WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers
Born: 26th May 1907
Died: 11th June 1979 (age 72)
Born Marion Robert Morrison in Winterset, Iowa. As a child he was given the nickname ‘Little Duke’ and the name stuck, becoming known as ‘The Duke’ in later life. He played football at high School as well as being on the debating team, president of the Latin Society and working on the school paper, there was no hint of his interest in acting whilst he was at school. Acting came about after his athletics career was ended by a broken collarbone and it was his coach who got him involved in the business as a prop boy and an extra. This job led to more extensive roles, he had several uncredited roles before he got his first credit as John Wayne when he was 23 in The Big Trail (his first credit was under the name ‘Duke Morrison’ in 1929).
The first of his top five, The Longest Day, is the first of three biographical roles if the films John Wayne had made. Wayne plays Lt. Col. Benjamin Vandervoort and to be honest it is hard to critique his role as, for me, it is similar to some of his other roles and it is understandable why he is cast in such roles – he has a strong presence and commanding voice making him an obvious choice to play such strong military roles. Moving on from that I guess it would have been very wrong not to have cast John Wayne in his second box office hit epic western like How the West Was Won, especially when you already have Henry Fonda and James Stewart (two of Hollywood’s other greatest Western stars). His role of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman* is a small cameo, about five minutes, so it is hard to say how he plays it but it must be difficult to portray a real person from history in such a small scene. *Wayne played Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman two years previous in the TV series Wagon Train.
His third film is also his third biographical piece. Based on true events and characters John Wayne plays Colonel Davy Crockett in the 1960 version of The Alamo. Obviously it’s hard to say how accurately he portrays the man himself as I doubt there were many written testimonies left after 124 years, but if Crockett was an honourable, clever, loyal man then I would say Wayne played him right. Obviously, in all essence, this is another western but I am pleased to say that John Wayne plays each role differently. We have had war film, western, western so I was surprised to see Reap the Wild Wind in John Wayne’s top five considering he was one of the Golden Age of Cinema’s stars of war and westerns which Reap the Wild Wind is not. In it a thirty five year old Wayne takes on a more romantic role. He plays Captain Jack Stuart who falls for ship salvager Loxi, only to be thwarted in career and romance by Tolliver. I was a bit hesitant about what to expect from this performance but it was a lot softer than expected, there was a hint of the cowboy in his walk (must be all that sitting on a horse) but there were little other signs, it was just nice to see him in a different sort of role. A bit like Reap the Wild Wind, The High and the Mighty wasn’t the storyline I was expecting. In what is effectively a disaster film, Wayne plays Dan Roman, a wartime pilot who now flies commercial planes for a living. There is more to his character that I feel today’s filmmakers would base the plot around but this is a more unassuming role for Wayne and all the better for it. He has some strength in his delivery that sometimes lacks in some of his other characters.
My favourite John Wayne character has to be Rooster Coburn. Rooster is the lead character in True Grit and its subsequent film Rooster Coburn; he is a drunken, belligerent marshal who softens when around the fairer sex – in True Grit it is the young teenager Mattie Ross who hires him to get revenge for her father’s death and in Rooster Cogburn it’s the equally stubborn Miss Eula Goodnight who, along with her student Wolf, ‘joins’ Rooster in hunting down the train robbers who murdered her father – considering Rooster is described (in True Grit) as “a pitiless man, double tough, fear don’t enter into his thinking” he obviously has a softer side that he keeps well-hidden. He calls Mattie “baby sister” and Eula (who is as cantankerous as Rooster himself) is allowed to call him Reuben. Not being a true fan of westerns I tend to find them a little predictable (good guys wear white bad guys wear black and all that) but I think the thing I like about Rooster isn’t that he is multifaceted; he is a good man who sometimes does bad things in a way to get justice done. John Wayne received an Oscar at the 1970 Academy Awards for his portrayal of Rooster Cogburn in True Grit.
By the end of his career John Wayne had made nearly 80 films, been nominated for, and won, many of the major awards but had only one Oscar, his role of Rooster Cogburn in True Grit (for which he also won a Golden Globe and a Golden Laurel). He was also recipient of the Favourite Motion Picture Actor at the inaugural People’s Choice Award (USA) – he went on to win it for the next three years (which according to his IMDB film list means that he was presented his last one two years after his career was finished). John Wayne seems to have started a small film dynasty – had seven children five of which followed their father in the business and as have two grandchildren. Some of his children appeared alongside their father in small roles but it was with his son, Patrick, that he made the most – nine films in total.
Wayne’s final film, The Shootist (1976), was almost a window on what was to come in his own life It depicts an old gunfighter who is seeking a quiet end to his life which is being taken by terminal cancer – Wayne himself was diagnosed with, and died from, stomach cancer in 1979, he had previously survived lung cancer in 1964. The Shootist uses clips from some of Wayne’s old films in its opening sequence so you could say it is a fitting homage to the man.