Los Angeles, June 11 -- John Wayne, the veteran Hollywood
actor, died today at 5:23 P.M., Pacific daylight time, at U.C.L.A.
Medical Center, a hospital spokesman said. The cause of death was
given as complications from cancer.
Mr. Wayne, 72 years old, had been
hospitalized for treatment of cancer of the lower abdomen since May
2, when he was admitted for his second cancer operation of the year.
His lower intestine was partly removed in the operation.
Mr. Wayne's second bout with cancer
began earlier this year with what was officially described as a
routine gall bladder operation. He had entered the Medical Center
Jan. 10 and two days later his stomach was removed in a 9*- hour
operation when a low-grade cancerous tumor was discovered.
'Duke,' an American Hero
In more than 200 films made over 50
years, John Wayne saddled up to become the greatest figure of one of
America's greatest native art forms, the western.
The movies he starred in rode the range
from out-of-the-money sagebrush quickies to such classics as
"Stagecoach" and "Red River." He won an Oscar as
best actor for another western, "True Grit," in 1969. Yet
some of the best films he made told stories far from the wilds of
the West, such as "The Quiet Man" and "The Long
Voyage Home."
In the last decades of his career, Mr.
Wayne became something of an American folk figure, hero to some,
villain to others, for his outspoken views. He was politically
conservative and, although he scorned politics as a way of life for
himself, he enthusiastically supported Richard M. Nixon, Barry
Goldwater, Spiro T. Agnew, Ronald Reagan and others who, he felt,
fought for his concept of Americanism and anti-Communism.
But it was for millions of moviegoers
who saw him only on the big screen that John Wayne really existed.
He had not created the western with its clear-cut conflict between
good and bad, right and wrong, but it was impossible to mention the
word "western" without thinking of "the Duke,"
as he was called.
By the early 1960's, 161 of his films
had grossed $350 million, and he had been paid as much as $666,000
to make a movie--although in his early days on screen, his salary
ran to no more than two or three figures a week.
It was rarely a simple matter to find a
unanimous opinion on Mr. Wayne, whether it had to do with his acting
or his politics. Film critics were lavish in praise of him in some
roles and shrugged wearily as they candled his less notable efforts;
one critic, apparently overexposed to westerns, angered him by
commenting, "It never Waynes, but it pours."
Mr. Wayne was co-director and star of
"The Green Berets," a 1968 film that supported the United
States action in Vietnam. The movie was assailed by many major
critics on all grounds, political and esthetic, but the public
apparently did not mind; in only six months, it had earned $1
million above its production cost of $7 million.
Won Growing Respect
As the years passed, Mr. Wayne was
recognized as some sort of American natural resource, and his
various critics, political and film, looked on him with more
respect. Abbie Hoffman, the radical of the 1960's paid tribute to
Mr. Wayne's singularity. Reviewing "The Cowboys," made in
1972, Vincent Canby, film critic of The New York Times, who did not
particularly care for it, wrote, "Wayne is, of course,
marvelously indestructible, and he has become an almost perfect
father figure."
But years before he became anything
close to a father figure, Mr. Wayne had become a symbolic male
figure, a man of impregnable virility and the embodiment of
simplistic, laconic virtues, packaged in a well-built 6-foot-4-inch,
225- pound frame.
He had a handsome and hearty face, with
crinkles around eyes that were too lidded to express much emotion
but gave the impression of a man of action, an outdoor man who
chafed at a settled life. He was laconic on screen. And when he
shambled into view, one could sense the arrival of coiled vigor
awaiting only provocation to be sprung. His demeanor and his roles
were those of a man who did not look for trouble but was relentless
in tackling it when it affronted him. This screen presence emerged
particularly under the ministrations of John Ford and Howard Hawks,
the directors.
Overcame Great Odds
Appearances were not altogether
deceiving. Mr. Wayne loved adventure and the outdoors. He did
believe that things were either right or wrong, and he came back
against great odds. In 1964, a malignant tumor was removed from his
chest and left lung, and within several months he was on location
making another movie.
