John Wayne

John Wayne got married to Josephine Alicia Saenz in the year 1933 but the marriage ended in divorce 12 years later. They had 4 children - Michael, Mary Antonia, Patrick and Melinda.

Thereafter, he married Esperanza Baur, a Mexican actress in 1946 but the marriage wasn’t a happy one and often took a violent turn. They divorced 8 years into their marriage.

Wayne married Pilar Pallette, a Peruvian actress in 1954 but the couple separated 19 years after their marriage. They had 3 children - Aissa, John Ethan and Marisa.

Marion Robert Morrison, later renamed as John Wayne, was born to Clyde Leonard Morrison and Mary Alberta Brown on 26 May, 1907 in Winterset, Iowa. His father was a pharmacist while his grandfather Marion Mitchell Morrison was a veteran of the American Civil War.

The family moved around in his childhood and finally settled down in Glendale, California. John Wayne studied at the Wilson Middle School located in Glendale and was also involved with the Order of DeMolay, an off shoot of the Freemasons. Later on he went on to study at the Glendale High School and also played football for them.

He had always wanted to serve the US Navy but was rejected by the US Naval Academy so took up a sporting scholarship to the University of Southern California in 1925. However, an injury forced him out of sports altogether and he had to quit the university after his scholarship funds were pulled.

After leaving the University of South California, his coach at the university Howard Jones called in a favour and got him the job of an extra with the help of actor Tom Mix. Wayne acted in plenty of films as an extra and also as football playing extras.

It was in 1930 that John Wayne graduated from roles of an extra to a lead actor when Raoul Walsh cast him in the big budget film ‘The Big Trial’ and that was when he was given the name that became famous all over the world. The film failed commercially and Wayne was again forced to act in bit part roles.

After a period of struggle in which he appeared in some minor roles in some films and television shows throughout the 1930s, John Wayne got his first big break in the films ‘Stagecoach’ released in 1939. Following the critical appreciation and commercial success of ‘Stagecoach’, John Wayne finally became a name to be reckoned with in Hollywood. The following year he appeared in ‘The Long Voyage Home’ that further cemented his place as an A-lister.

When the Second World War broke out John Wayne wanted to enlist in the war effort but he wasn’t selected and instead he spent those years touring several places in order to entertain American soldiers. Some of the films of that period include ‘Flying Tigers’, ‘Back to Bataan’ and ‘Flame of the Barbary Coast’ among others. Many of those films were specifically meant to portray the valour of soldiers.

It was in 1948 that John Wayne teamed up with John Ford for the first of his ‘Cavalry Trilogy’ with ‘Fort Apache’. It was followed by ‘She Wore A Yellow Ribbon’ the following year and ‘Rio Grande’ in the year after to complete the trilogy. The same year he also started working with Howard Hawk, who directed the film ‘Red River’ which is regarded as a classic of the Western genre.

The actor-director duo of John Wayne and John Ford collaborated in many films since most of their films were successes. In 1956, John Wayne acted in ‘The Searchers’, which is considered by many to be his best performance.

He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his 1969 film ‘True Grit’.

In 2006, Premier Magazine ran an opinion poll of the greatest roles ever played in Hollywood and John Wayne’s role of Ethan Edwards in ‘The Searchers’ was ranked 87th.