|
Search over 100 encyclopedias and dictionaries: |
Research categories | Follow us on Twitter |
Research categories
View all topics in the newsView all reference sources at Encyclopedia.com |
|||
Wayne, John
WAYNE, JohnNationality: American. Born: Marion Michael Morrison in Winterset, Iowa, 26 May 1907. Education: Attended Glendale High School, California; University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 1925–27. Family: Married 1) Josephine Saenz, 1933 (divorced 1945), sons: the producer Michael Wayne and the actor Patrick Wayne, two daughters; 2) Esperanza Bauer, 1946 (divorced 1954); 3) Pilar Palette, 1954, son: the actor John Ethan, daughters: Aissa, Marisa. Career: 1926—prop man for Fox studio: film debut as extra in Brown of Harvard; in early films billed as Duke Morrison; 1930—role in Men without Women directed by John Ford, who directed many of Wayne's later films; later worked for Columbia and other studios; 1939—role in Ford's Stagecoach made Wayne a leading man; 1942–43—in radio series Three Sheets to the Wind; 1944—co-founder, Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals; 1947—film producer: formed Wayne-Fellows Productions and Batjac production company; 1960—directed the film The Alamo. Awards: Best Actor Academy Award, for True Grit, 1969. Died: In Los Angeles, 11 June 1979. Films as Actor:(uncredited)
(as Duke Morrison)
(as John Wayne)
Films as Actor and Director:
PublicationsBy WAYNE: articles—"Why I Turned Producer and Director," in Journal of Screen Producers Guild (Hollywood), September 1960. "John Wayne Talks Tough," by Joe McInery, in Film Comment (New York), September 1972. "Looking Back," interview with Scott Eyman, in Focus on Film (London), Spring 1975. On WAYNE: books—Fenin, George, and William K. Everson, The Western, from Silents to Cinerama, New York, 1962. Ricci, Mark, Boris Zmijewsky, and Steve Zmijewsky, The Films of John Wayne, New York, 1970. Tomkies, Mike, The Big Man: The John Wayne Story, London, 1971; as Duke, Chicago, 1971. Barbour, Alan, John Wayne, New York, 1974. Zolotow, Maurice, Shooting Star: A Biography of John Wayne, New York, 1974. Campbell, George Jr., The John Wayne Story, New Rochelle, New York, 1979. Eyles, Allen, John Wayne, South Brunswick, New Jersey, 1979. Pascal, François, John Wayne: Le Dernier Géant, Paris, 1979. Scheldeman, Ivan, De films van John Wayne, Borgerhout, Belgium, 1979. Kieskalt, Charles John, The Official John Wayne Reference Book, Secaucus, New Jersey, 1985; rev. ed., 1993. Shepherd, Donald, and others, Duke: The Life and Times of John Wayne, London, 1985. Lepper, David, John Wayne, London, 1987. McDonald, Archie P., editor, Shooting Stars: Heroes and Heroines of Western Film, Bloomington, Indiana, 1987. Levy, Emanuel, John Wayne: Prophet of the American Way of Life, Metuchen, New Jersey, 1988, 1998. Leguege, Eric, John Wayne, le cow-boy et la mort, Paris, 1989. Neibaur, James L., Tough Guy: The American Movie Macho, Jefferson, North Carolina, 1989. Wayne, Pilar, with Alex Thorleifson, John Wayne: My Life with the Duke, New York, 1989. Wayne, Aissa, John Wayne, My Father, New York, 1991. Minshall, Bert, On Board with the Duke: John Wayne and the Wild Goose, Washington, D.C., 1992. Riggin, Judith M., John Wayne: A Bio-Bibliography, New York, 1992. Nardo, Don, John Wayne, New York, 1994. Clark, Donald, John Wayne's "The Alamo": The Making of the Epic Film, Carol Publishing Group, 1995. Marill, Alvin H., The Great John Wayne Trivia Book, Secaucus, New Jersey, 1995. Roberts, Randy, John Wayne: American, New York, 1995. Fagen, Herb, Duke, We're Glad We Knew You: John Wayne's Friend's & Colleagues Remember His Remarkable Life, Carol Publishing Group, 1998. Wills, Garry, John Wayne's America: The Politics of Celebrity, New York, 1998. McGhee, Richard D., John Wayne: Actor, Artist, Hero, Jefferson, 1999. On WAYNE: articles—Gray, M., "No-Contract Star," in Films and Filming (London), March 1957. Didion, Joan, "John Wayne," in The Saturday Evening Post (Philadelphia), 14 August 1965. Hall, D. J., "Tall in the Saddle," in Films and Filming (London), October 1969. Current Biography 1972, New York, 1972. Bentley, Eric, "The Political Theatre of John Wayne," in Film Society Review (New York), March/May 1972. Special issue of Film Heritage (New York), Summer 1975. Suid, L., "The Making of The Green Berets," in Journal of Popular Film (Bowling Green, Ohio), v. 6, no. 2, 1977. Beaver, J., "John Wayne," in Films in Review (New York), May 1977, see also issue for August/September 1977 and February 1978. Obituary in New York Times, 12 June 1979. Kroll, Jack, "John Wayne," in The Movie Star, edited by Elisabeth Weis, New York, 1981. Norman, Barry, in The Film Greats, London, 1985. Villien, Bruno, "John Wayne: la force tranquille d'Amérique," in Cinématographe (Paris), February 1986. Edgerton, G., "A Reappraisal of John Wayne," in Films in Review (New York), May 1986. McGhee, R. D., "John Wayne: Hero with a Thousand Faces," in Literature/Film Quarterly (Salisbury, Maryland), January 1988. Barzman, Ben, "The Duke and Me," in Los