The Big Trail, Wayne’s first role as a leading man (1930).

Born Marion Michael Morrison, Wayne’s family moved to Glendale,
California, when he was six years old. As a teen, he rose at four in
the morning to deliver newspapers, and after school he played
football and made deliveries for local stores. When he graduated
from high school, he hoped to attend the U.S. Naval Academy, But
after the school rejected him, he accepted a full scholarship to play
football at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

In the summer of 1926, Wayne’s football coach found him a job as
an assistant prop man on the set of a movie directed by John Ford.

Ford started to use Wayne as an extra, and he eventually began to
trust him with some larger roles