Biography
Friends and Family
Mary Morrison
[Mother]
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Clyde Morrison
[Father]
Trivia and Quotes
Quotes
 God, how I hate solemn funerals. When I die, take me into a room and burn me. Then my family and a few good friends should get together, have a few good belts, and talk about the crazy old time we all had together. High Noon (1952) was the most un-American thing I have ever seen in my whole life. The last thing in the picture is ol` Coop [Gary Cooper] putting the United States marshal`s badge under his foot and stepping on it. I`ll never regret having run [screenwriter Carl Foreman] out of this country.
I am an old-fashioned, honest-to-goodness, flag-waving patriot.
I don`t think a fella should be able to sit on his backside and receive welfare. I`d like to know why well-educated idiots keep apologizing for lazy and complaining people who think the world owes them a living.
I don`t want ever to appear in a film that would embarrass a viewer. A man can take his wife, mother, and his daughter to one of my movies and never be ashamed or embarrassed for going.
I think that the loud roar of irresponsible liberalism . . . is being quieted down by a reasoning public. I think the pendulum is swinging back. We`re remembering that the past can`t be so bad. We built a nation on it. We have to look to tomorrow.
I want to play a real man in all my films, and I define manhood simply: men should be tough, fair, and courageous, never petty, never looking for a fight, but never backing down from one either.
Some people tell me everything isn`t black and white. But I say why the hell not?
Very few of the so-called liberals are open-minded . . . they shout you down and won`t let you speak if you disagree with them.
You can`t whine and bellyache because somebody else got a good break and you didn`t.
Communism is quite obviously still a threat. Yes, they are human beings, with a right to their point of view . . .
God-damn, I`m the stuff men are made of!
I am a demonstrative man, a baby picker-upper, a hugger and a kisser - that`s my nature.
I do not want the government to take away my human dignity and insure me anything more than a normal security. I don`t want handouts.
I made up my mind that I was going to play a real man to the best of my ability. I felt many of the western stars of the twenties and thirties were too goddamn perfect. They never drank or smoked. They never wanted to go to bed with a beautiful girl. They never had a fight. A heavy might throw a chair at them, and they just looked surprised and didn`t fight in this spirit. They were too goddamn sweet and pure to be dirty fighters. Well, I wanted to be a dirty fighter if that was the only way to fight back. If someone throws a chair at you, hell, you pick up a chair and belt him right back. I was trying to play a man who gets dirty, who sweats sometimes, who enjoys kissing a gal he likes, who gets angry, who fights clean whenever possible but will fight dirty if he has to. You could say I made the western hero a roughneck.
I never had a goddamn artistic problem in my life, never, and I`ve worked with the best of them. John Ford isn`t exactly a bum, is he? Yet he never gave me any manure about art. He just made movies and that`s what I do.
I was overwhelmed by the feeling of friendship, comradeship, and brotherhood . . . DeMolay will always hold a deep spot in my heart.
When I started, I knew I was no actor and I went to work on this Wayne thing. It was as deliberate a projection as you`ll ever see. I figured I needed a gimmick, so I dreamed up the drawl, the squint and a way of moving meant to suggest that I wasn`t looking for trouble but would just as soon throw a bottle at your head as not. I practiced in front of a mirror
[on being asked about his "phony hair" at Harvard in 1974] It`s not phony. It`s real hair. Of course, it`s not mine, but it`s real.
[on the Oscars] You can`t eat awards -- nor, more to the point, drink `em.
I never trust a man that doesn`t drink.
I`m an American actor. I work with my clothes on. I have to. Riding a horse can be pretty tough on your legs and elsewheres.
When people say a John Wayne picture got bad reviews, I always wonder if they know it`s a redundant sentence, but hell, I don`t care. People like my pictures and that`s all that counts.
[at Harvard in 1974, on being asked whether then-President Richard Nixon ever advised him on the making of his films] No, they`ve all been successful.
[on Native Americans:] I don`t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.
[on presenting the Best Picture Oscar in 1979] Oscar and I have something in common. Oscar first came to the Hollywood scene in 1928. So did I. We`re both a little weatherbeaten, but we`re still here and plan to be around for a whole lot longer.
[poem, "The Sky", he read on his 1969 "Rowan & Martin`s Laugh-In" (1968) appearance] The sky is blue, the grass is green. Get off your ass and join the Marines.
[Time Magazine interview, 1969] I would like to be remembered, well . . . the Mexicans have a phrase, "Feo fuerte y formal". Which means he was ugly, strong and had dignity.
[upon accepting his Oscar for True Grit (1969)] If I`d known this was all it would take, I`d have put that eyepatch on 40 years ago.
[When asked if he believed in God] There must be some higher power or how else does all this stuff work?
Trivia
An entry in the logbook of director John Ford`s yacht "Araner", during a voyage along the Baja peninsula, made a reference to one of Wayne`s pranks on Ward Bond: "Caught the first mate [Wayne] pissing in [Ward] Bond`s flask this morning - must remember to give him a raise."