Angeles Magazine, January 1989. Tal, K., "War Looking at Film Looking at War," in Jump Cut (Berkeley), May 1991. Bell, Joseph N., "True Wayne," in American Film, January/February 1992. Stars (Mariembourg), no. 27, 1996. Wills, G., "John Wayne's Body," in New Yorker, 19 August 1996. McNulty, Thomas and Paul M. Riordan, "John Agar, Actor: Hollywood's All-purpose Hero: More John Agar Creature Features," in Filmfax (Evanston), February-March 1997. Norman, Barry, "Was Wayne the Biggest Star of All?" in Radio Times (London), 11 October 1997. Macnab, Geoffrey, "From Sir, With Love," in Sight & Sound (London), May 1998. * * * During his last years John Wayne's image hardened and became simplified: the movie star became either a national institution or an object of ridicule and vilification (depending upon one's political viewpoint). Wayne himself clearly encouraged this transformation, the potential for which was always there in his image, at least from the 1950s on. His decision to direct and star in The Green Berets marks a crucial point of transition, confirmed by his subsequent political pronouncements and the tendency to choose self-mythologizing roles. This development has had the unfortunate effect of obscuring for many people the complexities of the Wayne persona and the extremely interesting uses to which it was put by two of Hollywood's greatest directors, John Ford and Howard Hawks. Ford is reported as saying, after seeing Red River, that he had never realized that Wayne could act. The operative criterion of acting here appears to be the hackneyed one of versatility, the ability to "become" different characters. If a limited actor, Wayne was always, from his first major role in Stagecoach, an extremely capable performer: the scenes that develop his relationship with Claire Trevor are played with considerable delicacy and sensitivity. Though the components of the Wayne persona were already clearly present there in The Long Voyage Home, Ford did not make full use of them until after World War II, when the dominant tone of his work modulated from idealism (associated with Henry Fonda) to disillusionment and retreat into stoicism. Through the three films of the "cavalry trilogy" (Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and Rio Grande) the Wayne persona reaches full expression. The makings of the later "national institution" are all there—conservatism, militarism, adherence to tradition, emphasis on patriotic duty—but they are held within a complex thematic network in which the sustaining of faith in American civilization becomes increasingly problematic, giving way to stoical resignation. Significantly, Ford also used Wayne centrally in films in which he abandons American civilization altogether, for a retreat either into the Irish past (The Quiet Man) or to a South Seas never-never land (Donovan's Reef ). Ford's ultimate use of Wayne, however, was as the incarnation of the lost values of a mythical Old West, rendered obsolete by the civilization it helped build, in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Hawks never showed much interest in the established social order except as something to escape from, and Wayne is less central to his work than he is to Ford's. Red River, while in many ways impressive, suffers from Hawks's insufficient grasp of the material's moral and political implications, to which Wayne's Thomas Dunson is central. Interestingly, in relation to Wayne's later career, the character develops marked connotations of fascism which the film tries to cope with but finally evades. Hawks's finest use of Wayne is undoubtedly in Rio Bravo: here the stoicism, self-reliance, and assumption of moral infallibility at once achieve their most complete expression and are subjected to a subtle criticism that defines their limitations. The infallible Wayne is alternately juxtaposed with the all-too-fallible Dean Martin and confronted with the amorous but ironic Angie Dickinson. Both relationships are being used by Hawks to probe, question, and affectionately satirize the Wayne image, exposing its human deficiencies while reaffirming its strength. It is with Hawks also—in El Dorado and Rio Lobo—that Wayne enters the last phase of his career, where the central concern becomes age and failing powers. The Cowboys was not, as some asserted, the first film in which Wayne died (they forget, for example, Reap the Wild Wind, Sands of Iwo Jima, and, far more reprehensibly, Liberty Valance), but it is the first of his major roles in which he was killed face-to-face by the bad guy. Even more pertinent is The Shootist, in which he plays an aging gunfighter who is dying of cancer, the disease against which he himself struggled throughout this late period. If The Cowboys (in which Wayne explicitly becomes a role model for the young of America) celebrates the "national institution," even at this stage of his career where the image is at its most petrified it still carries connotations—pain, loss, failure, stoical endurance—which makes it less simple than the popular view of "hawk" patriarch