When I consider many of the Hollywood actors of today, I find the pool severely lacking when it comes to the greats. I’m not saying that there are no greats, but in many ways, the greats peaked with people like John Wayne, and when we lost him to cancer on June 11, 1979, we really lost an iconic American film actor. John Wayne who was famous for starring in countless westerns, died at the age 72, after battling his cancer for more than a decade.
Like many actors of that era, John Wayne was encouraged to chance his name from the name he was born with on May 26, 1907, which was Marion Morrison. to a name considered more manly and tough. When I think about it, I don’t suppose a name like Marion would have gone very far in the world of the tough Western cowboy, so I can see the reasoning. John Wayne was born in Winterset, Iowa, and moved as a child to Glendale, California. His notoriety began when he started playing football at Glendale High School. He attended the University of Southern California on a scholarship, but like many kids, he dropped out after two years. He realized that college and the degree it would provide just weren’t what he wanted. John Wayne went to work as a movie studio laborer, and while there, he befriended director John Ford, who was a rising talent. John Wayne’s 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. He apparently wasn’t a big fan of the name Marion either. Rather like the Johnny Cash song, “A Boy Named Sue.”
John Wayne’s first starring role came in 1930 with The Big Trail, a film directed by Raoul Walsh. This was when his name changed from Marion Morrison to “John Wayne,” because 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, the movie was a flop, which is likely why I don’t remember that one. The 1930s brought about dozens more of John Wayne’s mediocre westerns. I would say that part of the problem was that in them, he played various rough-and-tumble characters, mixed in with occasional appearances as “Singing Sandy,” a musical cowpoke similar to Roy Rogers…which worked for Rogers, but was a total flop for the more macho John Wayne.
Finally, in 1939, John Wayne got 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. What John Ford saw in John Wayne and put into his directing of John Wayne brought about 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 Valance” (1962).
Another aspect of John Wayne’s charm was his off-screen conservative political views. John Wayne produced, directed, and starred in “The Alamo” (1960) and “The Green Berets” (1968), both of which reflected his 
patriotic, conservative values. Then, in 1969, he won an Oscar for his role as a drunken, one-eyed federal marshal named Rooster Cogburn in “True Grit” one of my favorites of his movies…my all-time favorite being “McLintock.” John Wayne’s last film was “The Shootist” (1976), in which he played a legendary gunslinger who was dying of cancer. The role had particular meaning, as the actor was fighting the disease in real life. When John Wayne passed away on June 11, 1979, the world lost an amazing man and actor, the caliber of whom has never been matched.
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