1979
John Wayne Dies
On this day in 1979, John Wayne, an iconic American film actor
famous for starring in countless westerns, dies at age 72 after battling cancer
for more than a decade.
The actor was born Marion Morrison on May 26, 1907, in
Winterset, Iowa, and moved as a child to Glendale, California. A football star
at Glendale High School, he attended the University of Southern California on a
scholarship but dropped out after two years. After finding work as a movie
studio laborer, Wayne befriended director John Ford, then a rising talent. His
first acting jobs were bit parts in which he was credited as Duke Morrison, a
childhood nickname derived from the name of his beloved pet dog.
Wayne’s first starring role came in 1930 with The Big Trail,
a film directed by his college buddy Raoul Walsh. It was during this time that
Marion Morrison became “John Wayne,” when director Walsh didn’t think Marion
was a good name for an actor playing a tough western hero. Despite the lead
actor’s new name, however, the movie flopped. Throughout the 1930s, Wayne made
dozens of mediocre westerns, sometimes churning out two movies a week. In them,
he played various rough-and-tumble characters and occasionally appeared as
“Singing Sandy,” a musical cowpoke a la Roy Rogers.
In 1939, Wayne finally had his breakthrough when his old friend
John Ford cast him as Ringo Kid in the Oscar-winning Stagecoach. Wayne
went on to play larger-than-life heroes in dozens of movies and came to
symbolize a type of rugged, strong, straight-shooting American man. John Ford
directed Wayne in some of his best-known films, including Fort Apache
(1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), Rio Grande (1950), The
Quiet Man (1952) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (1962).
Off-screen, Wayne came to be known for his conservative
political views. He produced, directed and starred in The Alamo (1960)
and The Green Berets (1968), both of which reflected his patriotic,
conservative leanings. In 1969, he won an Oscar for his role as a drunken,
one-eyed federal marshal named Rooster Cogburn in True Grit. Wayne’s
last film was The Shootist (1976), in which he played a legendary
gunslinger dying of cancer. The role had particular meaning, as the actor was
fighting the disease in real life.
During four decades of acting, Wayne, with his trademark drawl
and good looks, appeared in over 250 films. He was married three times and had
seven children.