Introduction

This blog, and the posts within it, exist to examine a legendary American icon. In case the blog itself hasn’t already given it away, the icon in question is the Western-movie legend John Wayne. The idea for this blog came as a result of a conversation between me and several of my film enthusiast friends. While discussing the best actors of the twentieth century several names were discussed. However, when the name John Wayne came up it was met with resounding dismissiveness. The general consensus was that Wayne was an overrated actor whose only skill was playing the same role time and time again. After thinking about this some more I decided to question this assumption and try and find some more opinions on the topic. To my surprise, while there were some voices advocating either side with scholarly support, many arguments were simply opinion pieces. It was then I decided to try and enter this argument by having it be the basis for my blog project. With some time and several revisions I came up with the following research question: can a greater theatrical talent be attributed to performers such as John Wayne or is it justifiable to discredit their skill because of their reputation as “character actors”? I set to work researching both sides of the argument and formulating my own opinion and after much research developed the following thesis: the theatrical talent of actors such as John Wayne should not be discredited simply because of the roles they were prone to play. Rather, their performances as these characters should be respected for the depth and complexity these characters have and the aptitude to which the actor portrays them. This blog will be my attempt at proving this claim and validating John Wayne’s status as a noteworthy actor; with evidence from some of his most renowned movies, biographical information about the man himself, and information regarding the context of each of his films I’ll look to support my claims.

Duke

Young Wayne in "The Big Trail"

Before I dive into my examination of John Wayne and characters he played in his films some background information would be helpful. John Wayne, real name Marion Morrison, was born May 26, 1907. Wayne’s nickname of “Duke” was one he was given by the local Volunteer Fire Department when he was young. Wayne explained why he kept the nickname his entire life saying, “I really looked up to those guys. They were heroes in my book. When they began calling me ‘Duke’, I made up my mind to use the name from then on” (Davis 24). Besides his nickname and role as a film icon Wayne is remembered for his large and often imposing figure. Standing nearly six-foot-five Wayne’s large build helped him in high school football and later as a western tough-guy. After graduating high school and prematurely ending his college football career due to injuries Wayne found himself in the film industry where he worked set jobs and eventually got into acting. For nearly a decade Wayne worked for B-movie Westerns, often as an extra and completely uncredited. It wasn’t until ten years of hard work and honing his craft did Wayne get his big break, which leads into the first film I’ll be analyzing.



Davis, Ronald L. Duke: The Life and Image of John Wayne. Norman: U of Oklahoma, 1998.
     Google Books. Google, 1 May 2001. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.

Birth Of "John Wayne"

Ringo Kid's entrance in "Stagecoach"

While trying to pick the films to analyze I tried to select ones that I considered the most important examples of Wayne’s theatrical skill. This was difficult to do once I had resolved to pick the four best examples because, as Richard McGhee claims, “…the myth of John Wayne is larger than any single role in any single film”. It was especially hard to find a good starting point but I finally decided to go head and pick “Stagecoach” as the first film, despite it being made ten years into Wayne’s career. I believe this film is one of the earliest examples of Wayne playing a character with under-appreciated complexity. One thing to note is by this point in time Duke had already changed his billing name from Marion Morrison to John Wayne to go with his image of the manly gunfighter, and all of his roles will reflect this masculinity. This film, released in 1939, has Wayne staring in his breakout role of Ringo Kid, a charming vigilante looking to avenge his father. In the post WWI area Wayne acts as the hero for the common American: he’s loud, brash, but honors justice and family above all else. “Ringo is the hero representing the poor and seemingly forgotten commoners of the era. This connotes that the real heroes are actually the ones making ends meet rather than the rich playing Robin Hood” (My Blog: Stagecoach). Of all the movies this blog will examine, this film plays the John Wayne gunslinger the straightest, which ties into the popularity of the genre at the time. Despite a world war and a decade long economic depression the nation still enjoyed the honest, upstanding gunslinger that Duke portrayed. Ringo can also very much resemble John Wayne at this point in his life as a young man looking to find his place in the world with a conflicted mix of innocence and experience. Wayne’s great performance as Ringo did not come easily though, his B-movie habits and poor acting were exacerbated when filming in the company of stars such as Claire Trevor. Under constant stress and abuse from director John Ford the Duke would “…shake loose from the bad habits he had acquired making cheap Westerns and give a creditable performance”(Davis 84). “Stagecoach” was a massive success and marked the birth of the true John Wayne. Wayne’s status as a star and Western icon would only continue to rise as he became more beloved by his fans, but the idea of the heroic John Wayne would eventually be put into question with the next film I’ll analyze.



