Wayne,
John, 1907-1979.
real name: Marion Michael Morrison
June 12, 1979
OBITUARY
'Duke,'
an American Hero
By RICHARD F. SHEPARD
The Associated Press
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In more than 200 films made over 50 years, John Wayne saddled up to become
the greatest figure of one of America's greatest native art forms, the western.
The movies he starred in rode the range from out-of-the-money sagebrush quickies
to such classics as "Stagecoach" and "Red River." He won an Oscar as best
actor for another western, "True Grit," in 1969. Yet some of the best films
he made told stories far from the wilds of the West, such as "The Quiet Man"
and "The Long Voyage Home."
In the last decades of his career, Mr. Wayne became something of an American
folk figure, hero to some, villain to others, for his outspoken views. He
was politically a conservative and, although he scorned politics as a way
of life for himself, he enthusiastically supported Richard M. Nixon, Barry
Goldwater, Spiro T. Agnew, Ronald Reagan and others who, he felt, fought
for his concept of Americanism and anti- Communism.
But it was for millions of moviegoers who saw him only on the big screen
that John Wayne really existed. He had not created the western with its clear-cut
conflict between good and bad, right and wrong, but it was impossible to
mention the word "western" without thinking of "the Duke," as he was called.
By the early 1960's, 161 of his films had grossed $350 million, and he had
been paid as much as $666,000 to make a movie--although in his early days
on screen, his salary ran to no more than two or three figures a week.
It was rarely a simple matter to find a unanimous opinion on Mr. Wayne, whether
it had to do with his acting or his politics. Film critics were lavish in
praise of him in some roles and shrugged wearily as they candled his less
notable efforts; one critic, apparently overexposed to westerns, angered
him by commenting, "It never Waynes, but it pours."
Mr. Wayne was co-director and star of "The Green Berets," a 1968 film that
supported the United States action in Vietnam. The movie was assailed by
many major critics on all grounds, political and esthetic, but the public
apparently did not mind; in only six months, it had earned $1 million above
its production cost of $7 million.
Won Growing Respect
As the years passed, Mr. Wayne was recognized as some sort of American natural
resource, and his various critics, political and film, looked on him with
more respect. Abbie Hoffman, the radical of the 1960's, paid tribute to Mr.
Wayne's singularity. Reviewing "The Cowboys," made in 1972, Vincent Canby,
film critic of The New York Times, who did not particularly care for it,
wrote, "Wayne is, of course, marvelously indestructible, and he has become
an almost perfect father figure."
But years before he became anything close to a father figure, Mr. Wayne had
become a symbolic male figure, a man of impregnable virility and the embodiment
of simplistic, laconic virtues, packaged in a well-built, 6-foot-4-inch,
225-pound frame.
He had a handsome and hearty face, with crinkles around eyes that were too
lidded to express much emotion but gave the impression of a man of action,
an outdoor man who chafed at a settled life. He was laconic on screen. And
when he shambled into view, one could sense the arrival of coiled vigor awaiting
only provocation to be sprung. His demeanor and his roles were those of a
man who did not look for trouble but was relentless in tackling it when it
affronted him. This screen presence emerged particularly under the ministrations
of John Ford and Howard Hawks, the directors.
Overcame Great Odds
Appearances were not altogether deceiving. Mr. Wayne loved adventure and
the outdoors. He did believe that things were either right or wrong, and
he came back against great odds. In 1964, a malignant tumor was removed from
his chest and left lung, and within several months he was on location making
another movie.
More recently, he found himself the target of much hate mail from the right
wing, whose political idol he had been, after he supported President Carter's
espousal of the Panama Canal treaties. He did not mind. Although his basic
views had not moderated, his tolerance, it seemed, had. He had even shown
up at a function to congratulate Jane Fonda, who was to the left what he
was to the right, on winning a screen award.
Mr. Wayne made his last public appearance at the Academy Awards ceremony
in April, where he drew an emotional standing ovation when he strode out
on stage to present the Oscar for best picture.
