Howdy Pilgrim

One of the best-known, American film heroes was named John (“the Duke”) Wayne. He was the stereotypical rough riding, gun toting, swaggering cowboy figure who was on the side of law, order, and good ol’ American justice. Marion Robert Morrison was John Wayne's his given birth name, but for a tough guy being named named Marion just't seem right. After after appearing in the movie, The Big Trail, (1930) he officially adopted the stage name, “John Wayne.”

John Wayne's movie career began in the silent movies in the year 1920. he picked up movie parts while he was attending college, and then throughout his lifetime he appeared in over 250 movies. Wayne, American movie star, and legendary wild west hero died in 1979 from cancer, but his memory lives on today in videos that captured his characters on film.

Most of the movies Wayne made were westerns or military adventures where he had a leading role, but there are many where he was an extra, a face in the crowd, or had just a short walk-on parts. He hosted a documentary and even has had documentaries made of his life and career. He once played the Roman centurion solder at the foot of the cross in The Greatest Story Ever Told, saying the line, “Surely this man was the Son of God.”

He has also been on talk shows. He was interviewed by people like Barbara Walters and Mike Douglas on their talk shows and has appeared as “special guest star” on television situation comedy favorites like the Jack Benny Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, Gunsmoke, Maude, and I Love Lucy with Lucille Ball. He was a very versatile and famous man and he even directed his own film, The Alamo.

The Alamo was a financial risk to Wayne but he was so compelled to make the movie, so moved to direct it rather than star in it, that he mortgaged everything he owned to finance it and make it happen. When making the film, he told the public, almost with religious a conviction, “I hope that seeing the battle of the Alamo will remind Americans that liberty and freedom don't come cheap.” In his day, Wayne had a passion for America and it’s history much like film director/actor Mel Gibson had a passion for the making of his The Passion of the Christ. (2004). John Wayne, like Mel Gibson, knew the power of the film industry and like Gibson, Wayne was compelled to get out the message.

The American people liked John Wayne. He had “good looks,” he was tough and rugged, good with a gun, able to hold his own in a fight, even in a bar and he was gentle with the ladies. He was someone with “morals,” someone with “values,” someone that American kids could look up to; someone who let them know that there was a difference between wrong and right, and good and evil. He stood for justice and the American way. As one fan put it, John Wayne “set the example of what God intended for a man to be.”

It's no secret that in the minds of many people, John Wayne, was considered a true blue American. He was so popular that he was even asked to run for the Republican presidency in 1968, but he declined. He did however at one point in his career make television ads for cigarettes and it seemed only natural, after all Wayne often smoked on screen.

He happily endorsed his favorite brand of cigarettes to a watching world saying, “Mild and good-tasting pack after pack. And I know… I’ve been smokin’ em for twenty years. So why don’t you try them yourself?" Twenty-seven years later, Wayne found himself making commercials for the American Cancer Society, urging people to get regular check-ups if they smoked, to kick the habit if they could, and to support the cause of cancer.

John Wayne died of lung cancer. It took one lung, and then it took his life.
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