A Harris Poll conducted in 2007 named John Wayne as the third favourite American film star of all time, the only deceased actor on the list and the only star to have featured on the poll every year since it was first published in 1963. This is despite being dead for nearly thirty years, having released films of variable quality during his career and being noted for his at times extreme right wing political views.
John Wayne’s politics seldom affected his popularity. If anything they merely enhanced it, for in the eyes of many, especially foreign film fans, John Wayne was the United States of America. Virtually every opinion and view they held of the USA was shaped and formed by watching John Wayne films; they believed every American to be no nonsense, straight talking and men of action. John Wayne was certainly all of these things and more.
There has hardly been a year when sales of John Wayne films on video and then DVD have not surpassed those of any other actor or actress. Films such as Stagecoach, True Grit and The Sands Of Iwo Jima have delighted audiences throughout the last seventy years or so, and will no doubt continue to do so for the next seventy years and beyond.
This book provides a snap shot biography of the boy who dreamed of being a football star but wound up a movie legend. Of the man who had to work on his persona. ‘When I started, I knew I was no actor and I went to work on this Wayne thing. It was as deliberate a projection as you’ll ever see. I figured I needed a gimmick, so I dreamed up the drawl, the squint and a way of moving meant to suggest that I wasn’t looking for trouble but would just as soon throw a bottle at your head as not. I practiced in front of a mirror.’
That he succeeded is not in doubt. This book however also explores his at times troubled life off screen, when away from the cameras he had to temper his natural instincts and deal with troubles and tribulations in an altogether different manner. This then is the life story of John Wayne. The man who said of himself ‘God-damn, I’m the stuff men are made of!’
John Wayne’s politics seldom affected his popularity. If anything they merely enhanced it, for in the eyes of many, especially foreign film fans, John Wayne was the United States of America. Virtually every opinion and view they held of the USA was shaped and formed by watching John Wayne films; they believed every American to be no nonsense, straight talking and men of action. John Wayne was certainly all of these things and more.
There has hardly been a year when sales of John Wayne films on video and then DVD have not surpassed those of any other actor or actress. Films such as Stagecoach, True Grit and The Sands Of Iwo Jima have delighted audiences throughout the last seventy years or so, and will no doubt continue to do so for the next seventy years and beyond.
This book provides a snap shot biography of the boy who dreamed of being a football star but wound up a movie legend. Of the man who had to work on his persona. ‘When I started, I knew I was no actor and I went to work on this Wayne thing. It was as deliberate a projection as you’ll ever see. I figured I needed a gimmick, so I dreamed up the drawl, the squint and a way of moving meant to suggest that I wasn’t looking for trouble but would just as soon throw a bottle at your head as not. I practiced in front of a mirror.’
That he succeeded is not in doubt. This book however also explores his at times troubled life off screen, when away from the cameras he had to temper his natural instincts and deal with troubles and tribulations in an altogether different manner. This then is the life story of John Wayne. The man who said of himself ‘God-damn, I’m the stuff men are made of!’
