John Wayne

By Tom Kirvan

Long recognized as one of Hollywood’s greatest actors, John Wayne won his first – and only – Academy Award on April 7, 1970 for his portrayal of Rooster Cogburn in the movie “True Grit.”

The movie was seemingly tailor-made for Wayne, who had starred in such Westerns as “Stagecoach” (1939), “Red River” (1948), “The Searchers” (1956), and “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” (1962).

In “True Grit,” Wayne played a drunken, short-tempered U.S. marshal, who becomes an unlikely hero when he helps a young girl avenge the murder of her father. Some five years later, Wayne reprised the role in the film’s sequel, “Rooster Cogburn,” opposite Katharine Hepburn.

“Courage is being scared to death … and saddling up anyway,” Wayne said in his customary down-home drawl. “A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.”

Nicknamed “The Duke,” Wayne appeared in more than 140 movies over the course of his career, including “The Alamo,” a 1960 film in which he produced, directed, and starred in, earning a Best Picture Oscar nomination.

John Wayne*

Four years later, Wayne was involved in an altogether different sort of battle than those that he appeared in on the silver screen. This time, he came face-to-face with lung cancer, a disease that forced the removal of his entire left lung. Wayne, an Iowa native who attended the University of Southern California on a football scholarship, then made the decision to go public with news of his illness in the hope that it would spur others to give up smoking and to remain vigilant about the effects of the disease.

“There are some things a man just can’t run away from,” said Wayne of his health situation.

In his last movie, “The Shootist” in 1976, Wayne portrayed an aging gunfighter dying of cancer. Three years later, he would succumb to the disease at the age of 72, leaving behind an all-too-prophetic reflection on life:

“Tomorrow is the most important thing in life,” said Wayne. “Comes into us at midnight very clean. It’s perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we’ve learned from yesterday.”

*Howard_Hawks'Rio_Bravo_trailer_(26).jpg: Trailer screenshotderivative work: Liorek, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons