John Wayne
(Marion Robert Morrison (May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979)
Actor John Wayne, who came to epitomize the American West,
was born Marion Robert Morrison in Winterset, Iowa.
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. However, 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. In 1930, Ford recommended
Wayne for Fox’s epic Western The Big Trail. Wayne won the part,
but the movie did poorly, and Fox let his contract lapse.
During the next decade, Wayne worked tirelessly in countless
low-budget western films, sharpening his talents and developing
a distinct persona for his cowboy characters.
Finally, his old mentor John Ford gave Wayne his big break,
casting him in his brilliant 1939 western, Stagecoach.
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