He was recently presented with a special Congressional medal of the kind
given to such national figures as the Wright Brothers.
Between his first starring role in "The Big Trail" in 1930, and his last
one, as the most celebrated gunslinger in the West who finds he is dying
of cancer in "The Shootist," in 1976, Mr. Wayne shot his way through generations
of film fans with little change in style or personality. He had consciously
adapted his posture for that first movie and retained it. He was sometimes
inseparable from it in the flesh.
Watched Movies Being Made
"When I started, I knew I was no actor and I went to work on this Wayne thing,"
he once recalled. "It was as deliberate a projection as you'll ever see.
I figured I needed a gimmick, so I dreamed up the drawl, the squint and a
way of moving meant to suggest that I wasn't looking for trouble but would
just as soon throw a bottle at your head as not. I practiced in front of
a mirror."
His entrance into films was as fortuitous as any made by a young fellow who
grew up near the Hollywood badlands. But the Wayne saga actually started
much farther east, in the small town of Winterset, Iowa, where he was born
May 26, 1907, and was named Marion Michael Morrison.
His father, Clyde L. Morrison, had a drugstore, but when Marion was 6 years
old, his father, because of ill health, moved the family to Southern California
and became a homesteader with an 80-acre farm. Not long after, the family
settled in Glendale, where Mr. Morrison again went opened a pharmacy. His
store was in the same building as a theater, and young Marion, who rose at
4 A.M. to deliver newspapers and then, after school and football practice,
delivered orders from the store, went to the movies four or five times a
week, free.
Even earlier, when he was 7, he had learned about horses and played cowboy.
In Glendale, he saw movies being made at the Triangle Studios, where they
often shot outdoor scenes. The link between horse and camera was yet to be
forged, but the influences were there from the beginning. Along the way he
had acquired the nickname "Duke." It came from an Airedale terrier he had
had, he used to say as he debunked press releases that tried to explain the
moniker as some sort of rubbed-off nobility.
Came to Ford's Attention
He worked as truck driver, fruit picker, soda jerk and ice hauler and was
an honor student and a member of an outstanding football team at high school.
His athletic talents brought him a football scholarship at the University
of Southern California, but in his second year he broke an ankle and dropped
out.
While he was still at school, he got a job, as other football players did,
as a scenery mover at Fox Films. John Ford was attracted to the youth's hulking
physique and made him a "fourth-assistant prop boy." When Mr. Ford was making
a submarine film on location in the channel off Catalina Island, the regular
stuntmen refused to go into the water because of rough seas. Mr. Ford asked
the prop boy if he would. He did, immediately, and became part of the Ford
team.
In an early film, Republic Pictures gave him a screen credit as Michael Burn
and, in another, as Duke Morrison. When Raoul Walsh cast him as the star
of "The Big Trail," his expensive, $2 million western, the director thought
that Marion was too sissified a name for a western hero, and "John Wayne"
was born.
Rode in 40 Westerns
The movie was a flop. It had been shot as a talking picture on 72-millimeter
film, a "superwestern" designed for large screens that required projection
equipment that few movie houses were equipped with.
After two nonwesterns, Mr. Wayne retreated into short-order horse operas.
Between 1933 and 1939, he made more than 40 westerns, all Grade B or C undertakings,
interspersed with several that took him off the range but not into any particular
recognition.
Then, like a good guy riding in to relieve the oppressed, his old benefactor,
Mr. Ford, came along to cast Mr. Wayne as the Ringo Kid in the Oscar-winning
"Stagecoach," the 1939 movie that took westerns from the Saturday afternoon
for-kids-only category and attracted the attention of more intellectual film
critics. It was a turning point also for Mr. Wayne.
His next major role found him in a milieu far from the cactus sets. He played
a simple Swedish lad in the crew of a freighter in "The Long Voyage Home,"
Mr. Ford's 1940 film based on the sea plays of Eugene O'Neill.
