“My dad did put himself into the roles he played, so in a sense, he was similar in person to what people saw in the movies. The personality was there. The humor was there. The loyalty was there. We just weren’t getting shot at all the time.”
During John Wayne’s incredible, prolific, 50-year career, he was much more than “just” a movie star.
If the phrase “larger than life” ever described anyone, it certainly applied to John Wayne. He projected a male ideal millions of Americans identified with: ruggedly handsome, tough yet kind. His screen persona was that of a war hero, a cowboy, an anchor of justice, an adventurer. John Wayne, the icon, influenced real people in their real lives: men were inspired to enlist in the army, children played cowboys and sheriffs, generations of Americans grew up with dreams of heading west — of being that man who feared nothing and effortlessly commanded respect. Wayne was an old-time pioneer for a new day. It could be argued that for kids of the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s, John Wayne defined the American Spirit as much as apple pie or whomever was sitting in the Oval Office.
Even today, some 32 years after he was felled by cancer, it’s nearly impossible to find any American who can’t do some version of a “John Wayne” stance, walk, or voice impression. Perhaps even more remarkable is, in some cases, the younger people who do those “John Waynes” haven’t even seen the movies they’re based on. He has permeated our collective consciousness to that degree: John Wayne is permanently ingrained in our American cultural identity.
So what, we ask ourselves, could a man this big, this far-beyond “average Joe” have been like at home? What would it have been like to wake up and call John Wayne “Dad?”
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