Marion Robert Morrison, known professionally as John Wayne and nicknamed The Duke or Duke

Marion Robert Morrison, known professionally as John Wayne and nicknamed The Duke or Duke Wayne, was an American actor who became a popular icon through his starring roles in films made during Hollywood's Golden Age, especially in Western and war movies. His career flourished from the silent era of the 1920s through the American New Wave, as he appeared in a total of 179 film and television productions. He was among the top box-office draws for three decades, and he appeared with many other important Hollywood stars of his era. In 1999, the American Film Institute selected Wayne as one of the greatest male stars of classic American cinema.

Wayne was born in Winterset, Iowa, but grew up in Southern California. After losing his football scholarship to the University of Southern California from a bodysurfing accident, he began working for the Fox Film Corporation. He appeared mostly in small parts, but his first leading role came in Raoul Walsh's Western The Big Trail (1930), an early widescreen film epic that was a box-office failure. He played leading roles in numerous B movies during the 1930s, most of them also Westerns, without becoming a major name. John Ford's Stagecoach (1939) made Wayne a mainstream star, and he starred in 142 motion pictures altogether. According to one biographer, "John Wayne personified for millions the nation's frontier heritage."

Wayne's other roles in Westerns include a cattleman driving his herd on the Chisholm Trail in Red River (1948), a Civil War veteran whose niece is abducted by a tribe of Comanches in The Searchers (1956), a troubled rancher competing with a lawyer (James Stewart) for a woman's hand in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), and a cantankerous one-eyed marshal in True Grit (1969), for which he received the Academy Award for Best Actor. He is also remembered for his roles in The Quiet Man (1952) with Maureen O'Hara, Rio Bravo (1959) with Dean Martin, and The Longest Day (1962). In his final screen performance, he starred as an aging gunfighter battling cancer in The Shootist (1976). He made his last public appearance at the Academy Awards ceremony on April 9, 1979, and died of stomach cancer two months later. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor of the United States.

EARLY LIFE
Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison on May 26, 1907, at 224 South Second Street in Winterset, Iowa. The local paper, Winterset Madisonian, reported on page 4 of the edition of May 30, 1907, that Wayne weighed 13 lb (around 6 kg) at birth. Wayne claimed his middle name was soon changed from Robert to Michael when his parents decided to name their next son Robert, but extensive research has found no such legal change although it might have been changed informally or the documention may have been lost. Wayne's legal name apparently remained Marion Robert Morrison his entire life although to this day his original name is almost always referred to as Marion Michael Morrison.

Wayne's father, Clyde Leonard Morrison (1884 to 1937), was the son of American Civil War veteran Marion Mitchell Morrison (1845 to 1915). Wayne's mother, the former Mary "Molly" Alberta Brown (1885 to 1970), was from Lancaster County, Nebraska. Wayne had Scottish, Scotch-Irish, English, and Irish ancestry. His great-great-grandfather Robert Morrison (b. 1782) left County Antrim, Ireland, with his mother, arriving in New York in 1799 and eventually settling in Adams County, Ohio. The Morrisons were originally from the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. He was raised Presbyterian.

Wayne's family moved to Palmdale, California, and then in 1916 to Glendale at 404 Isabel Street, where his father worked as a pharmacist. He attended Glendale Union High School, where he...

LINK TO ARTICLE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne

TAGS: John Wayne, United Service Organizations entertainers, Members of The Lambs Club, Universal Pictures contract players, Western (genre) film directors, University of Southern California alumni, USC Trojans football players, RCA Records artists, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients, People from Winterset Iowa, People from Palmdale California, Male film serial actors, Male actors from Newport Beach California, Male actors from Iowa, Male actors from Glendale California, Male Western (genre) film actors, Liberty Records artists, John Birch Society members, Iowa Republicans, Glendale High School (Glendale California) alumni, Film producers from California, Film directors from Los Angeles, Film directors from Iowa, Deaths from stomach cancer, Deaths from cancer in California, Converts to Roman Catholicism from Presbyterianism, Congressional Gold Medal recipients

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