Line #9 Creator/JohnWayne


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9	->''"I define manhood simply: Men should be tough, fair and courageous, never petty. Never looking for a fight but never backing from one either."''
10
11	[[JustForFun/DescribeTopicHere Describe John Wayne here]], pilgrim.
12
13	John Wayne (born Marion Robert Morrison;[[note]]After he gained fame as John Wayne, studio publicists erroneously referred to his birth name as Marion Michael Morrison. Wayne went along with it because he liked the name Michael. This error infected nearly every biography of Wayne until the authors of a 1995 biography revealed his actual birth name.[[/note]] May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), nicknamed "Duke",[[note]]Originally "Little Duke", which came from his childhood habit of going everywhere with his dog "Duke" and was the name he'd answer to. He actually wouldn't notice, or even get confused, when people called him "John Wayne"[[/note]] is considered by many to be the closest thing to the [[TestosteronePoisoning epitome of manliness]] in American film. For the most part, Wayne had two roles on-screen: he was either a cowboy or a soldier. It didn't matter which he was, though, because he was John Wayne.
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15	A former college football star at USC (where a leg injury led to his well-known gait), Wayne got his start as a bit actor before Creator/JohnFord cast him as a major player in the movie ''Film/{{Stagecoach}}.'' From there, he went on to appear in dozens of Westerns, including ''Film/SheWoreAYellowRibbon,'' ''Film/TrueGrit,'' ''Film/TheSearchers,'' and ''Film/McLintock.'' Occasionally, he switched to being a soldier (assuming, as was the case in ''Ribbon,'' he wasn't both at the same time), and his wartime roles include a paratrooper in ''Film/TheLongestDay.''
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17	However, as said earlier, just about all of his movie roles were the same: A gruff man, world-weary and realistic, but definitely [[{{Determinator}} not one to take no for an answer]]; probably harder on himself than anyone else is; not a fan of violence, but when the chips are down, turns out to be a spectacular fighter; at best confused about women and at worst saw them as a hindrance, but eventually warms up to one and gets over his prejudices; on the other hand, often said to hold views on minorities, [[Film/TheSearchers especially Native Americans]], that are shockingly racist even for the times. (''Film/{{Hondo}}'' is a notable aversion of that last one....)
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19	At this point, John Wayne is more an invocation of the CowboyCop or the manly man than he ever was in films. His most famous scenes were always the fight scenes, which ranged from dramatic (''Film/TheSearchers'') to comical (''[=McLintock!=]''). In addition, his stilted delivery and loud, commanding voice have made him the subject of imitation by just about anyone worth their imitating salt. None of it matters: he is seen as the man's man, so much so that one beer company spliced his movie footage into a series of their ads (after all, what's more manly than John Wayne and beer?).
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21	If there is a trope in TheWestern, odds are [[TropeCodifier Wayne used it]] (or, almost just as likely, ''[[TropeMaker invented]]'' it). (As a 17-year-old set dresser, he met an aging Wyatt Earp several times, and is said to have based his Western characters on his perception of Earp from their conversations). He also did lots of things that are covered by the RuleOfCool. But above all, he just made great movies that people love to watch, full of suspense, silliness, fistfights, and down-home American values. No wonder his style is [[{{Eagleland}} often the caricature of America]] overseas, although nowadays his roles would likely be filled by a BoisterousBruiser.
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23	When he is invoked in politics, it is usually as [[WorthyOpponent a call for honor and fair play]], as he said of [[UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy President Kennedy]]:
24	->''I didn't vote for him, but he's my president and I hope he does a good job.''
25
26	Although Wayne is known for his ultraconservative activism-- among other causes, he staunchly supported the Hollywood blacklist and UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar-- he rarely let politics interfere with whom he worked with. Creator/KirkDouglas, as liberal as Wayne was staunchly conservative, praised Wayne for his willingness to keep promises and help other actors find roles.[[note]]Douglas cited ''Cast a Giant Shadow'' as an example; the film's director, Melville Shavelson, spent years trying to interest studios in the project, without success. Shavelson showed the script to Wayne, who liked it but thought he was wrong for the lead role, Mickey Marcus. He convinced Shavelson to cast Kirk Douglas instead, appearing in a brief cameo, while helping to secure financing and studio backing for Shavelson behind the scenes.[[/note]] When Creator/GeorgeTakei balked at appearing in ''Film/TheGreenBerets'' for political reasons, Wayne told Takei that he didn't mind his politics - he only cared that Takei was right for his part. For ''Film/TheCowboys'', Roscoe Lee Browne was advised by his friends not to work on the movie due to Wayne's notorious politics concerning black Americans. Browne did so anyway and surprisingly, he got along well with Wayne, due to their shared love of poetry.