More recently, he found himself the
target of much hate mail from the right wing, whose political idol
he had been, after he supported President Carter's espousal of the
Panama Canal treaties. He did not mind. Although his basic views had
not moderated, his tolerance, it seemed, had. He had even shown up
at a function to congratulate Jane Fonda, who was to the left what
he was to the right, on winning a screen award.
Mr. Wayne made his last public
appearance at the Academy Awards ceremony in April, where he drew an
emotional standing ovation when he strode out on stage to present
the Oscar for best picture.
He was recently presented with a
special Congressional medal of the kind given to such national
figures as the Wright Brothers.
Between his first starring role in
"The Big Trail" in 1930, and his last one, as the most
celebrated gunslinger in the West who finds he is dying of cancer in
"The Shootist," in 1976, Mr. Wayne shot his way through
generations of film fans with little change in style or personality.
He had consciously adapted his posture for that first movie and
retained it. He was sometimes inseparable from it in the flesh.
Watched Movies Being Made
"When I started, I knew I was no
actor and I went to work on this Wayne thing," he once
recalled. "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."
His entrance into films was as
fortuitous as any made by a young fellow who grew up near the
Hollywood badlands. But the Wayne saga actually started much farther
east, in the small town of Winterset, Iowa, where he was born May
26, 1907, and was named Marion Michael Morrison.
His father, Clyde L. Morrison, had a
drugstore, but when Marion was 6 years old, his father, because of
ill health, moved the family to Southern California and became a
homesteader with an 80-acre farm. Not long after, the family settled
in Glendale, where Mr. Morrison again went and opened a pharmacy.
His store was in the same building as a theater, and young Marion,
who rose at 4 A.M. to deliver newspapers and then, after school and
football practice, delivered orders from the store, went to the
movies four or five times a week, free.
Even earlier, when he was 7, he had
learned about horses and played cowboy. In Glendale, he saw movies
being made at the Triangle Studios, where they often shot outdoor
scenes. The link between horse and camera was yet to be forged, but
the influences were there from the beginning. Along the way he had
acquired the nickname "Duke." It came from an Airedale
terrier he had had, he used to say as he debunked press releases
that tried to explain the moniker as some sort of rubbed-off
nobility.
Came to Ford's Attention
He worked as truck driver, fruit
picker, soda jerk and ice hauler and was an honor student and a
member of an outstanding football team at high school. His athletic
talents brought him a football scholarship at the University of
Southern California, but in his second year he broke an ankle and
dropped out.
While he was still at school, he got a
job, as other football players did, as a scenery mover at Fox Films.
John Ford was attracted to the youth's hulking physique and made him
a "fourth-assistant prop boy." When Mr. Ford was making a
submarine film on location in the channel off Catalina Island, the
regular stuntmen refused to go into the water because of rough seas.
Mr. Ford asked the prop boy if he would. He did, immediately, and
became part of the Ford team.
In an early film, Republic Pictures
gave him a screen credit as Michael Burn and, in another, as Duke
Morrison. When Raoul Walsh cast him as the star of "The Big
Trail," his expensive, $2 million western, the director thought
that Marion was too sissified a name for a western hero, and
"John Wayne" was born.
Rode in 40 Westerns
The movie was a flop. It had been shot
as a talking picture on 72-millimeter film, a "superwestern"
designed for large screens that required protection equipment that
few movie houses were equipped with.
After two nonwesterns, Mr. Wayne
retreated into short-order horse operas. Between 1933 and 1939, he
made more than 40 westerns, all Grade B or C undertakings,
interspersed with several that took him off the range but not into
any particular recognition.
Then, like a good guy riding in to
relieve the oppressed, his old benefactor, Mr. Ford, came along to
cast Mr. Wayne as the Ringo Kid in the Oscar-winning
"Stagecoach," the 1939 movie that took westerns from the
Saturday afternoon for-kids-only category and attracted the
attention of more intellectual film critics. It was a turning point
also for Mr. Wayne.
His next major role found him in a
milieu far from the cactus sets. He played a simple Swedish lad in
the crew of a freighter in "The Voyage Home," Mr. Ford's
1940 film based on the sea plays of Eugene O'Neill.