McGhee, Richard D. "John Wayne: Hero With A Thousand Faces." Literature Film Quarterly 16.1 (1988):
     10. Academic Search Elite. Web. 12 Dec. 2015.

Davis, Ronald L. Duke: The Life and Image of John Wayne. Norman: U of Oklahoma, 1998.
     Google Books. Google, 1 May 2001. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.

"Film Analysis: Stagecoach." Web log post. My Blog. Blogger, 23 Oct. 2008. Web. 9 Dec. 2015.

That'll Be The Day

The character of Ethan Edwards

I initially thought about leaving this film out of the blog in favor of one which released closer to “Stagecoach”, after all these two films are seventeen years apart. But this stage of development in John Wayne's roles is one that is a result of nearly two decades of slow cultural change that is best seen by the drastic change between the two films. The next film this blog will look at is the 1959 classic “The Searchers”. In this film Wayne plays a retired soldier who spends nearly a decade searching for the Native Americans who murdered his family and abducted his niece. Vengeful, blatantly racist, but still holding to his code of honor, Wayne shows a variant of his gunfighter character that is both older and more weathered. Gone is the innocence of the young Ringo Kid, Ethan Edwards is a pragmatic and at times almost villainous protagonist. This film also marks the start of Wayne’s characters being not just loners in society, but outcasts and rejects. “As the West had become increasingly settled, the rugged individualist had evolved into a social misfit, and Ethan’s mission borders on the psychopathic” (Davis 206). This is rejection mirrors the one that the Western genre struggled with as it slowly died as the 20th century went on. The post-WWII era society became increasingly fixated on realism rather than romanticism, and the mythical stories of gunfighters and cowboys became increasingly out of place as a result. Wayne’s role as Ethan Edwards deconstructs the common perception of himself as a “character actor”, much like James Stewart in “Vertigo", by taking an actor which the public associates with a good values and casting them as a darker role, and that is what makes his role in this film so strong. People will often discredit Wayne’s skill as an actor by claiming he always played himself in his Westerns, but Wayne often took on traits of his characters while filming in order to give an honest performance, something that actor Ken Curtis noticed. When talking about John Wayne on the set of “The Searchers”, Kurtis described how, “Duke was usually pretty laid back when he was working. He usually found time to play practical jokes, and he loved to laugh if someone told him a joke, but when we were making The Searchers he wasn’t quite so loose. He just didn’t seem as relaxed...”(Munn). Curtis would then go on to defend Wayne’s skill as an actor saying, “Anyone who says Duke always played himself – and I’ve even heard Duke say it- should take a look at The Searchers, and they’ll see John Wayne with a whole new dimension to his character” (Munn). By playing the straight example of the gunslinger in “Stagecoach” and the deconstructed example in “The Searchers” Wayne shows his versatility as an actor even when playing similar roles. The next film I’ll discuss will take this a step further and show Wayne acting almost as a parody of himself.


Davis, Ronald L. Duke: The Life and Image of John Wayne. Norman: U of Oklahoma, 1998.
     Google Books. Google, 1 May 2001. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.

Munn, Michael. John Wayne: The Man Behind the Myth. New York: New American Library, 2004.
     Google Books. Google, 1 Mar. 2005. Web. 5 Dec. 2015.

Living The Legend

"Rooster" Cogburn in "True Grit"

The second to last film this blog will examine is the 1969 film “True Grit”. This film has Wayne play the role of Rooster Cogburn, a hardened U.S. Marshal with a cold personality and arguably worse morals than Ethan Edwards. Cogburn is sought out by Mattie Ross, a young girl who hires him to hunt down the man who killed her father. It is in this film we see the continuing trend of our protagonist as an outsider as Cogburn’s kill count of twenty-three men in four years is met with just as much contempt as reverence. Just like in “The Searchers” the idea of the gunslinger as a morally grey, possibly villainous character is prevalent. Filmed during the height of the Vietnam War Cogburn’s gung-ho gunslinger personality being met with scorn reflects the Western genre’s slow death thanks to American cynicism that built up over the course of the mid-20th century. The death of the Western is also mirrored by Wayne’s loyal yet shrinking fan base, as Scott Eyman notes, “That audience was extremely loyal, but it was also finite, and Wayne’s refusal to try to expand it meant that it would stay finite, before it inevitably began to shrink”(451). But what makes Wayne’s portrayal of Cogburn so strong is the character beneath his tough exterior. Under the dirt built up from a lifetime as a gunslinger Cogburn is the same character that John Wayne’s fans love and sympathize with, as is shown by his paternal relationship with Mattie Ross that strengthens over the film. Another great indicator of Wayne’s acting is, despite Cogburn’s destructive personality and crude morals, he’s a likable and in some sense goofy character for how over the top Wayne portrays him. On his character of Cogburn Wayne said, “That was me letting myself have fun. For the first time, I felt like an actor” (Munn). Director Henry Hathaway allowed this over-the-top acting of Wayne saying, “I knew Duke was going over the top, but I let him do it because it was a whole different color any other part he’d played. I thought the he was a pure caricature and not even one of himself…”(Munn). By this stage in his career we see Duke confronting those who call him a ‘character actor’ by being the most John Wayne he could be, and the remarkable part is he ends up putting on a great performance for an emotionally complex character. Cogburn’s gunslinger caricature personality works so well as it masks his own insecurities and the emotions he wants to subdue. Though Wayne would go a step farther in his acting for the last Western he ever did, and the final movie this blog will examine.



