Wayne, John | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

(b. May 26, 1907; d. June 11, 1979) Actor.

Born Marion Michael Morrison in Winterset, Iowa, John Wayne moved to California at a young age. After an undistinguished football career at the University of Southern California, Wayne entered the movie world changing props for Fox studio before playing roles in a number of unremarkable films. It was not until the 1939 film Stagecoach that Wayne gained star status in Hollywood. Stagecoach marked the first of his many successful collaborations with director John Ford and contributed to the long association of John Wayne with Western films.

The advent of World War II transformed Wayne's career. While many of Hollywood's leading men, such as Clark Gable, Henry Fonda, and Jimmy Stewart, entered the armed forces, Wayne chose to advance his career at home. The dearth of leading men allowed Wayne's star to rise during the war. Although apologists for Wayne claim that he could not enlist due to an old football injury, family obligations, or his age, many of Hollywood's royalty in similar circumstances gave up their crowns to serve their country. It is with no small amount of irony, therefore, that the other major impact of WWII on Wayne's career was that it allowed him to cultivate an image of himself as the embodiment of the American fighting man on screen.

Without exception, Wayne's WWII characters displayed bravery and patriotism. His cocksure walk and menacing aura (crafted in Western roles) combined with the values of self-sacrifice and necessary violence to sanitize his image of the American soldier. He fought the Japanese as an airman in The Flying Tigers (1942), as a construction worker in The Fighting Seabees (1944), as an Army colonel in Back to Bataan (1945), and on a PT boat in They Were Expendable (1945). However, the apogee of Wayne's idealized military character came in the 1949 film, Sands of Iwo Jima. In Sands, Wayne played the hardheaded Marine Sergeant John M. Stryker whose courage and discipline guide his men though the brutal landings at Tarawa and Iwo Jima. Though Wayne continued to play WWII roles in later films, most notably The Longest Day (1962), his Stryker character remains his most memorable depiction of the American serviceman.

Wayne's WWII characters offered a new definition of American military conduct. General Douglas A. Macarthur told Wayne, "you represent the American serviceman better than the American serviceman himself"

(Slotkin, p. 514). In 1971, the Marine Corps League hailed Wayne as "the man who best exemplifies the word 'American'" (Eyles, p.11). The attitudes of many Vietnam combatants reveal the impact of Wayne's characterizations on American perceptions of the military. Ron Kovic, in his memoir Born on the Fourth of July, recalled how the promise of glory suggested by Wayne's WWII characters influenced his decision to enlist. Cultural historian Richard Slotkin even suggests that many Vietnam servicemen suffered from a "John Wayne syndrome" that left them feeling guilty at their inability to recreate the heroics of Wayne's WWII characters (Slotkin, p. 519–520).

Wayne carried his bellicose, patriotic screen persona into the public arena with right-wing political activism. He made frequent calls for a harder line against communists at home and abroad, and backed up his rhetoric by joining the Hollywood witch-hunt against communists in the 1950s. Wayne also made hawkish statements in support of the Vietnam War. Wayne melded his political views with his heroic military persona in the 1968 film, The Green Berets. Though released after the Tet Offensive when popular support for the war was rapidly waning, the movie unashamedly regurgitates official government claims about communist barbarity and American altruism. Wayne's character, Colonel Mike Kirby, displays compassion and sympathy toward the South Vietnamese while maintaining a steely determination to vanquish the enemy, reminiscent of his John Stryker character. Despite its crude and simplistic nature, the film found a ready audience among America's "silent majority" and became one of Wayne's most commercially successful films.

By the time of his death in June 1979, Wayne's outspoken political views earned him almost as many detractors as fans. But in a 1995 Harris poll, the American people named him their all-time favorite male actor (Davis, p. xi). For many, his name remains synonymous with a set of values such as honor, duty, patriotism, and strength. Without exception, his military roles displayed these qualities. For over forty years, they offered a superlative image of the American military and in particular, had a profound impact on how America viewed the WWII serviceman. Today, WWII veterans are routinely lauded as the "greatest generation." The characters created by John Wayne contributed to this sentiment.

Motion Pictures, World War I & World War II; Stewart, Jimmy.

Davis, Ronald L. Duke: The Life and Image of John Wayne. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998.

Eyles, Allen. John Wayne and the Movies. South Brunswick: A.S. Barnes, 1976.

Kovic, Ron. Born on the Fourth of July. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976.

Levy, Emmanuel. John Wayne: Prophet of the American Way of Life. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1998.

Roberts, Randy; and James S. Olsen. John Wayne: American. New York: Free Press, 1995.

Slotkin, Richard. Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth-Century America. New York: Atheneum, 1992.

Wills, Garry. John Wayne's America: The Politics of Celebrity. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.

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