His image is just that--one big created Hollywood fable.

He was well into his 30’s when the war started.

He was not only a RW a'hole. He was a coward. My uncles, my Father were NOT.

There...I said it.

I'd think you'd agree that as a movie star, few were in his league and his roles in Sands of Iwo Jima and The Searchers showed he had talent as an actor too.

Yes he was good at playing John Wayne...you're right, no one could do that as well as he, but compare him to some of his contemporaries. Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart, Gary Cooper, Bogart...all vastly superior actors to Wayne's stilted and wooden delivery. Everyone was in love with his All-American good guy persona and that's why he was so popular.

....inarticulate young man who saved the day

Movie was in 30s, amirite?

So your point is moot. But we do both agree that he was a great movie star and that's what he's remembered for and I think we can both agree that several of the films he was in were and still are considered to be very, very good.

As an inspiration? I'm sure I read that in a biography or TV show bio about him.

would frequently berate Wayne “to get into it,” saying that he was growing rich as other men died.

So, no. Wayne got the studio to intervene, fearing he'd age out of the acting jobs, at a time when Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable, (the aforementioned John Ford), Henry Ford, Kirk Douglas, Paul Newman and so many others put on the uniform--as did my four Uncles and my Father.

He was no hero. He was as bad as the other conservatives we deride for using their wealth and connections to get them out of service the rest of Americans could NOT...


So, you defend John Wayne for doing what George W. Bush* and Trump did? I do NOT.

minute

everyone ought to watch it and see that things have been screwed up in this country for a long time.

than John Wayne.

Something tells me he’d be a Fox News watcher and MAGA supporter if he was alive. I always enjoyed the music and mountainous scenery in some of his movies, but he didn’t care for liberals.

he was a roughneck, rancher, or farmer's idea of what a good male lead actor should be so he was bankable.

a screen presence, not an actor

he was such an unbelievably right wing racist piece of shit

got a deferment and he was an actor. So the draft board let him slide. I guess you could say he served similar service like Reagan who was in reserves and was a PR flack.

So yeah both Wayne and Reagan skated on deferments.

He enlisted in the reserves, and got called up in 1942. Granted, his service was in the Motion Picture Unit, where he made training films. He never saw real combat, however. Still, it was more than anything from John Wayne, who could have done the same thing, but didn't.

was a good reason for the non-combat assignment. He was in the Reserve pre and post WWII.

Made VD pics for the military.

in the Army Reserve in 1937. His outfit was called up in 1942. He was found to be NPQ for overseas service due to myopia.

After completing 14 home-study Army Extension Courses, Reagan enlisted in the Army Enlisted Reserve and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Officers' Reserve Corps of the Cavalry on May 25, 1937. On April 18, 1942, Reagan was ordered to active duty for the first time.

By all accounts, Reagan did have bum eyes, and had a modesty legitimate reason to end up back in Hollywood making propaganda films.

Due to eyesight difficulties, he was classified for limited service only, which excluded him from serving overseas. His first assignment was at the San Francisco Port of Embarkation at Fort Mason, California, as liaison officer of the Port and Transportation Office. Upon the request of the Army Air Forces (AAF), he applied for a transfer from the Cavalry to the AAF on 15 May 1942; the transfer was approved on 9 June 1942. He was assigned to AAF Public Relations and subsequently to the 1st Motion Picture Unit in Culver City, California. Reagan was promoted to First Lieutenant on 14 January 1943 and was sent to the Provisional Task Force Show Unit of This Is The Army at Burbank, California. Following this duty, he returned to the 1st Motion Picture Unit, and on 22 July 1943 was promoted to Captain.

Now, the Duke is another story. He started with the deferments, but then asked his director buddy, John Ford, to pull some strings and get him into his super slick military photographic unit. John Ford did pull some strings, but John Wayne never received to letter. Or so they say.

for not serving while his co-star, Robert Montgomery, was a real war hero.

https://www.amazon.com/Captain-McCreas-War-Roosevelts-Commanding/dp/1543606016

He had a role in setting up the first White House War room.

I'm sorry your parents made you move. Those things kids used to do? THOSE WERE FUN.

He was in the navy in the Pacific during WWII. And he had a bad back due to a childhood injury.

But he didn't have bone spurs. So he signed up, because he knew he had to go.

I despise fake patriots.

Clark Gable was 40
Hank Fonda was 36

Age is a cop out and I can’t believe anyone would bring it up here as a defense. Stewart flew 20 combat missions in Europe and actually campaigned to be transferred so he wouldn’t be seen as getting a “safe” job.

I believe Edward G Robinson tried to enlist at 48.

Wayne was all hat and no cattle.

who served -

http://www.freedomisknowledge.com/otw/stuff/realhollywoodheroes.htm

Interesting tidbit David Niven had a batman, orderly, some guy named Peter Ustinov, wonder what ever happened to him!

In the Longest Day one of the Rangers one climbing the cliffs was actually one of the Rangers who climbed the cliffs.

the army air Corp and flew bombing missions over Germany.

who did serve, and who was older than Wayne, never let him forget it.