suggests. Perhaps due to Wayne's larger-than-life iconography as the quintessential American hero, he is as popular with audiences today as he was during his lifetime. His films are never off the television screen and remain among the fastest sellers in video stores. His directorial debut, The Alamo, a personal project in which he also starred, has been restored to its original director's cut length after 30 years during which only the abbreviated version released to theaters by United Artists was available—and reissued on tape and laser disc to the lucrative collector's market in a format that retained the film's wide-screen grandeur. In the wake of its commercial success, two of Wayne's rowdiest and most popular non-Ford and non-Hawks Westerns, McLintock and Hondo, have finally found their way to television and video stores after many years of hibernation, as well. —Robin Wood, updated by John McCarty |
|
|
Cite this article
"Wayne, John." International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers. 2001. Encyclopedia.com. 31 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "Wayne, John." International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers. 2001. Encyclopedia.com. (May 31, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3406802101.html "Wayne, John." International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers. 2001. Retrieved May 31, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3406802101.html |
|
John Wayne
John Wayne
John Wayne was born Marion Mitchell Morrison on May 26, 1907, in Winterset, Iowa. He received his nickname "Duke" while still a child, because of his love for a dog of that name. The family's circumstances were moderate. His father was a pharmacist whose business ventures did not succeed. The family moved to California in 1914. His parents were divorced in 1926. From the age of 12 he was forced to help support himself. He did so with a variety of odd jobs, including stints as a delivery boy and as a trucker's helper. A star football player on the Glendale High School team, he was accepted at the University of Southern California on a football scholarship. An accident ended his playing career and scholarship; without funds to support himself he left the university in 1927 after two years there. He had spent some time while at college working at the Fox studio lots in Los Angeles as a laborer, prop boy, and extra. While doing so he had met John Ford, the director, who took a shine to him (and would over the years have a major impact on his career). In 1928, after working at various odd jobs for some months, he was again employed at the Fox studios, mostly as a laborer but also as an extra and bit player. His efforts in the main went unbilled, but he did attain his first screen credits as Duke Morrison. His first real break came in 1929, when through the intervention of Ford he was cast as the lead in a major Fox production, the Western movie The Big Trail. According to some biographers Fox executives found his name inappropriate and changed it to John Wayne, the surname being derived from the American Revolutionary general "Mad Anthony" Wayne. The Big Trail was not a success, and Fox soon dropped him. During the 1930s he worked at various studios, mostly those on what was known as "Poverty Row." Wayne appeared in over 50 feature films and serials, mostly Westerns. He even appeared in some films as "Singing Sandy." Tall, personable, able to do his own stunts, it appeared that he was doomed to be a leading player in low-budget films. However, thanks to Ford, with whom he had remained friends, Wayne was cast as the lead in that director's film Stagecoach, a 1939 Western that became a hit and a classic. This film was a turning point in Wayne's career. And although it took time for him to develop the mythic hero image which propelled him to the top of the box office charts, within a decade he was voted by movie exhibitors one of the top ten box office attractions of the year, a position he maintained for 23 of the next 24 years. Wayne appeared in over 75 films between 1939 and 1976 when The Shootist, his last film (and appropriately enough a Western), was released. In the vast majority of these films he was a man of action, be it in the post Civil War American West or in contemporary U.S. wars. As an actor he had a marvelous sense of timing and of his own persona, but comedy was not his forte. Action was the essence of his films. His characters exuded decisiveness, confidence, virility, strength, and an American "can-do" spirit. Indeed, critics have emphasized over and over again the manner in which he represented a particular kind of "American Spirit." As a box-office superstar he had his choice of roles and vehicles, but he chose to remain with the genre he knew best. As the years passed his only concession to age was the gradual elimination of romance from the roles he played. He went from wooing leading ladies such as Marlene Dietrich (Pittsburgh, 1942), Gail Russell (Angel and the Badman, 1947), and Patricia Neal (Operation Pacific, 1951) to more