Life and career
John Wayne was natural Marion Robert Morrison around Winterset, Iowa in 1907, but a title became Marion Mitchell Morrison after his parents decided to title their next boy Robert; nevertheless inside late life he typically stated that his middle title was Michael. His personal was Presbyterian; father Clyde Leonard Morrison was of Scottish descent and the boy of a Civil War veteran, while mother Mary Alberta 'last was of Irish descent. Wayne's personal moved to Glendale, California in 1911; it was neighbors in Glendale world health organization began calling him "Big Duke," because he never went anywhere forswearing his Airedale Terrier dog, who was Little Duke. He favorite "Duke" to "Marion," & a title stuck for the rest of his life.

Duke Morrison's early life was marked by poorness, his father was the pill pusher, however did non handle money swell. Duke was the good student & popular, however experienced a bad reputation as a drinker. Tall from either an early age, he played football for Glendale & was recruited by USC.

Fallowing about gaining admission to the U.S. Naval Academy, he attended the University of Southern California, where he was a member of the Trojan Knights and Sigma Chi Fraternity. Wayne likewise played on the USC football team under legendary coach Howard Jones. An injury when purportedly playing at a beach curtailed his athletic career, nevertheless; Wayne would late note that he was as well terrified of Jones' reaction to reveal a actual induced of his injury. He misplaced his athletic scholarship & by using there are no funds was unable to prove my point at USC.

When at a university, Wayne began working in a area of the local film studios. Western star Tom Mix got him a summertime job around the prop department in exchange for football tickets, & Wayne shortly moved in to minor role, establishing an extended friendly relationship by having director John Ford. Fallowing 2 years working as the prop human at a William Cur Studios for $35 a week, his number one starring role was in the pic The Big Trail; it was the director of that flick, Raoul Walsh, who gave him a stage title "John Wayne," when Revolutionary War general "Mad Anthony" Wayne. His wage was raised to $75 the week. He was tutored per studio's stuntmen within riding & more american skills.

Although appearing inside numerous war films and frequently existence eulogized as an "American hero," Wayne never served in the Armed Forces. All the same, his friend Bob Hope speculated that Wayne did more for the WWII war effort as an actor, than he ever may on the field. Between 1940, when a military draft was reinstated and a prevent of World War II in 1945, he remained in Hollywood & manufactured Xxi moving picture. (Among the children was Cecil B. DeMille's Reap the Wild Wind (1942), in which he portrayed one of the few less-than-honorable characters in his career.) He was of draft age (34) at the time of Pearl Harbor in 1941, but asked for and received a deferral for family dependency, a classification of 3-A. This was late changed to the postponement in the national interest, Two-The.

His friendly relationship sustaining Ford led them to functiin together on films which featured a select few of Wayne's virtually all iconic roles. Beginning by owning triplet minor area inside 1928, Wayne would appear around ended twenty of Ford's films in the next 35 years, including Stagecoach (1939), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), The Quiet Man (1952), The Searchers (1956), The Wings of Eagles (1957) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962).

Wayne appeared around several heavy masculine roles within western films and war films, but he likewise experienced the down-to-earthy feel of humor that allowed him to come out around the pinkish bunny lawsuit for an episode of ''Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In'', as well as in comedy movies. Based on data from a Internet Movie Database Wayne played the male lead inside 142 of his film appearances, an til now unexceeded record.

One of Wayne's better roles was ironically around one of a couple films he processed that wasn't the American or even war picture, The High and the Mighty, released inside 1954. the picture was directed by William Wellman & according to a novel by Ernest K. Gann. Wayne played the co-copilot of a plane that develops good engine problems on the wing. His portrayal of the heroic aviator won far flung plaudits.

Despite his prolific output John Wayne won exclusively one Best Actor Oscar, for the 1969 movie True Grit. He received the nomination for Better Actor within Sands of Iwo Jima, and a second when a producer of Best Picture nominee The Alamo, which he also directed. Inside 1973, he released the right-selling spoken word album titled America, How come I personally Love Her, that was nominated for the Grammy, and re-freed by owning similar profits inside 2001.

Wayne was easily known for his pro-Our contries, conservative political views. Within 1968 he directed The Green Berets, a just feature of the period to openly trend lines the Vietnam War. It was produced around close collaboration by having a Armed Forces. It was too ironic that he appeared inside an episode of the TV series Maude, created by ultra-liberal Norman Lear, and starring a liberal actress Bea Arthur, who stood Fin'Nine" and to whom Wayne referred as "little lady". Wayne seemed to enjoy acting with actresses of a liberal bent, such as Lauren Bacall, Colleen Dewhurst, and Katharine Hepburn.

The High and the Mighty is one of four films (the others are Hondo, Island in the Sky, and McLintock!) that are owned outright by Batjac, a production company co-founded by Wayne and named after the fictional shipping company in The Wake of the Red Witch. Batjac now belongs to the Wayne family estate. Because of lawsuits and copyright issues with the estate, these films, with the exception of McLintock!, have not been seen for many years. Hondo was not shown from Wayne's death in 1979 until 1994, a fifteen-year hiatus. As of the summer of 2005, however, Batjac has allowed The High and the Mighty and Island in the Sky to be reissued on television and video in digitally remastered versions.