Wayne occasionally tried to do things to support the war effort, and take the heat off of the fact that he wasn’t serving. One such effort backfired. He appeared at a show in Hawaii, and wounded were carried out to see the show. When Wayne appeared, in full cowboy regalia, he said “Well, hiya, fellas.” He was greeted with silence. And then the booing started, and continued until Wayne left the stage. America’s greatest chicken hawk was booed off the stage by real heroes.

God, what an embarrassment - 61 yr. old Green Beret, yah

And no, he did not serve. He loved behaving as if he had. . . Racist swine.

Fake hero, real asshole.

But Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart did.


Fonda enlisted in the United States Navy to fight in World War II, saying, "I don't want to be in a fake war in a studio." Fonda served for three years, initially as a Quartermaster 3rd Class on the destroyer USS Satterlee. He was later commissioned as a Lieutenant Junior Grade in Air Combat Intelligence in the Central Pacific and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal and Navy Presidential Unit Citation


Stewart became the first major American movie star to enlist in the United States Army to fight in World War II. Stewart was promoted to major following a mission to Ludwigshafen, Germany, on January 7, 1944. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for actions as deputy commander of the 2d Bombardment Wing, and the French Croix de Guerre with palm and the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters.

Was over forty when war broke out. He served in combat on B17 as a gunner and observer.

Last edited Mon Jun 29, 2020, 06:29 PM - Edit history (1)

become the highest ranking officer in Hollywood history,

Not a fake hero

Why is this an issue?

.

So many other things happening; this one isn't getting much attention from me.

Walked passed it many times going to or from rental car lot.
It's a pretty small airport, so no shuttles or trams.
The statue has to 12 feet tall on a 7 food pedestal.
Of course, it's in Orange County. That figures.

I hope senile Ronnie's name gets removed from every building.

I wonder how many hundreds or thousands of lives were
wasted because they wanted to be like John Wayne?

If that much. Remember reading that somewhere...

His character dies in The Cowboys & The Shootist.
Don't know if there are more.

His death scene was about as realistic as the rest of his acting. His character gets shot, Wayne grimaces like he got bit by a horsefly, then keels over.

I've actually only watched the cowboy stuff.
El Dorado is a fave. That & Big Jake.
But the war & cop stuff, I've assiduously avoided.

Bunch of kids he hires to go on a cattle drive. Bruce Dern was a great villain in that movie.

I mentioned that one. He was killed by Bruce Dern's character.
He dies in Shootist. Ron Howard is the kid who avenges his death.

I was never a big fan, but I liked The Cowboys.

Great black actor in that movie too whose name is escaping my mind at this moment.

...I've seen the cowboy stuff, but other than The Longest Day, in which he was just another big name, I've not seen the war stuff. I've had no interest.
But, I'm a western movie but.
So, I've seen all of his.
The most overrated is True Grit. 30 minute story in a 110 minute movie.

By the way, it just occurred to me that he played Crockett in The Alamo. So, he had to have been killed in that movie, too.
Never saw it.

https://www.jwaynefan.com/dukedied.html

"To the best of my knowledge there are the films that John Wayne died on screen, they are presented here in reverse chronological order:

THE SHOOTIST (1976) - Killed in gunfight in saloon at end of film.
THE COWBOYS (1972) - Killed by Bruce Dern and avenged by the boys.
THE ALAMO (1960) - As Davy Crockett killed by Mexican soldier lance.
SANDS OF IWO JIMA (1949) - Killed by sniper bullet at end of film.
WAKE OF THE RED WITCH (1949) - Killed as ship plunged off ledge and sank with Octopus.
THE FIGHTING SEABEES (1944) - Killed by sniper as he was about to leap from bulldozer.
REAP THE WILD WIND (1942) - Killed by squid undersea.
WEST OF THE DIVIDE (1934) - Duke had a dual role and his evil look-alike died after drinking poisoned water. This is a clip from the film showing the brief scene of Gat Gans and his death.
CENTRAL AIRPORT (1933) - John Wayne doesn't even speak and is barely recognizable as one of the men aboard a downed airplane seen floundering in the ocean at night. This John Wayne clip from Central Airport is courtesy of Neil Roughley, please visit his site, John Wayne on DVD, A Filmography.

There were a few films where his death is not seen.

In THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE (1962) he has died and the film's story is told in flashback by James Stewart who has come to his funeral.

In THE SEA CHASE (1955) - He and Lana Turner are on the ship when it sank but the film leads you to believe that perhaps they survived.

In THE DECEIVER (1931) - Ian Keith played Thorp in this film and John Wayne took over when this character became a corpse.

HANGMAN'S HOUSE (1928) - Blindfolded condemned man in flashback, to be hanged. "

I've never seen most of those pre-ww2 movies.
No wonder I could only come up with 3.

The real Vandevoort was twenty-seven on D-Day.

He was good.