Mr. Wayne's work from that point reads like a bill of lading of popular Hollywood
wares. He starred with Marlene Dietrich in three films: "Seven Sinners" (1940),
"Pittsburgh" (1943) and "The Spoilers" (1942). Others included Cecil B. De
Mille's "Reap the Wild Wind" (1942), as well as a slew of World War II movies
that embraced Mr. Ford's "They Were Expendable" in 1945.
Later came "Fort Apache" and "Red River," in 1948, and "Three Godfathers"
and "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," both in 1949. In 1952, Mr. Wayne showed off
to best effect as the young Irish-American returned to Ireland in Mr. Ford's
"The Quiet Man." It was a much-acclaimed film and is still a frequent feature
on television.
Invested in 'The Alamo'
By the late 1940's, Mr. Wayne had already been transformed from a dashing
young adventurer to an older one, no less dashing, but in a somewhat more
restrained tempo. In "Red River," directed by Mr. Hawks, Mr. Wayne portrayed
a ruthless cattle baron, not altogether a good guy, but one with some depth
to him. In this instance, Montgomery Clift, the co-star, represented the
forces for good.
Mr. Wayne invested $1.2 million in 1960 to make "The Alamo," about the fight
between the Americans--the good guys--and the Mexicans--the bad guys. He
played Davy Crockett. The picture was very dear to his heart because, he
said, "We wanted to re-create a moment in history that will show this generation
of Americans what their country still stands for. . .what some of their forebears
went through to win what they had to have or die--liberty and freedom."
He was bitterly disappointed when the film failed. However, he quickly went
on to other work: "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," "Hatari" and "The Longest
Day," all in 1962; "How the West Was Won" in 1963, and "El Dorado" in 1967,
another film directed by Mr. Hawks.
In 1969, Mr. Wayne was almost universally hailed when he starred in "True
Grit," directed by Henry Hathaway. Mr. Wayne played a disreputable, one-eyed,
drunken, fat old man who was a Federal Marshal called Rooster Cogburn. In
1970, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded him an Oscar
for his portrayal.
The success of "True Grit" led to "Rooster Cogburn," in 1975, in which he
co-starred with Katherine Hepburn in her first western.
Mr. Wayne starred in his first television special, "Swing Out, Sweet Land,"
a paean of patriotism, in 1970, and later became well-known for various television
appearances. He never made a television series and had deep reservations
about the medium's approach to the western.
"Television has a tendency to reach a little," he observed, referring to
television westerns' propensities for psychological insights. "In their westerns,
they are getting away from the simplicity and the fact that those men were
fighting the elements and the rawness of nature and didn't have time for
this couch-work."
His anti-Communist sentiments led Mr. Wayne to help found the Motion Picture
Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals in 1944, and he was its
president for two terms.
The organization, which eventually disbanded, was accused of having given
the names of suspected Communists in the film industry to the House Committee
on Un-American Activities, although Mr. Wayne said later that he had never
been party to any such thing.
Once, interviewed about civil rights, he said: "I believe in white supremacy
until the blacks are educated to the point of responsibility. I don't believe
in giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible
people."
He said that when he was in school, he was a "socialist," but not for long.
He said that he was a rebel, but not one like the youngsters of the late
60's.
"Mine is a rebellion against the monotony of life," he said. "The rebellion
in these kids-- particularly the S.D.S.'ers and those groups--seems to be
a kind of dissension by rote."
In his later years, Mr. Wayne, who had invested in oil and also in a shrimp
business in Panama, among other things, became more financially conservative
than he had been. He had not kept a very tight hand on his money earlier,
and at one point realized he was not as well off as he had thought.
However, he was not impoverished. He lived with his third wife, Pilar Palette
Wayne, who was born in Peru, in an 11-room, seven-bathroom, $175,000 house
in Newport Beach, Calif., where he had a 135-foot yacht. He owned cattle
ranches in Stanfield and Springerville, Ariz.
Mr. Wayne's first two marriages, to Josephine Saenz and Esperanzo Bauer,
also Latin Americans, ended in divorces. He had seven children from his marriages,
and more than 15 grandchildren.