John Wayne, byname Duke, original name Marion Michael Morrison was a major American motion-picture actor who embodied the image of the strong, taciturn cowboy or soldier and who in many ways personified the idealized American values of his era.
Background
Ethnicity:
Wayne was of Scottish, Irish, Scots-Irish, and English descent.
Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison on May 26, 1907 at 224 South Second Street in Winterset, Iowa. The local paper, Winterset Madisonian, reported on page 4 of the edition of May 30, 1907 that Wayne weighed 13 lbs. (around 6 kg.) at birth. His middle name was soon changed from Robert to Mitchell when his parents decided to name their next son Robert.
Wayne's father, Clyde Leonard Morrison (1884–1937), was the son of American Civil War veteran Marion Mitchell Morrison (1845–1915). Wayne's mother, the former Mary "Molly" Alberta Brown (1885–1970), was from Lancaster County, Nebraska. Wayne's ancestry included Scottish, Irish, Scots-Irish, and English.
Wayne's family moved to Palmdale, California, and then in 1916 to Glendale, California, where his father worked as a pharmacist.
Education
John Wayne attended Glendale Union High School where he performed well in both sport and academics. Wayne was part of his high school's football team and its debating team.
A local fireman at the station on his route to school in Glendale started calling him "Little Duke" because he never went anywhere without his huge Airedale Terrier, Duke. He preferred "Duke" to "Marion", and the nickname stuck. Wayne attended Wilson Middle School in Glendale. As a teen, he worked in an ice cream shop for a man who shod horses for Hollywood studios.
Wayne applied to the U.S. Naval Academy, but he was not accepted. Instead, he attended the University of Southern California (USC), majoring in pre-law. Wayne also played on the USC football team under coach Howard Jones. A broken collarbone injury curtailed his athletic career; Wayne later noted that he was too terrified of Jones' reaction to reveal the actual cause of his injury, a bodysurfing accident. He lost his athletic scholarship, and without funds, had to leave the university.
John Wayne spent some time while at college working at the Fox studio lots in Los Angeles as a laborer, prop boy, and extra. While doing so he had met John Ford, the director, who took a shine to him (and would over the years have a major impact on his career). In 1928, after working at various odd jobs for some months, he was again employed at the Fox studios, mostly as a laborer but also as an extra and bit player. His efforts in the main went unbilled, but he did attain his first screen credits as Duke Morrison.
His first real break came in 1929, when through the intervention of Ford he was cast as the lead in a major Fox production, the Western movie The Big Trail. According to some biographers Fox executives found his name inappropriate and changed it to John Wayne, the surname being derived from the American Revolutionary general "Mad Anthony" Wayne.
The Big Trail was not a success, and Fox soon dropped him. During the 1930s he worked at various studios, mostly those on what was known as "Poverty Row." Wayne appeared in over 50 feature films and serials, mostly Westerns. He even appeared in some films as "Singing Sandy." He was doomed to be a leading player in low-budget films.
However, thanks to Ford, with whom he had remained friends, Wayne was cast as the lead in that director's film Stagecoach, a 1939 Western that became a hit and a classic. This film was a turning point in Wayne's career. And although it took time for him to develop the mythic hero image which propelled him to the top of the box office charts, within a decade he was voted by movie exhibitors one of the top ten box office attractions of the year, a position he maintained for 23 of the next 24 years.
Wayne appeared in over 75 films between 1939 and 1976 when The Shootist, his last film (and appropriately enough a Western), was released. In the vast majority of these films he was a man of action, be it in the post Civil War American West or in contemporary U.S. wars. Comedy was not his forte. Action was the essence of his films. His characters exuded decisiveness, confidence, virility, strength, and an American "can-do" spirit. Indeed, critics have emphasized over and over again the manner in which he represented a particular kind of "American Spirit."
As a box-office superstar he had his choice of roles and vehicles, but he chose to remain with the genre he knew best. As the years passed his only concession to age was the gradual elimination of romance from the roles he played. He went from wooing leading ladies such as Marlene Dietrich (Pittsburgh, 1942), Gail Russell (Angel and the Badman, 1947), and Patricia Neal (Operation Pacific, 1951) to more mature roles as a rowdy pater familias (McClintock, 1963), an older brother (The Sons of Katie Elder, 1965), and an avuncular marshal (Rio Lobo, 1970).
Wayne's production companies made all kinds of films, but among them were Big Jim McClain (1951), in which he starred as a process server for the House Un-American Activities Committee fighting Communists in Hawaii, and Blood Alley (1955), in which he played an American who helps a village to escape from the Communist Chinese mainland to Formosa. The two films that Wayne directed also are representative of his politics: The Alamo (1960) is an epic film about a heroic last stand by a group of Texans in their fight for independence against Mexico and included some sermonizing by the Wayne character about democracy as he saw it; The Green Berets (1968), in which Wayne played a colonel leading troops against the North Vietnamese, was an outspoken vehicle in support of America's role in the war.
Plagued by various illnesses during the last few years of his life, he publicly announced his triumph over lung cancer in 1964. But a form of that disease claimed him on June 11, 1979.
John Wayne was an American actor and director who went on to become one of the greatest stars in Hollywood in a career that lasted several decades. He played characters who typically exuded decisiveness, virility, and an American "can-do" spirit in over 75 films.
Wayne was the recipient of many awards during his career, including an Oscar for his role as the hard-drinking, one-eyed, tough law man in True Grit (1969) and an Academy Award nomination for his playing of the career marine noncom in Sands of Iwo Jima (1949). In 1953, Wayne was awarded the Henrietta Award (a now retired award) for being World Film Favorite: Male. John Wayne won the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1966. In 1970, Wayne won a Golden Globe Award for his performance in True Grit. On May 26, 1979, he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
Wayne was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on June 9, 1980, by President Jimmy Carter. Various public locations are named in honor of Wayne, including the John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, where a nine-foot bronze statue of him stands at the entrance; the John Wayne Marina for which Wayne bequeathed the land, near Sequim, Washington; John Wayne Elementary School (P.S. 380) in Brooklyn, New York, 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'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 and Loan Corporation, for which Wayne had made a number of commercials. In the city of Maricopa, Arizona, part of Arizona State Route 347 is named John Wayne Parkway, which runs through the center of town.
Throughout most of his life, Wayne was a vocally prominent conservative Republican in Hollywood, supporting anti-communist positions. Initially a self-described socialist during his college years, he voted for Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1936 presidential election and expressed admiration for Roosevelt's successor, fellow Democratic President Harry S. Truman. He took part in creating the conservative Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals in February 1944, and was elected president of that organization in 1949. An ardent anti-communist and vocal supporter of the House Un-American Activities Committee, he made Big Jim McLain (1952) with himself as a HUAC investigator to demonstrate his support for the cause of anti-communism. Declassified Soviet documents reveal that, despite being a fan of Wayne's movies, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin according to some sources contemplated assassination of Wayne for his frequently espoused anti-communist politics.
Wayne supported Vice President Richard Nixon in the presidential election of 1960, but 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." He used his star power to support conservative causes, including rallying support for the Vietnam War by producing, codirecting, and starring in the financially successful, critically panned The Green Berets (1968).
Due to his status as the highest profile 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. Instead, he supported his friend Ronald Reagan's runs for Governor of California in 1966 and 1970. He was asked to be the running mate for Democratic Alabama Governor George Wallace in 1968, but he rejected the offer and actively campaigned for Richard Nixon; Wayne addressed the Republican National Convention on its opening day in August 1968. For a while, he was also a member of the anti-communist John Birch Society.
Wayne openly differed with the Republican Party over the issue of the Panama Canal, as he supported the Panama Canal Treaty in the mid-1970s; conservatives had wanted the U.S. to retain full control of the canal, but Wayne believed that the Panamanians had the right to the canal and sided with President Jimmy Carter and the Democrats. Wayne was a close friend of the late Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos Herrera, and Wayne's first wife, Josephine, was a native of Panama. His support of the treaty brought him hate mail for the first time in his life.
In May 1971, Playboy magazine published an interview with Wayne which resulted in a firestorm of controversy. Wayne expressed his support for the Vietnam War, and made headlines for his resolute opinions about social issues and race relations in the United States:
"With a lot of blacks, there’s quite a bit of resentment along with their dissent, and possibly rightfully so. But we can’t all of a sudden get down on our knees and turn everything over to the leadership of the blacks. I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility. I don’t believe in giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people.”
"... I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from (the Native Americans) ... Our so-called stealing of this country from them was just a matter of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves."
In the same Playboy interview, Wayne also responded to questions about whether social programs were good for the country:
"I know all about that. In the late Twenties, when I was a sophomore at USC, I was a socialist myself—but not when I left. The average college kid idealistically wishes everybody could have ice cream and cake for every meal. But as he gets older and gives more thought to his and his fellow man's responsibilities, he finds that it can't work out that way—that some people just won't carry their load ... I believe in welfare—a welfare work program. I don't think a fella should be able to sit on his backside and receive welfare. I'd like to know why well-educated idiots keep apologizing for lazy and complaining people who think the world owes them a living. I'd like to know why they make excuses for cowards who spit in the faces of the police and then run behind the judicial sob sisters. I can't understand these people who carry placards to save the life of some criminal, yet have no thought for the innocent victim."
Views
Quotations:
"Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway."
"Life is tough, but it's tougher when you're stupid."
"Talk low, talk slow, and don't talk too much."
"Tomorrow hopes we have learned something from yesterday."
"If you've got them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow."
"If everything isn't black and white, I say, “Why the hell not?"
"Never apologize and never explain - it's a sign of weakness."
Membership
John Wayne was the president of the Latin Society and contributed to the school's newspaper sports column. He was also active as a member of the Order of DeMolay, a youth organization of the Freemasons. He was a member of the Trojan Knights and Sigma Chi fraternities.
He was a Freemason, a Master Mason in Marion McDaniel Lodge No. 56 F&AM, in Tucson, Arizona. He became a 32nd Degree Scottish Rite Mason and later joined the Al Malaikah Shrine Temple in Los Angeles. He became a member of the York Rite.
