A man called Marion lit up the screen
Iowa pharmacist Clyde Morrison and wife Mary became parents of a
boy, Marion, 100 years ago on May 26. Nearly 70 years later Emperor
Hirohito of Japan on a visit to the United States asked to meet
him, only by the name the whole world knew him as then
– John Wayne.
Iowa pharmacist Clyde Morrison and wife Mary became parents of a boy, Marion, 100 years ago on May 26. Nearly 70 years later Emperor Hirohito of Japan on a visit to the United States asked to meet him, only by the name the whole world knew him as then – John Wayne.
The Morrisons settled in California and Marion grew up in Glendale. He was president of his high school senior class and of the Latin Club besides being an all-state player on the football team.
Morrison received a football scholarship to the University of Southern California and he and teammate Ward Bond got summer jobs as prop men in movie studios. When Morrison lost the scholarship because of an off-campus injury, he got bit parts in silent films through a new friend, director John Ford.
In 1930, director Raoul Walsh cast him as the lead in a Western epic, “The Big Trail,” under the screen name of John Wayne. Although it was a commercial failure, Wayne weathered the Depression in dozens of sagebrush sagas. For awhile he was billed as “Singing Sandy,” the first cowboy warbler (a real singer dubbed in the voice).
In 1939 he established his credentials as The Ringo Kid in John Ford’s “Stagecoach.”
When World War II erupted, Wayne continued his film career although many thousands trooped to the colors. He made repeated trips to the South Pacific to cheer the fighting forces.
Wayne was a paradox. He portrayed characters not afraid to buck the system, yet worked with the House Committee of Un-American Activities to blacklist suspected subversives in the industry. He represented the forces of decency but had several open-secret affairs. He was a self-avowed patriot, yet each of his three wives was foreign born. Wayne eventually was able to choose his roles. He turned down the part of Willie Stark in “All the King’s Men” because he felt the picture reflected poorly on the nation. He was chagrined when Broderick Crawford, the actor who took it, won the Academy Award he had coveted in 1949 for “The Sands of Iwo Jima.”
Wayne won the Oscar for “True Grit,” one of his more than 150 films. Even those who lamented his politics admired his sense of decency. In his final film, “The Shootist,” he altered the script so the aging gunman dying of cancer would not shoot a man in the back. “I would never do that and won’t allow any character I play to do it either,” he said.
It is sometimes hard to distinguish the man from the legend, and often the line is non-existent. To most of his countrymen, he remains “The Duke,” a self-reliant man with a distinctive voice and walk who is not looking for a fight but who won’t back down from one either.
John Wayne converted to Catholicism shortly before he died of cancer in 1979. He has been on the Harris Poll of the 10 most popular Hollywood actors since it was established in 1993, and ranks third this year – the only one not living.