Great line that I can't remember right now. Something like, "neither the need nor the time." I can't remember. but it was great.

We 'played that game a lot' trying each time to 'die' more extravagantly.

Now I find this so bizarre. We were kids, we had no conception of what death is. It was a game to us.

Now I wonder---did we pick up this idea of 'dying' from the war movies we saw as kids? My parents could never have imagined this effect of the movies we saw

he visited military bases and hospitals with USO. My mom was in the American Red Cross overseas during WWII and saw him, I think when she was in India. She said he strutted around like he was king of the world and that she and her ARC friends thought he was an arrogant, dusgusting creep.

I'll never forget when Reagan won in 1980, and my Dad said in disgust, "America just voted for John Wayne."

True story! Soon after a bloody battle in the Pacific theatre (Corregidor? New Caledonia?), John Wayne appeared to the troops there on a USO tour. The troops were disgusted by his sanitized movies and fake bravado. They proceded to boo him off the stage!

But I understand there was another item in the K-ration boxes that was named after him; the toilet paper. It was called John Wayne toilet paper because it was rough, and tough, and doesn't take shit off anyone.

America's entry into World War II resulted in a deluge of support for the war effort from all sectors of society, and Hollywood was no exception. Wayne was exempted from service due to his age (34 at the time of Pearl Harbor) and family status (classified as 3-A – family deferment). Wayne repeatedly wrote to John Ford saying he wanted to enlist, on one occasion inquiring whether he could get into Ford's military unit, but consistently kept postponing it until after "he finished just one or two pictures".[36] Wayne did not attempt to prevent his reclassification as 1-A (draft eligible), but Republic Studios was emphatically resistant to losing him since he was their only A-list actor under contract. Herbert J. Yates, President of Republic, threatened Wayne with a lawsuit if he walked away from his contract,[37] and Republic Pictures intervened in the Selective Service process, requesting Wayne's further deferment.[38]

U.S. National Archives records indicate that Wayne, in fact, did make an application[39] to serve in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), precursor to the modern CIA, and had been accepted within the U.S. Army's allotted billet to the OSS. William J. Donovan, OSS Commander, wrote Wayne a letter informing him of his acceptance into the Field Photographic Unit, but the letter went to his estranged wife Josephine's home. She never told him about it. Wayne toured U.S. bases and hospitals in the South Pacific for three months in 1943 and 1944.[40] with the USO

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne

Wayne took his, as the movie studio wanted him to to stay home making movies. The studio didn't want Stewart to go, either, but he pulled some strings and got himself into the Army Air Corps. He was an experienced private pilot who was very good at navigating by landmarks, and he thought was exactly what the war effort needed.

Long story short: Wayne had a huge career fighting the war on screen, becoming the country's biggest movie star. Stewart became a decorated bomber pilot, commander, and trainer with 20 combat missions, though he wasn't sure he had an acting career left for him by the time he came back.

https://m.imgur.com/gallery/en2RXmq

Pardon the camel toe.

...EEEWWWWWWWWWW!!!

who said he never surrendered or swore allegiance to the Union.

Since its release, it has come to be considered a masterpiece and one of the greatest and most influential films ever made. It was named the greatest American Western by the American Film Institute in 2008, and it placed 12th on the same organization's 2007 list of the 100 greatest American movies of all time.[4] Entertainment Weekly also named it the best Western.[5] The British Film Institute's Sight & Sound magazine ranked it as the seventh-best film of all time based on a 2012 international survey of film critics[6][7] and in 2008, the French magazine Cahiers du Cinéma ranked The Searchers number 10 in their list of the 100 best films ever made.[8]

In 1989, The Searchers was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress, and selected for preservation in its National Film Registry; it was one of the first 25 films selected for the registry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Searchers

Both of them loathed John Wayne. They had nothing nice to say about him.

My grandma and her sister, who had run wild in Hollywood as young women, openly mocked John Wayne in ways that would be considered homophobic today. Mind you, my grandma and here sister really did have friends who were gay, some of them fabulously so. They knew Rock Hudson was gay and they loved him. They knew Elizabeth Taylor as well.

John Wayne enjoyed some notoriety later in his life as a meme for masculinity, much as Chuck Norris did years later.

I remember my grandma crushing one of my childhood friends when he mentioned John Wayne in an innocent way -- just some crap he'd picked up on the playground and channel 5-13 television.

I was mortified. I was just beginning to realize I come from a people where the men are mostly silent and the women speak their minds.

They have a great fall festival. Great covered bridges.

I was really surprised when I found out there were covered btidges in IA. I thought they had only existed in NE

He does not compare favorably to others from that period that I recall and looked up to such as Sterling Hayden, Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart, etc.

He was never a great actor. Many of his contemporaries said he was the most professional actor they had worked with, but never a great actor. He was, however, an outspoken right-wing arsehole. He could invariably be counted on to take a reactionary view on any current event. I believe I even recall him commenting on the astro-turfed hard hat 'riots' during Nixon's re-election campaign.