Marion McDaniel Lodge No. 56 F&AM
,
Tucson
Personality
Wayne's biographer Michael Munn chronicled Wayne's drinking habits. According to Sam O'Steen's memoir, Cut to the Chase, studio directors knew to shoot Wayne's scenes before noon, because by afternoon he "was a mean drunk". He had been a chain smoker of cigarettes since young adulthood and was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1964. He 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 that 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. Wayne has been credited with coining the term "The Big C" as a euphemism for cancer.
Wayne played football for the 1924 league champion Glendale High School team. He was fond of literature, his favorite authors being Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie. His favorite books were David Copperfield, and Conan Doyle's historical novels The White Company and Sir Nigel.
Wayne's yacht, the Wild Goose, was one of his favorite possessions. He kept it docked in Newport Harbor and it was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 2011.
Physical Characteristics:
Wayne was tall, personable, able to do his own stunts. Wayne's height has been reported as at least 6 ft 4 in (193 cm).
Wayne's hair began to thin in the 1940s, and he had begun to wear a hairpiece by the end of the decade. He was occasionally seen in public without the hairpiece (such as, according to Life magazine, at Gary Cooper's funeral). During a widely noted appearance at Harvard University, Wayne was asked by a student "Is it true that your toupée is real mohair?" He responded: "Well sir, that's real hair. Not mine, but real hair."
Quotes from others about the person
Alphonzo E. Bell, Jr.: "Duke's personality and sense of humor were very close to what the general public saw on the big screen. It is perhaps best shown in these words he had engraved on a plaque: 'Each of us is a mixture of some good and some not so good qualities. In considering one's fellow man it's important to remember the good things ... We should refrain from making judgments just because a fella happens to be a dirty, rotten SOB.'"
Interests
Writers
Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie
Connections
Wayne was married three times and divorced twice. His three wives, one of Spanish American descent and two of Hispanic descent, were Josephine Alicia Saenz, Esperanza Baur, and Pilar Pallete. He had four children with Josephine: Michael Wayne (November 23, 1934 – April 2, 2003), Mary Antonia "Toni" Wayne LaCava (February 25, 1936 – December 6, 2000), Patrick Wayne (born July 15, 1939), and Melinda Wayne Munoz (born December 3, 1940). He had three more children with Pilar: Aissa Wayne (born March 31, 1956), John Ethan Wayne (born February 22, 1962), and Marisa Wayne (born February 22, 1966).
Several of Wayne's children entered the film and television industry; 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.
His stormiest divorce was from Esperanza Baur, a former Mexican actress. She believed that Wayne and co-star Gail Russell were having an affair, a claim which both Wayne and Russell denied. The night the film Angel and the Badman (1947) wrapped, there was the usual party for cast and crew, and Wayne came home very late. Esperanza was in a drunken rage by the time he arrived, and she attempted to shoot him as he walked through the front door.
Wayne had several high-profile affairs, including one with Marlene Dietrich that lasted for three years and one with Merle Oberon that lasted from 1938 to 1947. After his separation from his wife, Pilar, in 1973, Wayne became romantically involved and lived with his former secretary Pat Stacy (1941–1995) until his death in 1979. She published a biography of her life with him in 1983, titled Duke: A Love Story.
Father:
Clyde Leonard Morrison
(1884 - March 1937)
Mother:
Mary Alberta Brown
(1885-1970)
Brother:
Robert E. Morrison
ex-spouse:
Josephine S. Wayne
(born Josephine Alicia Saenz; May 13, 1908 – June 24, 2003)
Josephine S. Wayne was the first wife of American film actor John Wayne. She had four children including film producer Michael Wayne and actor Patrick Wayne.
ex-spouse:
Esperanza Baur Díaz
(1924 – March 11, 1961)
Esperanza Baur Díaz was a Mexican actress, and was the second wife of John Wayne.
ex-spouse:
Pilar Pallete
(born September 3, 1928)
Pilar Pallete is a Peruvian actress and the third wife of the American actor John Wayne.
Son:
Patrick Wayne
(born July 15, 1939)
Patrick Wayne is an American actor, the second son of movie star John Wayne and his first wife, Josephine Alicia Saenz. He made over 40 films, including eleven with his father.
Son:
Ethan Wayne
(born February 22, 1962) i
Ethan Wayne is an American actor, son of actor John Wayne and his third wife, Pilar Pallete.
Daughter:
Aissa Wayne
(b. March 31, 1956, Burbank, California, United States)
Son:
Michael Wayne
(November 23, 1934 – April 2, 2003),
Michael Wayne was an American film producer and actor, and the eldest son of Hollywood actor John Wayne and his first wife, Josephine Alicia Saenz.
Daughter:
Mary Antonia Wayne LaCava
(1936-2000)
Daughter:
Marisa Wayne
(b.February 22, 1966, Burbank, California, United States)
Daughter:
Melinda Wayne Munoz
(b. December 3, 1940, Los Angeles, California, United States)
Partner:
Pat Stacy
(1941- 1995)
Partner:
Marlene Dietrich
(27 December 1901 – 6 May 1992)
Marlene Dietrich was a German actress and singer who held both German and American citizenship.
