"Becoming John Wayne"
Born Marion Morrison, he was teased in school because of his feminine first name. He hated horses, dodged the draft, and couldn’t stand to be alone. An avid reader, he could quote at length Byron, Keats, and Milton.
When John Ford told him he walked like “a goddamn fairy,” he developed his trademark slow, sure gait. “I went to work on the Wayne thing,” he said. “I dreamed up the drawl, the squint, the way of moving.” Once, on a set, after all the actors seemed to have adopted his slow, measured way of speaking and moving, he exploded, “Well, goddammit, everyone is playing John Wayne!”
Although he’d never served in the military, the Marine Corps dubbed a can opener attached to dog tags that was used to open C rations “a John Wayne.” It was used by servicemen for the next forty years.
The man who had dodged the draft became a vocal supporter of the Vietnam War. The war was fought by young men—boys, really—who had grown up watching John Wayne movies. “He did a John Wayne,” they would say when a fellow grunt did something heroic.
“I gave my dead dick for John Wayne,” Ron Kovic, a paralyzed Vietnam vet, wrote in Born on the Fourth of July.
When he was told he had cancer, he sat there, wondering what John Wayne would say.
Donald A. Ranard is the sibling of a Veteran and his writing has appeared in The Atlantic, New World Writing Quarterly, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Best Travel Writing, and elsewhere. His play, ELBOW. APPLE. CARPET. SADDLE. BUBBLE., was named one of three finalists in Veteran Repertory's 2021 playwriting contest. Based in Arlington, VA, he has lived in 10 countries in Asia, Europe, and Latin America.
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A very prercise look into the John Wayne ethos and the discrepancy between image and
reality, As a footnote to the Duke's ability to memorize and recite great poetry, in the
movie DEAD POETS SOCIETY, Robin Willoams recites a pasage from Shakespeare in the
voice and manner of John Wayne.