissa. Several of Wayne’s children appeared in his films, most notably Patrick in The Searchers (1956) and The Comancheros (1961).

Wayne’s breakthrough film was a John Ford Western, Stagecoach (1939), which ended Wayne’s long apprenticeship, reunited him with the director for whom he would make some of his greatest films, and introduced film fans to Monument Valley in Utah, soon to become a classic setting for Westerns. In Stagecoach, Wayne played the Ringo Kid, who was falsely accused of murder and who broke out of jail to return home and avenge his father’s murderer.

The Shepherd of the Hills (1941) starred Wayne with one of his personal heroes, the cowboy star of silent films, Harry Carey, Sr. The film was directed by Henry Hathaway, who later directed Wayne in his only Oscar-winning performance, as Rooster Cogburn in True Grit (1969). Wayne acted with Carey three more times, in The Spoilers (1942), Angel and the Badman (1947), and Red River (1948). In one of the most famous scenes in all of Wayne’s films, Wayne stood in the doorway of a cabin at the end of The Searchers (1956) holding his right forearm in his left hand in a typical Carey pose eight years after the older man’s death. Wayne’s friendship with Carey extended to his son, Harry Carey, Jr., who performed with Wayne in such films as Red River, Three Godfathers (1949), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), Rio Grande (1950), and The Searchers.

The year 1948 was a turning point for Wayne as two of the films released that year Fort Apache and Red River established their protagonist as one of Hollywood’s leading stars. Fort Apache, with Henry Fonda, was the first of three Seventh Cavalry films in which John Ford directed Wayne (the others were She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Rio Grande). Although Wayne played a cavalry officer in all three, his character changed with each film in an early indication of the versatility as an actor that Wayne possessed and for which he has often been given insufficient credit. Rio Grande introduced Wayne’s successful acting partnership with the Irish actor Maureen O’Hara, whose flaming red hair, quick wit, and sharp tongue enabled her to hold her own in scenes with Wayne. They usually played spouses in initially antagonistic but ultimately loving relationships.

Red River offered Wayne the opportunity to work with the director Howard Hawks and play a character well removed from his usual roles. Tom Dunson, a middle-aged cattleman faced with financial reverses, set out to drive his herd to market accompanied by his adopted son, played by Montgomery Clift. The Wayne character became a tyrannical, obsessed trail boss who alienated his son, threatened to kill him, and beat him. The following year, Wayne made Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), where, as Sergeant Stryker, he established another Wayne persona, that of the powerful and courageous soldier whose tough love led his men at times to despise him but finally to respect his leadership and intentions.

Except for The Quiet Man (1952), directed by Ford and set in Ireland (and also starring Maureen O’Hara), most of Wayne’s best films during the 1950’s, 1960’s, and 1970’s were Westerns: The Searchers, in which Wayne, in perhaps one of his greatest performances, played Ethan Edwards, a man obsessed with his ten-year pursuit of revenge against the American Indians who kidnapped his nieces; The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), directed by Ford and costarring James Stewart; True Grit (1969); Big Jake (1971), with Maureen O’Hara; Rooster Cogburn (1975), costarring Katharine Hepburn; and Wayne’s final film, The Shootist (1976), with James Stewart.

Wayne, who had undergone surgery for cancer in 1964 and lost part of a lung, was again diagnosed with cancer in January, 1979. After stomach surgery on January 10, he regained enough strength to attend the Academy Awards on April 9, where he gave a moving speech to a rousing ovation. Wayne was hospitalized again early in May and remained at the medical center of the University of California, Los Angeles, until his death on June 11, 1979.

Significance

Wayne’s films (he made more than 150) encompass many subjects and genres, but he remains best known for his war and Western films. In Westerns, Wayne became an American symbol, rugged, self-reliant, tough, but one with a heart of gold that millions of viewers imagined reflected their own behavior.

Wayne is also remembered for his conservative political views and ideological films. Both The Alamo (1960) and The Green Berets (1969), the latter released a few months after the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War, were self-consciously patriotic and have often been viewed more as propaganda than as entertainment. Even as large numbers of intellectuals and the young turned against Wayne in the 1960’s, his popularity with the general public remained high.

In his final films, Wayne continued to demonstrate his versatility as an actor. Deliberately using his age and growing waistline, he cemented his association with the American West as a way of life receding into the sunset. As the seriocomic and flawed Rooster Cogburn in True Grit and Rooster Cogburn, he portrayed an anachronism summoned to right a wrong that only he could correct; by doing so, he demonstrated the essential dignity and honor beneath his outdated veneer. In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Wayne explicitly represented the past, in contrast to James Stewart, who learned to adjust and move into the future. Finally, in The Shootist, Wayne played the aging gunfighter J. B. Books, who was dying of cancer. Rather than wait for the cancer to kill him, Books ended his life by deliberately making himself a target for his enemies. The film was an eerily fitting conclusion to Wayne’s career. The Shootist also emphasized the end of the Old West, although that West continues to live, and will continue to live, in Wayne’s films.

Bibliography

Davis, Ronald L. Duke: The Life and Image of John Wayne. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998. Davis examines many aspects of Wayne’s life and career, including his impact on American culture. Includes a filmography that lists Wayne films by year with principal participants.

Kazanjian, Howard, and Chris Enss. Young Duke: The Early Life of John Wayne. Guilford, Conn.: TwoDot, 2007. Focuses on Wayne’s life from his birth through the 1940’s, describing his earliest experiences, his influences, and his film roles.

Munn, Michael. John Wayne: The Man Behind the Myth. London: Robson Books, 2003. Admiring chronicle of Wayne’s life and career.

Roberts, Randy, and James Stuart Olson. John Wayne: American. New York: Free Press, 1995. This exhaustive and substantive biography written by experienced and accomplished historians is essential for an in-depth knowledge of Wayne’s life and career.

Wayne, Aissa, with Steve Delsohn. John Wayne, My Father. New York: Random House, 1991. This intimate inside portrait of Wayne by one of his daughters gives a balanced account of the father’s strengths and weaknesses as a parent. At times unclear regarding facts and dates, it nonetheless offers many insights into the character of Wayne.

Wayne, Pilar, with Alex Thorleifson. John Wayne: My Life with the Duke. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987. Written by Wayne’s third wife, this book is perhaps the most valuable primary source of knowledge about the actor because it includes much information known only by the author.

Wills, Garry. John Wayne’s America: The Politics of Celebrity. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997. Wills explores Wayne’s accomplishments and friendships, including detailed accounts of his relationships with John Ford and Harry Carey. The author also examines the relationship between Wayne and his country, including his ideological films and his status as an American icon.

Zolotow, Maurice. Shooting Star: A Biography of John Wayne. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974. This was the most important biography of Wayne until the 1990’s. Zolotow was the ghostwriter of Wayne’s unfinished autobiography, which gave Zolotow access to a rich trove of personal information.

1901-1940: 1939: Ford Defines the Western in Stagecoach.

1941-1970: 1946-1962: Westerns Dominate Postwar American Film; July 24, 1952: Premiere of High Noon; September 10, 1955: Debut of Gunsmoke Launches the Adult Western Drama; March 13, 1956: Premiere of The Searchers.