Chinese Class - John Wayne celebrated on 100th birthday

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John Wayne celebrated on 100th birthday

(AP)
Updated: 2007-05-23 22:29


NEW YORK - On the 100th anniversary of John Wayne's birth, the Duke still
swaggers through the American psyche as not just an actor, but a patriot
- his centennial spawning fond remembrance, and perhaps a few small
protests on the side.

Wayne's legacy is unique because of the dual perspectives that pervade
his memory. Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian Garry Wills, who
wrote "John Wayne's America" in 1997, described Wayne as "the most
popular movie star ever, but also the most polarizing."

It could be argued that no other film actor has ever come to symbolize so
many things: rugged masculinity, the frontier, even America itself. The
Duke has remained, in the truest sense, an icon.

For many, an entire way of life is epitomized in the tired, unblinking
eyes that peered knowingly from his cocksure pose ("walks around like a
big cat," said Howard Hawks). His voice, too, seems etched in the
collective memory: With a simple "pilgrim," a whole lost world is
summoned.

Wayne, born Marion Robert Morrison, would have turned 100 on Saturday. He
died at 72 of stomach cancer in June 1979 after a career that spanned
more than 170 films. He didn't win an Academy Award until 1970 for his
performance in "True Grit." (He was nominated twice earlier �� for best
actor in 1949's "Sands of Iwo Jima" and best picture for 1960's "The
Alamo," which he directed and produced.)

To this day, he still ranks atop polls rating the most adored actors; a
Harris Poll conducted just this year rated him as the third-most popular
movie star behind Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks.

Nostalgia for strong, silent heroes like those Wayne portrayed can
regularly be spotted in places like HBO's "The Sopranos." Of course, even
Tony Soprano sees a shrink, and Wayne's rugged masculinity is now often
viewed as the symbol of bygone era; feelings are now meant to be openly
expressed and analyzed. Those who keep their emotions locked up have even
been referred to as suffering from the "John Wayne syndrome."

He seldom deviated from heroic roles, often set in the West or on the
battlefield. Among his most beloved and acclaimed films are "Stagecoach"
(1939), "Sands of Iwo Jima" (1949), "The Searchers" (1956) and "The Man
Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962). His range was limited, but he mined a
narrow path of the reluctant but obligated hero �� a consistent approach
that furthered his iconic stature.

He knew it, too.

"When I started, I knew I was no actor, and I went to work on this Wayne
thing," he once said. "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."

It's a notably different �� and perhaps dated �� tactic in a profession
that values, above all, malleability. If you want to be an actor, study
Brando. But if you want to be a movie star, study Wayne.

"He never tricked the audience with the characters he played," says
Gretchen Wayne, who heads her late husband Michael Wayne's film company,
Batjac Production, which was formed in 1954 by her legendary
father-in-law. "His films started in the late '20s, early '30s, so
there's three generations of people who have grown up with him."

She will host an evening presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences in Los Angeles on Thursday, where a new restoration of "The
High and the Mighty" (1954) will be shown. (Wayne was married three times
and had seven children.)

Turner Classic Movies has been paying tribute throughout the week by
airing a 35-film festival of his movies. His birthplace, Winterset, Iowa,
will hold a groundbreaking ceremony Saturday for a new John Wayne museum.
"Hondo" (1953), recently restored in digital 3-D, will screen at the
Cannes Film Festival.

Hollywood studios are also rolling out a small army of DVD releases,
including collector's sets from Lionsgate, Universal, Warner Home Video
and Paramount.

This all evidences an enduring love for Wayne that may surpass even his
esteemed contemporaries: Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Cary Grant and
Katharine Hepburn, whose centennial was earlier this month.

Unlike some of the stars of his day, Wayne never served in World War II,
ironic since Gen. Douglas MacArthur said he "represented the American
serviceman better than the American serviceman himself." He was awarded a
Congressional Gold Medal in 1979 shortly before his death.

Jim Olson, a Sam Houston State University history professor who co-wrote
the 1995 biography "John Wayne: American," believes Wayne's guilt over
not serving in the war propelled him to compensate by being a fervent
anti-communist and symbol of American ideals.

"Wayne was a confused young man," says Olson. "He sort of grew up
searching for the meaning of life and I think he found it in the values
he ended up portraying on screen. His screen image and his individual
persona kind of kept ricocheting off each other over time until the image
on screen became his alter ego."

Especially in his later years, Wayne came to symbolize political
conservatism and a dedication to country. His stand against communism
during the Cold War was so influential that Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin
plotted to assassinate him, according to Michael Munn's 2005 biography
"John Wayne: The Man Behind the Myth."

Wayne famously said, "I always thought I was a liberal. I came up
terribly surprised one time when I found out that I was a right-wing
conservative extremist."

He angered more people with his support of the Vietnam War, which he
expressed openly in 1968's "The Green Berets," a film he co-directed and
starred in.

"Wayne lived in a world of absolutes. He did not like ambiguity," says
Olson. "He lived in a world where, in his mind, right was right and wrong
was wrong. And evil was real and evil had to be crushed with violence if
necessary.

"There's a generation of Americans that kind of grew up with Wayne,
matured with Wayne and grew old with Wayne, through all the trials and
traumas of modern American history �� and in doing so, found in him a
voice they understood."

It's been not only 100 years since his birth, but nearly three decades
since his death. Yet Wayne still remains one of the most recognizable
faces in the world. He is, as New York Times film critic Vincent Camby
once wrote, "marvelously indestructible."










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