More than one-hundred years ago this May 26, Marion Michael Morrison was born in Winterset, Iowa. Marion’s family moved to Glendale California when he was six, and he grew up to get a football scholarship at the University of Southern California after he was rejected at the U.S. Naval Academy. But it was his work as an assistant prop man on a film directed by John Ford, who saw something in the man, that helped launch the career you know him for. You might know him by another name, “The Duke.” Or maybe you know him by his other name, John Wayne.
Few actors rise to such iconic status as John Wayne, who stands besides the likes of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean as film stars who became something more, for better or worse. Because of their fame, we often forget that they were great actors too. It is true that John Wayne usually played a certain kind of character and that he became associated with certain political beliefs in his time, but those factors should not distract from the legacy he left with his onscreen performances.
After Ford discovered Wayne as a prop man, Wayne went on to play in B movies for the next decade before he finally got his big break when Ford put him in Stagecoach (1939). Watch a clip of Wayne in Stagecoach here:
After Stagecoach, Wayne’s career took off and he starred in many classic films, ending with The Shootist in 1976, three years before Wayne died of cancer.
What is your favorite John Wayne movie? Leave your two cents in the comments.
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