Earlier this year (2011), the Harris Poll released its annual list of America’s 10 favorite movie stars. There, among today’s big names — Depp and Jolie and Clooney — was a lone name from the past: John Wayne. He finished third — 32 years after his death. Such enduring popularity served as a reminder that […]
Read MoreL.N. Resident Remembers John Wayne, Who Died 33 Years Ago Today
Photographer Barton Mac Leod the actor known as ‘The Duke;’ who was larger than life. He met him several times and also worked with him on the 1968 film, “The Green Berets.” “The Duke,” a.k.a. John Wayne, died 33 years ago, on June 11, 1979. Wayne died at the age of 72 of lung and […]
Read MoreJohn Wayne’s daughter-in-law oversees release of ‘Hondo’ on widescreen Blu-ray
The general public hasn’t seen “Hondo” ride across a wide screen since its initial 1953 release. Even then, most small-town theaters hadn’t yet converted to CinemaScope-size projection. Consequently, most John Wayne fans have only seen the film in the old square format on screens both large and small. But the Duke’s daughter-in-law has finally done […]
Read MoreA.J. Fenady Remembers the Duke
That America craves strength in the face of metastasizing challenges and threats, within and without, makes John Wayne, who died thirty three years ago today, more relevant than ever. Recently I spoke with A.J. Fenady about “the Duke” to mark the 105th anniversary of his birth on May 26. I interviewed A.J. at his offices […]
Read MoreIowa’s bold claim to John Wayne
WINTERSET, Iowa — In the tiny living room of the tiny clapboard house where John Wayne was born, our tour guide explained that “The Duke’s” family moved to this town southwest of Des Moines in 1906 so his father could work in a pharmacy. They left in 1911 for Wayne’s father to take a similar […]
Read MoreJohn Wayne, World War II and the Draft
John Wayne has been on people’s minds lately. Dick Cavett recently wrote a nostalgic New York Times piece about his lone meeting with Hollywood’s “Duke.” He also told of the meeting on the Dennis Miller Show. Meanwhile, liberal author Gary Wills, presumably an expert because of his 1992 book John Wayne’s America; the Politics of […]
Read MoreLong Live the Duke
John Wayne: Gone for 30 years, and still with us. An NRO Symposium Thirty years ago today, John Wayne died. Yet Americans continue to identify him as one of their favorite actors. To commemorate his life, we’ve asked a panel to discuss the man, his movies, and his legacies. ANDREW KLAVAN Any movie with John […]
Read MoreThe Duke’s co-star
A movie pilgrimage to Monument Valley MONUMENT VALLEY, Ariz./Utah—He remembered the first time he saw this place. It was October 1948, and the chill of high-country autumn had already set in. He was here to work with Victor McLaglen and Ben Johnson and John Agar and Arthur Shields and John Ford and the tall guy from […]
Read MoreBody of Work – Jorge Rivero, king of the real Mexican cinema
JORGE RIVERO WAS THE MAN. IN THE LATE 1970s and early 1980s, he was what every young Latino wanted to be. In film after film he’d flex his peaked biceps and perfectly chiseled abs as he played everything from a gunslinger to a playboy to a priest. He resembled a young Robert Redford, except that […]
Read MoreSunset in the West
In the not so very long ago I started a talk in a properly sombre way with the single sentence: “Yakima Canutt is dead!” Now don’t think I didn’t calculate the shock value of a line lamenting the death of a man that probably not one listener in 10,000 had ever heard of. It was, […]
Read More