On April 7, 1970, the legendary actor John Wayne won his
first—and only—acting Academy Award, for his star turn
in the director Henry Hathaway’s Western True Grit.

Wayne appeared in some 150 movies over the course of
his long and storied career. He established his tough,
rugged, uniquely American screen persona most vividly
in the many acclaimed films he made for the directors
John Ford and Howard Hawks from the late 1940s into the
early 1960s.

He earned his first Oscar nomination, in the Best Actor
category, for Sands of Iwo Jima (1949). The Alamo (1960),
which Wayne produced, directed and starred in, earned a
Best Picture nomination.

Wayne’s Oscar for True Grit at the 42nd annual Academy
Awards in 1970 was generally considered to be a largely
sentimental win, and a long-overdue reward for one of
Hollywood’s most enduring performers.

The Academy had failed to even nominate Wayne for any
of his most celebrated performances, in films such as
Stagecoach (1939), Red River (1948), The Quiet Man (1952),
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) and especially
Ford’s The Searchers (1956), considered by many to be
the greatest Western ever made.