Henry Fonda believed Wayne called himself a liberal just so he wouldn't fall out with director John Ford, an activist liberal Democrat. In 1938 he attended a fundraiser for a Democratic candidate in New York, but soon afterwards "realized Democrats didn't stand for the same things I did". Roosevelt in the 1936 presidential election. As a young actor in Hollywood, he described himself as a liberal, and voted for Franklin D. He later claimed to have considered himself a socialist during his first year of college. Morrison had lung cancer.ĭespite being best known as a conservative Republican, his politics throughout his life were fluid. I want to go out on two feet, in action." Before he had left the hospital on October 19, he received the news that his 52-year-old brother Robert E. I know the man upstairs will pull the plug when he wants to, but I don't want to end my life being sick. On 12/29/64 he held a press conference at his Encino ranch, against the advice of his agent and advisers, where he announced, "I licked the Big C. Five days later they drained the fluid and repaired the stitches. His face and hands began to swell up from a mixture of fluid and air, but the doctors didn't dare operate again so soon. One day following surgery, Wayne began coughing so violently he ruptured his stitches and damaged delicate tissue. According to a 6/27/78 "Us" magazine article, Wayne said to his nurse from his room, "Let that son of a bitch come in." When Bacon sat down in his room, Wayne told him, "Well, I licked the Big C." Wayne confessed that his five-packs-a-day cigarette habit had caused a lung tumor the size of a golf ball, necessitating the removal of the entire lung. When Hollywood columnist James Bacon went to the hospital to see Wayne, he was told by a nurse that Wayne wasn't having visitors. Press releases at the time reported that he was in Los Angeles' Good Samaritan Hospital to be treated for lung congestion. Underwent surgery to have a cancerous left lung removed on 9/17/64 in a six-hour operation. He is perhaps best remembered for his parts in Ford's cavalry trilogy - Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Rio Grande (1950).Īissa Wayne Ethan Wayne Marisa Wayne Michael Wayne Patrick Wayne Toni Wayne Melinda Wayne A Congressional Gold Medal was struck in his honor in 1979.
He received the Best Actor nomination for Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) and finally got the Oscar for his role as one-eyed Rooster Cogburn in Справжня мужність (1969). In September 1964 he had a cancerous left lung removed in March 1978 there was heart valve replacement surgery and in January 1979 his stomach was removed. Over the years Wayne was beset with health problems. His patriotic stand was enshrined in The Green Berets (1968) which he co-directed and starred in. His conservative political stance was also reflected in The Alamo (1960), which he produced, directed and starred in. From 1942-43 he was in a radio series, "The Three Sheets to the Wind", and in 1944 he helped found the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a Conservative political organization, later becoming its President. He appeared in nearly 250 movies, many of epic proportions.
After more than 70 low-budget westerns and adventures, mostly routine, Wayne's career was stuck in a rut until Ford cast him in Диліжанс (1939), the movie that made him a star. His first featured film was Men Without Women (1930). On the set he became close friends with director John Ford for whom, among others, he began doing bit parts, some billed as John Wayne.
Tom Mix got him a summer job as a prop man in exchange for football tickets. When he narrowly failed admission to Annapolis he went to USC on a football scholarship 1925-7. He did well at school both academically and in football. When the ranch failed, the family moved to Glendale, California, where Marion delivered medicines for his father, sold newspapers and had an Airedale dog named "Duke" (the source of his own nickname). Morrison swam in an irrigation ditch and rode a horse to school. Until the ranch failed, Marion and his younger brother Robert E. He was of English, Ulster-Scots, and Irish ancestry.Ĭlyde developed a lung condition that required him to move his family from Iowa to the warmer climate of southern California, where they tried ranching in the Mojave Desert. John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in Iowa, to Mary Alberta (Brown) and Clyde Leonard Morrison, a pharmacist.