Arguably Wayne`s worst film, The Conqueror (1956), in which he played Genghis Kahn, was based on a script that director Dick Powell had every intention of throwing into the wastebasket. According to Powell, when he had to leave his office at RKO for a few minutes during a story conference, he returned to find a very enthused Wayne reading the script, which had been in a pile of possible scripts on Powell`s desk, and insisting that this was the movie he wanted to make. As Powell himself summed it up, "Who am I to turn down John Wayne?".
He and his drinking buddy, actor Ward Bond, frequently played practical jokes on each other. In one incident, Bond bet Wayne that they could stand on opposite sides of a newspaper and Wayne wouldn`t be able to hit him. Bond set a sheet of newspaper down in a doorway, Wayne stood on one end, and Bond slammed the door in his face, shouting "Try and hit me now!" Wayne responded by sending his fist through the door, flooring Bond (and winning the bet).
He once made a cameo appearance on "The Beverly Hillbillies" (1962) and when asked how he wanted to be paid, replied, "Give me a fifth of bourbon - that`ll square it."
He was a Master Mason. In other words, he was a good man who became a member of the Masonic Fraternity.
He was offered the lead in The Dirty Dozen (1967), but went to star in and direct The Green Berets (1968) instead. The part was eventually given to Lee Marvin.
His favorite drink was Sauza Commemorativo Tequila, and he often served it with ice that he had chipped from an iceberg during one of his voyages on his yacht, "The Wild Goose.".
His production company, Batjac, was originally to be called Batjak, after the shipping company owned by Luther Adler`s character in the film Wake of the Red Witch (1948). A secretary`s typo while she was drawing up the papers resulted in it being called Batjac, and Wayne, not wanting to hurt her feelings, kept her spelling of it.
In the comic "Preacher", his ghost appears in several issues, clothed in his traditional gunfighter outfit, as a mentor to the hero of the series, Jesse Custer.
Most published sources refer to Wayne`s birth name as Marion Michael Morrison. His birth certificate, however, gives his original name as Marion Robert Morrison. According to Wayne`s own statements, after the birth of his younger brother in 1911, his parents named the newborn Robert Emmett and changed Wayne`s name from Marion Robert to Marion Michael. It has also been suggested by several of his biographers that Wayne`s parents actually changed his birth name from Marion Robert to Marion Mitchell. In "Duke: The Life and Times of John Wayne" (1985), Donald Shepherd and Robert F. Slatzer state that when Wayne`s younger brother was born, "the Duke`s middle name was changed from Robert to Mitchell. . . . After he gained celebrity, Duke deliberately confused biographers and others by claiming Michael as his middle name, a claim that had no basis in fact."
strong rumour that he didnt know how to ride a horse.
strong rumour that he was gay.
After meeting the late Superman (1978) star Christopher Reeve at the 1979 Academy Awards, Wayne turned to Cary Grant and said, "This is our new man. He`s taking over.".
After seeing Wayne`s performance in Red River (1948), directed by rival director Howard Hawks, John Ford is quoted as saying, "I never knew the big son of a bitch could act."
Among his favorite leisure activities were playing bridge, poker, and chess.
Great-uncle of boxer/actor Tommy Morrison, aka "The Duke.".
He and his drinking buddy, actor Ward Bond, frequently played practical jokes on each other. In one incident, Bond bet Wayne that they could stand on opposite sides of a newspaper and Wayne wouldn`t be able to hit him. Bond set a sheet of newspaper down in a doorway, Wayne stood on one end, and Bond slammed the door in his face, shouting "Try and hit me now!" Wayne responded by sending his fist through the door, flooring Bond (and winning the bet).
He once made a cameo appearance on "The Beverly Hillbillies" (1962) and when asked how he wanted to be paid, replied, "Give me a fifth of bourbon - that`ll square it."
He was a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity.
Holds the record for the actor with the most leading parts - 142. In all but 11 films he played the leading part.
In 1973 Clint Eastwood wrote to Wayne, suggesting they star in a western together. Wayne wrote back an angry response criticizing the revisionist style and violence of Eastwood`s latest western, High Plains Drifter (1973). Consequently Eastwood did not reply and no film was made.
The evening before a shoot he was trying to get some sleep in a Las Vegas hotel. The suite directly below his was that of Frank Sinatra (never a good friend of Wayne), who was having a party. The noise kept Wayne awake, and each time he made a complaining phone call it quieted temporarily but each time eventually grew louder. Wayne at last appeared at Sinatra`s door and told Frank to stop the noise. A Sinatra bodyguard of Wayne`s size approached saying, "Nobody talks to Mr. Sinatra that way." Wayne looked at the man, turned as though to leave, then backhanded the bodyguard, who fell to the floor, where Wayne knocked him out by crashing a chair on top of him. The party noise stopped.
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