If the Duke had just taken better care of himself, like maybe
not smoking four packs of cigarettes a day for decades, he would
turn 100 on Saturday. For what he did both to entertain and to
inspire us in his long movie career, he has certainly earned
peaceful rest for Eternity. But we could sure use the old cowpoke
today.
Marion Robert Morrison, who would later adopt the screen name
John Wayne, entered this world at Winterset, Iowa, on May 26, 1907.
Who could have guessed that this child of the Midwest would become
the nation’s most popular actor, and perhaps the greatest
explicator of America’s best values? Values, which when we lived
them, helped us defeat fascism, work our way out of the Great
Depression, and build an economy and a way of life for the world to
admire while remaining the strongest military power the world has
ever seen.
Not too shabby for a country that began as an escape valve and
dumping ground for a small band of cranky Puritans from
England.
The Duke learned his craft in dozens of B westerns during the
thirties. But after the success of Stagecoach in 1939, he
was never far from number one in America’s movie scorecard for the
next three and a half decades. He was ranked in the top 10 box
office attractions from 25 straight years. No other actor has come
close to that.
Even now, almost 28 years after the Duke went to that great
ranch-house in the sky, and long after his rock-ribbed conservative
values and patriotism ceased being popular, even tolerated, in
Hollywood, the Duke is still popular with regular walking-around
Americans. TiVo’s weekly list of the 10 most requested movie actors
almost always includes the Duke. In 1999, a full 23 years after the
Duke’s last movie, The Shootist, a Reuters/Zogby poll
found that the Duke and Katharine Hepburn were America’s favorite
movie actor and actress.
THERE’S LITTLE MYSTERY ABOUT the Duke’s appeal. He worked hard at
his craft. He had the God-given physique of a real hero. Some good
scripts came his way, and he worked with gifted directors like John
Ford and Howard Hawks. It also didn’t hurt that his horse operas
were beautifully filmed in America’s physically spectacular
Southwest. But beyond this, the characters the Duke played and the
stories his movies told embody the bold and conservative values of
America’s salad days.
The Duke’s movie soldiers and Marines and naval officers and
cowboys were straight-forward, tough, honest, strong, reliable,
brave, competent, hard-working, patriotic, and self-reliant before
these qualities became un-PC. His movies were about good versus
evil, and it didn’t take a Ph.D. in ethics to see which was which,
or which side the Duke was on. If the Duke ever encountered a
nuance, he didn’t waste much time on it.
Few public figures have fit their times better than the Duke fit
his. But even at the peak of his popularity, liberal academics and
journalists of the day didn’t cotton to the Duke’s work. His movies
were a little much for elites, even back then. But while tony
reviewers wrote sneeringly of the Duke’s movies, Americans flocked
to those same movies by the millions.
It’s hard to guess how the Duke would be received today, or even
if he could find work in contemporary Hollywood. There are plenty
of red-blooded Americans who could make up a market for more of the
Duke. But the values of the New York, Malibu bed-wetters pretty
much have a lock on today’s Hollywood. It’s a legitimate question
whether Hollywood would be big enough for both George Clooney and
John Wayne.
It would be nice to see a real, full-service American hero like
the Duke on the silver screen again. The current lot of leading men
is pretty pallid by comparison. Show of hands, how many of you
really believe in the likes of Kevin Costner, Michael Douglas, or
Val Kilmer as tough guys? Cowboys? These guys belong having a
Cherry Garcia at Ben & Jerry’s, not knocking off the trail dust
with a straight shot at the Longhorn. Good grief, Val Kilmer would
have to get a note from his mother to ride the range.
BUT THIS LINE OF SPECULATION is only good for conversation. The big
guy is gone, God rest his soul. But his movies aren’t. They still
show up frequently on television and most are available to
purchase. To take advantage of the considerable Wayne sentiment,
likely to be stimulated by news stories of the centennial,
Paramount is issuing “The John Wayne Century Collection” and Warner
will release “The John Wayne Film Collection.”
But even without these new editions, there are plenty of the
Duke’s movies on the market. It would be hard to find a better
entertainment buy than some classic Duke such as: Red
River, Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
(my favorite), Sands of Iwo Jima, The Quiet Man,
Hondo, Rio Bravo, The Horse Soldiers,
In Harm’s Way, True Grit, The Cowboys,
Rooster Cogburn, The Shootist, et al.
The Duke’s movies are action flicks and contain violence. But
the violence is not gratuitous, it’s always in furtherance of the
plot, and in the name of good duking it out (excuse the expression)
with evil. No spurting blood or exploding organs. Cowboys and
Indians get shot and fall off their horses. There’s the odd fist
fight. That’s about it. There’s romance in the movies, and no
attempt to suggest, as some fifties movies did, that sex doesn’t
exist. But the heavy breathing takes place off stage. Nothing in
the Duke’s movies that it would be difficult to explain to the
kids.
The Duke played military heroes on the screen, but he never
served in the military for real. He was almost 35, married, and
father of four when Pearl Harbor was attacked. So he wasn’t called.
But many family men in Hollywood older than the Duke signed up. The
Duke felt guilty about his lack of World War II military service
for the rest of his life. But he served his country in other ways.
Well enough to be called a Great American by any standard.
So this Saturday, when the sun is finally below the yardarm,
let’s all hoist one for the Duke. Our number one cowboy, a great
entertainer and a great American. Can you do that, Pilgrim?
