My heroes haven’t always been cowboys. (There’s been Stan Musial,
Chuck Yeager, Walker Percy, Margaret Thatcher, et al.) But one of
them was certainly America’s number one cowboy, perhaps America’s
number one patriot, and a fierce defender of its best values.
Marion Mitchell Morrison, springing from humble beginnings in
Winterset, Iowa, was known to millions of movie-viewers as John
Wayne, and to his friends as “Duke.” He breathed his last at 5:23
P.M., June 11, 1979. Thirty years ago tomorrow. In those years we
haven’t seen his like, and probably won’t again. The cultural
soil just isn’t here to grow another giant like the Duke.
Looking at the post-Duke culture, and the consequent train wreck
of our politics, we haven’t done so well without him showing the
way in his vigorous but charming pre-Miranda style.
Although the Duke was probably the most popular movie star in
Hollywood history, the current tinsel town of Sean Penn, George
Clooney, Susan Sarandon, and the various Baldwins probably
wouldn’t have any place for the Duke. (The answer to the
question, “How many Baldwin brothers are there?” is the same as
the answer to, “How many timeouts are there in a basketball
game?” Answer: No one knows for sure, but there’s A LOT.)
It’s fashionable since the sixties, at least in elite circles, to
disparage the kind of conservatism and unrepentant patriotism the
Duke represented. On top of being conservative, the Duke was
unapologetically masculine, a man’s man before this became
politically incorrect. Even while millions of middle-Americans
(and millions overseas) flocked to the Duke’s movies, critics
sneered and sniped at what they considered the Duke’s overly
simple moral code and his refusal to adopt their cynicism and
irony.
There have been many biographies of the Duke. Some take the
Hollywood hype approach. Others, like Garry Wills’ John
Wayne’s America, attempt to deconstruct the Duke and Duke’s
America. We need not trouble with these. Of the serious attempts
to tell the Duke’s story, the gold standard is 1995’s
John Wayne: American, by Randy Roberts and James S.
Olson. Both are professors, but their writing is free of academic
obscurity, theory, or liberal tics. These guys are no dusty dons
or ideological red-hots. The book is still available and worth
the reading time.
Here’s how Roberts and Olson sum up the Duke’s crosswise position
to the literati and glitterati:
As the cultural elite turned increasingly liberal, Wayne
remained wedded to rock-ribbed, traditional values. He was no
ideologue. He was a classical liberal in a true Barry Goldwater
sense, a mainstream American small-town conservative and a
mainstream 1940s anti-communist….. In person and in his films,
John Wayne insisted that evil had to be punished, violently if
necessary. Communism, he believed, was an incorrigible evil,
socialism and liberalism were mere fellow travelers, and he
remained unrepentant in his convictions. Liberal critics could
never give John Wayne his due because they could never see
beyond his politics.
But American movie-goers gave the Duke his due. After World War
II, the country had endured a Great Depression and had taken the
largest part in defeating well-armed fascism (with no personal
help from the Duke except in patriotic movies and USO tours it
must be pointed out — the Duke felt guilty for the rest of this
life about his lack of military service in The Big One). We were
confident and ready to go on the gaudiest and most successful
roll in history. Americans were more united than they had been in
any time in their history, and almost certainly more than we ever
will be again.
The Duke was perfect for these times, and his career took off.
Before it was done, The Duke had starred in 150 films (including
the B films where he learned his craft in the 1930s). For a
quarter century, 1949 to 1973, he was the biggest box-office draw
in movies.
It’s not hard to see why. The Duke’s action flicks are morality
plays, where good and evil have a vigorous go at each other and
there’s no difficulty telling which is which. The Duke played
some subtle roles — for example the sixtyish Captain Nathan
Brittles in 1949’s She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, a role the
Duke took on when he was only 42, or 1976’s The
Shootist, the Duke’s final role, where he plays John Bernard
Books, an aging gunfighter dying of cancer when the Duke himself
was an aging actor dying of cancer. But there is very little
moral nuance to be found in the Duke’s movies, and no angst at
all. No pity parties.
Values like patriotism, honesty, fidelity, personal
responsibility, and doing the hard and necessary job whether we
want to or not are celebrated in the Duke’s movies. (No one in
the Duke’s movies is getting in touch with his inner child, or
taking a mental health day.) For this reason his movies are
civics lessons as well as entertainments.
The Duke’s movies are beautifully filmed, with many of the
westerns unfolding in the incomparable Monument Valley (where
Arizona and Utah come together). They were directed by some of
Hollywood’s best, John Ford and Howard Hawks, to name just two.
Even the music in the westerns is stirring, the work of some
first rate composers such as Elmer Bernstein, Dimitri Tiomkin,
and John Williams.
The Duke’s movies are still widely available for purchase,
through the various rental outfits, and for free loan at various
public libraries. So on this sad anniversary, TAS
readers might consider remembering and celebrating the Duke while
being entertained at the same time by watching the Duke again. As
morality plays, the movies stand up well over time.
The Duke liked a drink (or several) about as well as the next
guy. So if adult beverages are part of your dinner plans
tomorrow, I’d ask you to raise your glass to the Duke. A great
American (even if he didn’t take arms against America’s sea of
troubles in uniform). And one of a kind.
We could sure use you today, big guy.
