Archive: Wayne's World

Where would the action film world be without the grand-daddy of all two-fisted film-stars, from Eastwood to Seagal? IMPACT takes a look at the fifty-year career of the superstar of the sagebrush.

The entire world and his dog knows that John Wayne was christened with the rather less than manly handle of Marion Michael Morrison, in May 1907. In true "Boy Named Sue" fashion, the young Morrison had to grow up tough with a start like that, although as a schoolboy he was, by all accounts, withdrawn and bullied.

Having already picked up his famous nickname "Duke", after a pet dog (!), he had well and truly toughened up by 1926, when he was accepted into the University of Southern California on a football scholarship. Duke was no knuckleheaded sports-jock, however, and that same year he won the Southern California Shakespeare Oratory Contest.

During the summer break, he worked as a prop man at Fox studios, where he met John Ford, the man who was to direct most of his greatest film performances, including Stagecoach, The Searchers and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. That was in the future, however, and back in '26 the best the young Morrison (still labouring under his real name) could manage was a bit part in Ford's Hangman's House. Dropping out of college after a swimming accident, Duke wound up back in the prop department at Fox, fitting in the odd bit part, and working up to his first speaking role in another John Ford film, 1929's Men Without Women. This was also the year of his first big break, when he was picked tin the lead role in Raoul Walsh's The Big Trail, a huge, million dollar Western shot in a revolutionary new 70mm film format, producing picture quality which still impresses today. In another lucky break, someone at Fox had the bright idea of changing Morrison's name to John Wayne, a suitable tough and American sounding name for the big, rangy actor.

The Big Trail flopped, Fox soon dropped Wayne, and the fledgling star began the thirties in B-Westerns, first for Columbia, then for "Poverty Row" studios such as Mascot and Monogram. Despite the seeming downward spiral of his career, in actual tact Wayne began to learn his craft from this point, refining his screen presence and slowly but surely building up a loyal following of film fans who were to stay with him until the 1970's.

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