27
28	Today his political views would be considered far-right due to his attitudes on race which were condescending at best and blatantly bigoted at worst; in a now infamous 1970 interview for ''Magazine/{{Playboy}}'', he proudly stated "I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility", and "There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves." Additionally, he was generally skeptical about the Civil Rights movement, believing minorities should be "grateful" for being born in America and stop "bellyaching so much," though he did admit that segregationists like George Wallace were to blame for African-American protests. He briefly joined the far-right John Birch Society in the early '60s, but quickly and publicly [[EveryoneHasStandards repudiated the group]] after discovering its extreme conspiracy beliefs, telling one of its members that "you people are getting scary." A persistent urban legend claims Wayne tried to physically assault Native American activist Sacheen Littlefeather during her speech at the Oscars in 1973, which required him to be restrained by security.[[note]] Though it should be said that the exact details of the story seem to have [[https://selfstyledsiren.substack.com/p/john-wayne-and-the-six-security-men been exaggerated over the years.]] [[/note]] But Wayne was by no means a party line Republican; near the end of his life, for instance, Wayne supported returning the Panama Canal and publicly criticized his friend, UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan for opposing the Canal treaty.
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30	The rendering of America as '''Murica'', was inspired by Wayne's signature drawl which has become [[EagleLand one of the most recognized stereotypes of American culture]]. This spelling is often used as part of a critical statement on particularly American mentality, especially concerning the perceived American obsession with owning guns, for example. More than anyone else, Wayne is probably the one responsible for [[UsefulNotes/AmericanPoliticalSystem shifting American conservatism away from its genteel, country-club image and toward the rough-and-tumble, often disgruntled reactionary cultural attitude it has today]]. His son [[Creator/PatrickWayne Patrick]] is respected by cinephiles as a good character actor in many of Creator/JohnFord's films, but is conversely reviled by game show fans for (badly) hosting the 1990 version of ''Series/TicTacDough''. His grandson, Brendan, is also an actor, and one of four men physically portraying ''Franchise/StarWars'' antihero Din "The Mandalorian" Djarin (played mainly by Creator/PedroPascal).
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32	Orange County, California's airport is named after him; this fact has been a point of controversy over the years due to Wayne's political views, and a present-day campaign to draw attention to the aforementioned ''Playboy'' interview led to renewed calls to have the airport renamed.
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34	-----
35	!!Some of Wayne's famous films include:
36
37	* ''Film/TheBigTrail'' (1930): ''Should'' have been his StarMakingRole, but it bombed at the box office, and Wayne spent the rest of the 1930s making cheapo BMovie westerns for Poverty Row.
38	* ''Film/BabyFace'' (1933): Before Wayne became a star with ''Stagecoach'', he spent years as a bit player and B-movie lead. Here he plays very much against his later type, as one of Creator/BarbaraStanwyck's pathetic rejects.
39	* ''Film/TheLifeOfJimmyDolan'' (1933): Bit part as a boxer.
40	* ''Film/{{Stagecoach}}'' (1939): The one that put Wayne on the map, in which he plays the Ringo Kid, a criminal who turns himself in to a sheriff protecting a wagon party moving westward so that he can avenge the murders of his father and brother.
41	* ''Film/TheLongVoyageHome'' (1940): Ensemble piece with Wayne as one of a group of sailors aboard a British cargo ship sailing in dangerous Atlantic waters.
42	* ''Film/TheSpoilers1942'' (1942): Based on a book of the same name.
43	* ''Film/TheFlyingTigers'' (1942): Wayne plays the Colonel in charge of the American Volunteer Group in a propaganda film finished just after Pearl Harbor.
44	* ''Film/ReapTheWildWind'' (1942): Wayne is Jack Stuart, captain of a sailing ship along the Florida coast in the 1840s.
45	* ''Film/TheFightingSeabees'' (1944) A UsefulNotes/WorldWarII propaganda film featuring Wayne as "Wedge" Donovan, a construction magnate pushing for his workers to be trained as combat engineers to provide them protection as they work on the frontlines in the Pacific theater. There's also a LoveTriangle between Wedge, his main military ally, and a reporter.
46	* ''Film/BackToBataan'' (1945): Another propaganda film, Wayne leads a typically ethnic platoon in the desperate, doomed defense of the Bataan peninsula in the Philippines in 1941-42.
47	* ''Film/TheyWereExpendable'' (1945): Wayne plays the executive officer of a PT boat unit in another war film set in the Philippines in 1941-42.
48	* ''Film/AngelAndTheBadman'' (1947): Wayne plays Quirt Evans, a notorious {{gunslinger}} who falls in love with a Quaker girl.
49	* ''Film/FortApache'' (1948): Wayne co-stars with Creator/HenryFonda as Kirby Yorke, an officer long-experienced in dealing with the Apaches chafing under the martinetish ways of his new commander.