John Wayne died of stomach cancer on June 11, 1979 at the age of 72 at the UCLA Medical Center, and was interred in the Pacific View Memorial Park cemetery in Corona del Mar, Orange County, California. Some trace his cancer back to his work in The Conqueror, filmed about 100 miles downwind of Nevada nuclear-weapons test sites. However, it should also be noted that until 1964 Wayne was a chain smoker, which was more likely to have caused his cancer. Other actors who worked on that movie and later died of cancer were also heavy smokers, including Dick Powell, Agnes Moorehead, Pedro Armendariz, Susan Hayward and John Hoyt. He had converted to Roman Catholicism shortly before his death.

Wayne was married three times, always to Spanish-speaking Latinas; to Josephine Alicia Saenz, Esperanza Baur, and Pilar Palette. He had four children with Josephine, three with Pilar, most notably Patrick Wayne. All but one of his children went on to have minor Hollywood careers. His romance with Josie Saenz began when he was a college student and continued for 7 years before their marriage. Miss Saenz was 15 or 16 at their first meeting at a beach party at Balboa. The daughter of a successful Spanish businessman, Josie resisted considerable reluctance on the part of her family to maintain her relationship with Duke.

He is the most celebrated utterer, and apocryphal coiner, of the tmesis "ri-goddamn-diculous."

In memoriam John Wayne
There is an airport named after him, John Wayne Airport, in Orange County, California. John Wayne was entered into the Hall of Great Western Performers of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1974.

John Wayne in modern pop culture
Movies and television
Characters in numerous other movies and television shows have made imitations of John Wayne. Easily imitated, with his signature swaggered walk, especially the use of the word "pilgrim," and famous lines like, "fill your computers mitts smart shoppers boy-of-the-bitch," have made their way into other performances.

Jonathan Winters imitated Wayne on several occasions, and Robin Williams has even imitated Winters imitating Wayne (including in the film Good Morning Vietnam).

Clyde Kusatsu played eccentric Honolulu Detective Gordon Katsumoto on two episodes of Magnum P.I., titled "This Island Isn't Big Enough...." and "A.A.P.I." (both 1986), in which he imitated John Wayne throughout the show. The imitation went so far as to have a bronze bust of Wayne and a white cavalry hat (like the one Wayne wore in movies Rio Grande, Fort Apache, and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,) in his office.

Full Metal Jacket, the Stanley Kubrick 1987 effort has Matthew Modine doing his Wayne imitations.

1989: Holly Hunter and Brad Johnson both attempt, although poorly, to imitate "A Duke" in the movie Always.

In the 1996 film The Birdcage, Robin Williams encourages Nathan Lane to become more "manlike" by walking like Wayne.

The persona that Wayne portrayed in numerous movies has become part of Americana. Like Cary Grant and Humphrey Bogart, Archibald Leach, Marion Morrison, and Bogart were different men in real life than their screen portrayals. In all three cases, their screen characterizations have taken on lives of their own. In real life Morrison was a quiet man who enjoyed his yacht, fishing, playing cards, smoking, and drinking. It was the screen John Wayne, however, that became an American icon. Tough, rugged, larger-than-life, taming the West, and saving democracy from fascism, his characters represented the spirit of the men who built the country.

Song lyrics
Wayne is mentioned in the Paula Cole song Where Have All the Cowboys Gone ([http://www.musicfanclubs.org/paulacole/lyrics.html lyrics]) from the 1996 album "This Fire". In the song, sung from the female point of view, the singer is both: wanting a man, or men, that act like they did in the John Wayne Westerns ("Where is the John Wayne"), and at the same time making fun of, both the men of today, and the falseness of the men in the movies.

In a uncomplimentary light in the Public Enemy (P.E.) song Fight the Power ([http://www.publicenemy.com/index.php?page=page5&item=10&num=33 lyrics]), from the 1990 album "Fear of a Black Planet". The lyrics state that Elvis Presley was an evil racist, then seems to lump Presley and Wayne together. Wayne has come under fire for comments he reportedly made in a 1971 interview with Playboy, when he stated that he believed in "white supremacy" until blacks were educated enough to take a more prominent role in American society. His statement: "that blacks were non however certified to hang on to high public professional because discrimination prevented the two from either getting the sort of education a political career takes."; was not an indication that he was racist, but was a statement of fact as to how he felt the system operates. Public Enemy is not saying that Wayne is a racist, but instead is responding to the idiom that John Wayne, and the characters he portrayed on film, are iconic heroes of America and the American way of life. P.E. is saying, Wayne is NOT our hero, he doesn’t speak for us, he doesn’t inspire us. He is the “white-mans� hero, not ours.

Jimmy Buffett mentions John Wayne prominently in his song Incommunicado ([http://www.margaritaville.com/discography/cocotel.htm#INCOMMUNICADO lyrics]), on the "Coconut Telegraph" album of 1981. Jimmy is lamenting his loss and remembering such films as "Red Flow of any stream" and (The man who shot) "Liberty Valence".

Other
John Wayne appears in the "Preacher man" comic series by Garth Ennis. He serves as the spirit guide to the protagonist, Jesse Custer. The serial killer John Wayne Gacy was named after John Wayne.

Character deaths

A frequently asked trivia question is: In how many films did John Wayne's character die? The answer is as follows:

His death is seen in the following films: