May 26
DUKE DAY
Born Marion Morrison on this day in 1907 in Winterset, Iowa, John ‘Duke’ Wayne became the archetypical image of the American hero. His fifty-year film career began in the 1930s in low-budget Westerns.
The Duke’s first major role was in Stagecoach where he played the part of the Ringo Kid. It was while he was working on this film that John Wayne began his long-term association with director John Ford. The two worked so well together that Wayne was cast in Ford’s top pictures, Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, They Were Expendable, and The Quiet Man.
Wayne was most often cast in Westerns and war movies, winning an Academy Award for his performance in True Grit in 1969, and directing and starring in the 1960 epic western, The Alamo, and the 1968 war film, The Green Berets (prompted by his superpatriotism).
Critics panned him, audiences loved him. The big, slow-talking actor was not only a superpatriot, but a super hero. And he played that role in his personal life, too. Battling cancer, and surviving his first cancer operation, he said that he had “licked the Big C.” His final role (1976) was in another western, The Shootist. He played the part of a gunfighter who had cancer. The Duke died June 11, 1979 of lung & stomach cancer. This was one fight he couldn’t win.
John ‘Duke’ Wayne once gave some advice to would-be actors: “Talk low, talk slow and don’t say too much.” It was good advice for all.
Those Were the Days, the Today in History service from 440 International
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