Mr. Wayne's work from that point reads
like a bill of lading of popular Hollywood wares. He starred with
Marlene Dietrich in three films: "Seven Sinners" (1940),
"Pittsburgh" (1943) and "The Spoilers" (1942).
Others included Cecil B. De Mille's "Reap the Wild Wind"
(1942), as well as a slew of World War II movies that embraced Mr.
Ford's "They Were Expendable" in 1945.
Later came "Fort Apache" and
"Red River," in 1948, and "Three Godfathers" and
"She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," both in 1949. In 1952, Mr.
Wayne showed off to best effect as the young Irish-American returned
to Ireland in Mr. Ford's "The Quiet Man." It was a
much-acclaimed film and is still a frequent feature on television.
Invested in 'The Alamo'
By the late 1940's, Mr. Wayne had
already been transformed from a dashing young adventurer to an older
one, no less dashing, but in a somewhat more restrained tempo. In
"Red River," directed by Mr. Hawks, Mr. Wayne portrayed a
ruthless cattle baron, not altogether a good guy, but one with some
depth to him. In this instance, Montgomery Clift, the co-star,
represented the forces for good.
Mr. Wayne invested $1.2 million in 1960
to make "The Alamo," about the fight between the
Americans--the good guys--and the Mexicans--the bad guys. He played
Davy Crockett. The picture was very dear to his heart because, he
said, "We wanted to re-create a moment in history that will
show this generation of Americans what their country still stands
for . . what some of their forebears went through to win what they
had to have or die*liberty and freedom."
He was bitterly disappointed when the
film failed. However, he quickly went on to other work: "The
Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," "Hatari" and "The
Longest Day," all in 1962; "How the West Was Won" in
1963, and "El Dorado" in 1967, another film directed by
Mr. Hawks.
In 1969, Mr. Wayne was almost
universally hailed when he starred in "True Grit,"
directed by Henry Hathaway. Mr. Wayne played a disreputable,
one-eyed, drunken, fat old man who was a Federal Marshal called
Rooster Cogburn. In 1970, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences awarded him an Oscar for his portrayal.
The success of "True Grit"
led to "Rooster Cogburn," in 1975, in which he co-starred
with Katharine Hepburn in her first western.
Mr. Wayne starred in his first
television special, "Swing Out, Sweet Land," a paean of
patriotism, in 1970, and later became well-known for various
television appearances. He never made a television series and had
deep reservations about the medium's approach to the western.
"Television has a tendency to
reach a little," he observed, referring to television westerns'
propensities for psychological insights. "In their westerns,
they are getting away from the simplicity and the fact that those
men were fighting the elements and the rawness of nature and didn't
have time for this couch-work."
His anti-Communist sentiments led Mr.
Wayne to help found the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation
of American Ideals in 1944, and he was its president for two terms.
The organization, which eventually
disbanded, was accused of having given the names of suspected
Communists in the film industry to the House Committee on
Un-American Activities, although Mr. Wayne said later that he had
never been party to any such thing.
Once, interviewed about civil rights,
he said: "I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are
educated to the point of responsibility. I don't believe in giving
authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible
people."
He said that when he was in school, he
was a "socialist," but not for long. He said that he was a
rebel, but not one like the youngsters of the late 60's.
"Mine is a rebellion against the
monotony of life," he said. "The rebellion in these
kids*particularly the S.D.S.'ers and those groups*seems to be a kind
of dissension by rote."
In his later years, Mr. Wayne, who had
invested in oil and also in a shrimp business in Panama, among other
things, became more financially conservative than he had been. He
had not kept a very tight hand on his money earlier, and at one
point realized he was not as well off as he had thought.
However, he was not impoverished. He
lived with his third wife, Pilar Palette Wayne, who was born in
Peru, in an 11-room, seven-bathroom, $175,000 house in Newport
Beach, Calif., where he had a 135-foot yacht. He owned cattle
ranches in Stanfield and Springerville, Ariz.
Mr. Wayne's first two marriages, to
Josephine Saenz and Esperanzo Bauer, also Latin Americans, ended in
divorces. He had seven children from his marriages, and more than 15
grandchildren.
by
Richard Shephard