Eyman, Scott. John Wayne: The Life and Legend. New York City: Simon & Schuster, 2014.
    Google Books. Google, 1 Apr. 2014. Web. 7 Dec. 2015.

Munn, Michael. John Wayne: The Man Behind the Myth. New York: New American Library, 2004.
     Google Books. Google, 1 Mar. 2005. Web. 5 Dec. 2015.

I Won't Be Forgotten

J.B. Books, Wayne's last role

When talking about his life John Wayne said, “I've played the kind of man I'd like to have been” (Munn). But in the last film he ever stared in the line between John Wayne the actor and John Wayne the character would become nearly indistinguishable. The final film that this blog will examine is the final film that Wayne stared in before his death in 1979. “The Shootist”, a Don Siegel film released in 1976, chronicles the final days of the aging gunfighter John Bernard Books. Books, a national icon from his days in the wild west, finds himself an outcast to the 20^th century society which either sees him as more of a legend than a person or sees his views as archaic and barbaric. The plot of the film centers around the fact that Books was perhaps too good in his time and, rather than having died heroically as a gunfighter, is now dying of “a cancer”. With his time on the Earth running out Books seeks one last chance to die with honor rather than waste away. The parallels to Wayne’s life are stronger in this film than perhaps any other. Wayne, like Books, was plagued with cancer during the time of the movie and knew it would likely be his last film. Just as Books seeks one last chance to die heroically Wayne sought one last chance to be a star. Both men feared fading away and being forgotten and call upon their inner cowboy to uphold righteousness and justice one more time. Wayne and Books uphold their cowboy code even in the changing world, Wayne even forced a scene from the final shootout to be redone as in his absence Siegel had filmed Books acting against Wayne’s code. Wayne reportedly claimed, “Whatever the cause, I would never shoot anyone in the back. It’s unthinkable for my image” (Horne). In this film Wayne truly reflects the character he plays, J.B. Books is the representation of John Wayne being the cowboy one last time, in a world where he is either regarded as more a myth than a man or disrespected for his views and actions. He's not the played straight Ringo Kid, or the deconstructed Ethan Edwards, or even the over-the-top Rooster Cogburn, in this film Wayne truly seems to play himself after a lifetime of acting. It is perhaps the most honest performance Wayne gives his entire life, and it shows in the way he beautifully plays J.B. Books.  



Horne, Philip. "John Wayne: One Last Shot before the Final Farewell." The Telegraph. Telegraph
     Media Group, 20 Sept. 2010. Web. 12 Dec. 2015.

Munn, Michael. John Wayne: The Man Behind the Myth. New York: New American Library, 2004.
      Google Books. Google, 1 Mar. 2005. Web. 5 Dec. 2015.

Wayne

Duke once said, “That guy you see on the screen isn’t really me. I’m Duke Morrison, and I never was and never will be a film personality like John Wayne” (Bogdanovich). But for so many people, Duke is the mythical gunslinger John Wayne, as his skills as an actor brought heroes to life through film for generations. He always stayed true to his character, yet was able to subvert it in so many ways as to tell different stories each time. Duke may have not been the most diverse actor to have ever graced Hollywood, but his versatility and ability to make complex characters come to life is a testament to not only his skill as an actor, but also his loyalty to those who believe in John Wayne. It is for that reason that I defend his place as both an American film icon, and as a great theatrical performer.



Bogdanovich, Peter. "Playing John Wayne." New York Times BookReview Mar 30 2014: 12,BR.12.
ProQuest. Web. 12 Dec. 2015 .