50	* ''Film/RedRiver'' (1948): Wayne plays Tom Dunson, a rancher whose adopted son (Creator/MontgomeryClift) turns against him in the middle of a cattle drive, mainly because Dunson has become unhinged. It's like ''Film/MutinyOnTheBounty'', but set in the post-Civil War Old West.
51	* ''Film/ThreeGodfathers'' (1948): Wayne is Robert Hightower, a genial bank robber who unexpectedly finds himself in charge of a newborn baby.
52	* ''Film/SheWoreAYellowRibbon'' (1949): Wayne is Nathan Brittles, an aging cavalry commander with one last duty before retirement: stop an Indian tribe from attacking a fort. Notable because he was playing a 65-year-old man at the age of 42, and yet he's so convincing, many people born since Wayne died have a hard time placing it at the '''start''' of his career.
53	* ''Film/SandsOfIwoJima'' (1949) Wayne plays a grizzled Sergeant, a Guadalcanal and Tarawa vet who leads a squad through Iwo Jima. [[spoiler:The first film in which Wayne's character dies on screen, which shocked audiences at the time.]]
54	* ''Film/RioGrande'' (1950): The sequel to ''Fort Apache'' has Kirby Yorke (Wayne) stationed at the Mexican border, with the Apaches attacking from the Mexican side.
55	* ''Film/TheFlyingLeathernecks'' (1951): Wayne stars as the commander of a small Marine fighter squadron that is part of the "Cactus Air Force" on Guadalcanal.
56	* ''Film/TheQuietMan'' (1952): Transport the scene to Ireland, as Wayne plays Sean Thornton, a retired boxer who wants to live a simple life until a burly big brother prevents him from pursuing his romantic interest.
57	* ''Film/BigJimMcLain'' (1952): Wayne's love letter to the RedScare, infamously casting himself as a heroic HUAC agent assigned to root out Soviet spies in Hawaii. The first film Wayne produced as well as starred in.
58	* ''Film/{{Hondo}}'' (1953)
59	* ''Film/BloodAlley'' (1955): Also produced the movie.
60	* ''Film/TheSeaChase'' (1955): Played German Captain Karl Ehrlich.
61	* ''Film/TheConqueror'' (1956): Wayne plays UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan. Widely regarded as the worst movie he ever made, though little actual blame was directed at Wayne for this. The New York Times observed: "John Wayne as Genghis Khan -- history's most improbable piece of casting unless Mickey Rooney were to play Jesus in ''King of Kings''." Unfortunately, Wayne among others in the production paid a heavy price considering they shot this film in Nevada when the US military was conducting open air nuclear weapon tests and they were downwind of the fallout, resulting in fatal cancers, including, quite possibly, the cancer that finally killed Wayne in 1979. This was compounded by Creator/HowardHughes then ordering tons of the contaminated soil to be shipped back to Hollywood for studio shooting at a time when the effects of fallout and nuclear contamination were not completely understood.
62	* ''Film/TheSearchers'' (1956): Widely considered Wayne's finest role, as well as one of the greatest movies ever made, he is Ethan Edwards, out to avenge the apparent death (or worse) of his niece at the hands of savage Indians while combating his own internal bigotry (and not too successfully for the latter).
63	* ''Film/RioBravo'' (1959): Teaming up with Music/DeanMartin, Ricky Nelson, and Walter "Old Codger Voice" Brennan, Wayne as "Sheriff John Chance" has to keep a criminal in jail despite the efforts of his rich, unscrupulous brother.
64	* ''Film/{{The Alamo\|1960}}'' (1960): Wayne's first of two full-fledged directorial efforts.
65	* ''Film/NorthToAlaska'' (1960): Wayne is an Alaskan gold miner who has to bring his partners' wife-to-be up from Seattle, only she's already married someone else! Now Wayne tries to find his friend a substitute to help his pal.
66	* ''Film/TheComancheros'' (1961): Wayne is a Texas Ranger who hunts for, arrests, and eventually befriends a professional gambler as they investigate who is manipulating the Comanche into another war. Co-directed by Wayne when director Creator/MichaelCurtiz fell sick.
67	* ''Film/TheLongestDay'' (1962): Wayne is a Colonel in the 82nd Airborne who breaks his leg landing in Normandy. [[DawsonCasting Wayne was 25 years older than the man he was portraying was at the time]].
68	* ''Film/TheManWhoShotLibertyValance'' (1962): Wayne plays Tom Doniphon, a tragic rancher/gunfighter who may or may not have performed the title action. This is the film that codified "pilgrim" in the minds of John Wayne impressionists everywhere.
69	* ''Film/{{Hatari}}'' (1962): Wayne as "Sean Mercer" teams with Red Buttons as big game hunters in Africa forced to carry around [[TheLoad a zoo photographer]] per orders in this character study.
70	* ''Film/HowTheWestWasWon'' (1962): Wayne plays General Sherman in the "Civil War" storyline.
71	* ''Film/McLintock'' (1963): Wayne is the richest man in town, but has to put up with a nagging ex-wife and strange townsfolk; the movie is famous for a fistfight on the edge of (and in) a muddy quarry.
72	* ''Film/DonovansReef'' (1963): Wayne is Michael Patrick Donovan, a World War II veteran living in French Polynesia who pretends to be the father of his friend's children when said friend's long-lost daughter arrives unexpectedly.
73	* ''Film/CircusWorld'' (1964)
74	* ''Film/TheGreatestStoryEverTold'' (1965): Wayne appears as the Roman soldier who, upon witnessing the death of Jesus Christ, proclaims "Truly, this man was the son of God."
75	* ''Film/InHarmsWay'' (1965): A UsefulNotes/WorldWarII WarEpic centering on a group of naval officers in the first years of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. Shortly after filming finished, Wayne was diagnosed with lung cancer.
76	* ''Film/TheSonsOfKatieElder'' (1965): A [[TheWestern Western]] involving a group of brothers returning home for their mother's funeral and uncovering suspicious activity involving their dead father. Wayne played the oldest brother [[TheDanza John Elder]], and was made right after Wayne finished his first fight with cancer.
77	* ''Film/ElDorado'' (1966): Basically a remake of ''Film/RioBravo'' by the same director and writer but with Creator/RobertMitchum as Wayne's drunken friend and a young Creator/JamesCaan as TheGunfighterWannabe.
78	* ''Film/TheWarWagon'' (1967): Wayne stars a wronged man who seeks to reclaim his land and his gold from a CorruptCorporateExecutive, aided by TheGunslinger played by Creator/KirkDouglas.
79	* ''Film/TheGreenBerets'' (1968): Wayne directs and stars as a colonel in the US Special Forces in quite possibly the only pro-[[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar Vietnam]] film ever made. Co-stars Creator/GeorgeTakei as a South Vietnamese Captain.
80	* ''Film/{{Hellfighters}}'' (1968): Wayne plays the head of an elite team of firefighters that specialize in oil-well cases.
81	* ''Film/TrueGrit'' (1969): Wayne's only Oscar win came about as the one-eyed hero Rooster Cogburn, hired by a young girl to capture her father's killer.
82	* ''Film/TheUndefeated'' (1969): Wayne plays John Henry Thomas, an Union Army Colonel that after the end of the Civil War meets with a band of Confederate Army soldiers (who have Creator/RockHudson as their leader), who eventually have to join forces to fight off Mexican bandits and revolutionaries during the French intervention of Mexico.
83	* ''Film/{{Chisum}}'' (1970): Wayne plays John Chisum, a real-life CattleBaron involved in the Lincoln County War in the 1870s Old West.
84	* ''Film/RioLobo'' (1970): A second loose remake of ''Film/RioBravo'' where Wayne plays a civil war colonel, allied with his former enemies to hunt down a traitor, and stop a SmallTownTyrant gang.
85	* ''Film/BigJake'' (1971). Wayne plays RetiredBadass Jake [=McCandles=] whose grandson is kidnapped by a group of violent thugs who demand a ransom. Jake, along with two of his sons, goes to get his grandson back. One of the Duke's later films, and set in the year 1909, it dealt with themes such as [[TwilightOfTheOldWest the closing of the American West]] and the end of the day of cowboy heroes like the ones Wayne had always played. Notable also for featuring two of Wayne's real-life sons, as well as the son of Creator/RobertMitchum, in prominent roles.
86	* ''Film/TheCowboys'' (1972): Wayne plays Wil Anderson, a tough rancher who recruits a group of teenage boys to help him on a cattle drive as no experienced cowboys are available, and becomes their harsh-but-fair mentor. [[spoiler:And then he gets killed by a vicious rustler, and the rest of the film is about the boys avenging him.]]
87	* ''Film/{{McQ}}'' (1974): Wayne plays the eponymous Seattle detective. This film is notable for introducing the MAC-10 submachine gun to the public and for its climactic car chase which features the first cannon rollover in film history.
88	* ''Film/RoosterCogburn'' (1975): A sequel to ''True Grit'' that pairs Wayne with another screen legend, Creator/KatharineHepburn.
89	* ''Film/TheShootist'' (1976): Wayne's final (onscreen) role, in which he plays J.B. Books, a gunman dying of cancer who wants to end his life in peace (not coincidentally, Wayne's own cancer was in remission; it would kill him three years later).
90	* ''Franchise/StarWars [[Film/ANewHope Episode IV - A New Hope]]'' (1977): Yes, really. Stock audio of Wayne was utilized and manipulated to create the voice of Garindan, an alien spy for the Galactic Empire who reveals the location of the two droids that they've been searching for. The character was physically portrayed by Sadie Eden in a costume.

Context Creator / JohnWayne