mature roles as a rowdy pater familias (McClintock, 1963), an older brother (The Sons of Katie Elder, 1965), and an avuncular marshal (Rio Lobo, 1970). Wayne's politics were not always right-of-center, but in the latter part of his life he became known for his active anti-Communism. His ultra conservatism began in the mid-1940s. He served as head of the extremist anti-Communist Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals; supported various conservative Republican politicians, including Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon; and spoke out forcefully on behalf of various causes such as American participation in the Vietnam War. His politics also influenced his activities as a producer and director. Wayne's production companies made all kinds of films, but among them were Big Jim McClain (1951), in which he starred as a process server for the House Un-American Activities Committee fighting Communists in Hawaii, and Blood Alley (1955), in which he played an American who helps a village to escape from the Communist Chinese mainland to Formosa. The two films that Wayne directed also are representative of his politics: The Alamo (1960) is an epic film about a heroic last stand by a group of Texans in their fight for independence against Mexico and included some sermonizing by the Wayne character about democracy as he saw it; The Green Berets (1968), in which Wayne played a colonel leading troops against the North Vietnamese, was an outspoken vehicle in support of America's role in the war. Wayne was married three times. He had four daughters and three sons by two of his wives (Josephine Saenez, 1933-1945, and Pilar Palette Weldy, after 1954). His second wife was Esperanza Diaz Ceballos Morrison (1946-1954). Wayne was the recipient of many awards during his career, including an Oscar for his role as the hard-drinking, one-eyed, tough law man in True Grit (1969) and an Academy Award nomination for his playing of the career marine noncom in Sands of Iwo Jima (1949). Plagued by various illnesses during the last few years of his life, he publicly announced his triumph over lung cancer in 1964. But a form of that disease claimed him on June 11, 1979. Further ReadingFor additional information, see the biographies by Maurice Zolotow (1974), Mike Tomkies (1971), and Donald Shepherd and Robert Saltzer with David Grayson (1985). Additional SourcesRiggin, Judith M., John Wayne: a bio-bibliography, New York: Greenwood Press, 1992. Levy, Emanuel, John Wayne: prophet of the American way of life, Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1988. Roberts, Randy, John Wayne: American, New York: Free Press, 1995. □ |
|
|
Cite this article
"John Wayne." Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 31 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "John Wayne." Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. (May 31, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3404706763.html "John Wayne." Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2004. Retrieved May 31, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3404706763.html |
|
John Wayne
John Wayne 1907–79, American movie actor, b. Winterset, Iowa, as Marion Michael Morrison. An enduringly popular movie star from his debut in 1930, Wayne combined the toughness necessary to play westerners and soldiers with an appealing amiability. He collaborated with John Ford , who discovered him, in such films as Stagecoach (1939), Fort Apache (1948), Rio Grande (1950), The Quiet Man (1952), The Searchers (1956), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). Wayne's other films include Red River (1949), The Alamo (1960), True Grit (1969), for which he won an Academy Award, and The Shootist (1975).
|
|
|
Cite this article
"John Wayne." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. 31 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "John Wayne." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. (May 31, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Wayne-Jo.html "John Wayne." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Retrieved May 31, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Wayne-Jo.html |
|
Wayne, John
Wayne, John (1907–79) US film actor, b. Marion Michael Morrison. His first major success was in Stagecoach (1939). He made many more films, including She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), True Grit (1969) – for which he received an Academy Award for best actor – and The Shootist (1976).
|
|
|
Cite this article
"Wayne, John." World Encyclopedia. 2005. Encyclopedia.com. 31 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. "Wayne, John." World Encyclopedia. 2005. Encyclopedia.com. (May 31, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O142-WayneJohn.html "Wayne, John." World Encyclopedia. 2005. Retrieved May 31, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O142-WayneJohn.html |
|
|
Search over 100 encyclopedias and dictionaries:
HighBeam™ Research, Inc. © Copyright 2012. All rights reserved.
The Encyclopedia.com advertising network includes:
