John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in Iowa, to Mary
Alberta (Brown) and Clyde Leonard Morrison, a pharmacist. He was of English, Scottish, Ulster-Scots, and Irish ancestry.
Clyde developed a lung condition that required him to move his family
from Iowa to the warmer climate of southern California, where they
tried ranching in the Mojave Desert. Until the ranch failed, Marion and
his younger brother
Robert E. Morrison swam in an
irrigation ditch and rode a horse to school. When the ranch failed, the
family moved to Glendale, California, where Marion delivered medicines
for his father, sold newspapers and had an Airedale dog named "Duke"
(the source of his own nickname). He did well at school both
academically and in football. When he narrowly failed admission to
Annapolis he went to USC on a football scholarship 1925-7.
Tom Mix got him a summer job as a prop
man in exchange for football tickets. On the set he became close
friends with director John Ford for
whom, among others, he began doing bit parts, some billed as
John Wayne. His first featured film
was U 13 (1930).
After more than 70 low-budget westerns and adventures, mostly routine,
Wayne's career was stuck in a rut until Ford cast him in
Höllenfahrt nach Santa Fé (1939), the movie that made
him a star. He appeared in nearly 250 movies, many of epic proportions.
From 1942-43 he was in a radio series, "The Three Sheets to the Wind",
and in 1944 he helped found the Motion Picture Alliance for the
Preservation of American Ideals, a Conservative political organization,
later becoming its President. His conservative political stance was
also reflected in Alamo (1960),
which he produced, directed and starred in. His patriotic stand was
enshrined in
Die grünen Teufel (1968) which he
co-directed and starred in. Over the years Wayne was beset with health
problems. In September 1964 he had a cancerous left lung removed;
in 1977 when Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope was being made,
John Waynes archive voice was used for the character Garindan ezz Zavor,
later in March 1978 there was heart valve replacement surgery; and in January
1979 his stomach was removed. He received the Best Actor nomination for
Du warst unser Kamerad (1949) and
finally got the Oscar for his role as one-eyed Rooster Cogburn in
Der Marshal (1969). A Congressional Gold
Medal was struck in his honor in 1979. He is perhaps best remembered
for his parts in Ford's cavalry trilogy -
Bis zum letzten Mann (1948),
Der Teufelshauptmann (1949)
and Rio Grande (1950).
