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| We called him Duke, and he was every bit the giant off screen he was on. Everything about him - his stature, his style, his convictions-conveyed enduring strength, and no one who observed, his struggle in those final days could doubt that strength was real. Yet there was more. He was born Marion Michael Morrison in Winterset, Iowa. When Marion was six, the family moved to California. There he picked up the nickname Duke-after his Airedale. He rose at 4 a.m. to deliver newspapers, and after school and football practice he made deliveries for local stores. He was an A student, president of the Latin Society, head of his senior class and an all-state guard on a championship football team. He accepted a full scholarship to play football at the University of Southern California. There coach Howard Jones, who often found summer jobs in the movie industry for his players, got Duke work in the summer of 1926 as an assistant prop man on the set of a movie directed by John Ford. One day, Ford, a notorious taskmaster with a rough-and-ready sense of humor, spotted the tall USC guard on his set and asked Duke to bend over and demonstrate his ball stance. With a deft kick, knocked Duke's arms from his body and the young athlete on his face. Picking himself Duke said in that voice which then commanded attention, "Let's try that once again." This time Duke sent Ford flying. Ford erupted in laughter, and the two began a personal and professional friendship which would last a lifetime. From his job in props, Duke worked his way into roles on the screen. During the Depression he played in grade-B westerns until John Ford finally convinced United Artists to give him the role of the Ringo Kid in his classic film STAGECOACH (1939). He quickly established his versatility in a variety of major roles: a young seaman in Eugene O'Neill's THE LONG VOYAGE HOME (1940), a tragic captain in REAP THE WILD WIND (1942), a rodeo rider in the comedy A LADY TAKES A CHANCE (1943). When war broke Out, Duke tried to enlist but was rejected because of an old football injury to his shoulder, his age (34), and his status as a married father of four. So he poured himself into the war effort by making inspirational war films-among them THE FIGHTING SEABEES (1944), BACK TO BATAAN (1945) and THEY WERE EXPENDABLE (1945). To those back home and others around the world he became a symbol of the determined American fighting man. In 1944 he spent three months touring forward positions in the Pacific theater. Duke tossed aside the model of the white-suited cowboy/good guy, creating instead a tougher, deeper-dimensioned western hero. He discovered Monument Valley, the film setting in the Arizona-Utah desert where a host of movie classics were filmed. He perfected the choreographic techniques and stunt-man tricks which brought realism to screen fighting. In the 1940s, Duke was one of the few stars with the courage to expose the determined bid by a band of communists to take control of the film industry. Through a series of violent strikes and systematic blacklisting, these people were at times dangerously close to reaching their goal. With theatrical employee's' union leader Brewer, playwright Morrie and others, he formed the, Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals to challenge this insidious campaign. Duke went to Vietnam in the early days of the war. He scorned VIP treatment, insisting that he visit the troops in the field. Once he even had his helicopter land in the midst of a battle. When he returned, he vowed to make a film about the heroism of Special Forces soldiers. The public jammed theaters to see the resulting film, THE GREEN BERETS (1968). The critics, however, delivered some of the harshest reviews ever given a motion picture. Wayne's work habits were legendary in Hollywood-he was virtually always the first to arrive on the set and the last to leave. His torturous schedule plus the great personal pleasure he derived from hunting and deep-sea fishing or drinking and card-playing with his friends cost him a couple of marriages. In the 1970s a new era of critics began to recognize the unique quality of his acting. The turning point had been the film TRUE GRIT (1969). When the Academy gave him an Oscar for best actor of 1969, many said it was based on the accomplishments of his entire career. Others said it was Hollywood's way of admitting that it had been wrong to deny him Academy Awards for a host of previous films. When he died on June 11, a Tokyo newspaper ran the headline, "Mr. America passes on." "There's right and there's wrong," Duke said in THE ALAMO (1960). "You gotta do one or the other. You do the one and you're living. You do the other and you may be walking around but in reality you're dead." Duke Wayne symbolized just this, he could have left no greater legacy. |
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