Tag: The Duke
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John Wayne’s Hidden Depths: A Riveting Journey in ‘Quiet Man’ and ‘Yellow Ribbon’ at Stanford Theatre
In the popular imagination of John “Duke” Wayne, there’s a soft side to him that goes unpraised: the delicious romantic, the cool hipster or relaxed compadre who doesn’t want to get in anyone’s way. We tend to think of Wayne as a prowling neon sign of America, an uncomplicated cliche: a hard, indestructible cowboy, more…
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John Wayne’s Last Movie, The Shootist, Unveiled Through Co-Star Rick Lenz’s Candid Memories
John Wayne’s The Shootist co-star Rick Lenz has shared incredible memories of working with Duke on his final movie, confessing what surprised him about the Western legend and shutting down an old rumour about his anger on set. John Wayne’s final movie The Shootist (which is on ITV4 today) hit cinemas in 1976, just three…
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A Cinematic Tribute: John Wayne Estate Reflects on True Grit’s Oscar Win 10 Years After the Duke’s Passing
John Wayne was a titan of the Golden Age of Hollywood who has become an icon for many Americans and film fans around the world. After years of poor health, Duke finally succumbed to cancer on June 11, 1979. This was exactly 10 years to the day after True Grit was released in US movie…
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A Journey Back to 1976 – Rick Lenz Reflects on John Wayne’s Last Movie, “The Shootist,” and Dispels On-Set Rumors
For the past 15 years, Duke had been struggling with severe health problems after having had a cancerous lung and some ribs removed in 1964. The Western legend would tenaciously work through action sequences, often relying on an oxygen mask he kept secret so as not to taint his macho cinematic image. By the time…
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Fort Apache: The Movie That Breathed New Life into John Wayne’s Waning Stardom
John Wayne might’ve been full of macho swagger on the big screen, but off-screen he was given to fretting. A large portion of the blame for this could be placed at John Ford’s doorstep. The A-list Hollywood filmmaker was nearly instrumental in making Wayne a full-fledged movie star, but he’d made the actor earn it…
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John Wayne’s Hidden Shame: The 3 Western Movies That Left Him Red-Faced
John Wayne was a towering figure of Hollywood’s Golden Age in the ’40s and ’50s, so it’s hard to imagine The Duke being embarrassed by making these three Western movies. In the ’20s, Wayne started out making pre-Code movies that capitalized on his college football days such as The Brown of Harvard but wanted to…
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Busting Myths and Sharing Secrets: Rick Lenz’s Heartfelt Stories from John Wayne’s Final Film
John Wayne’s final movie The Shootist hit cinemas in 1976, just three years before he died. For the past 15 years, Duke had been struggling with severe health problems after having had a cancerous lung and some ribs removed in 1964. The Western legend would tenaciously work through action sequences, often relying on an oxygen…
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How ‘Stagecoach’ Catapulted John Wayne to Stardom, Riding and Fighting His Way to the Top
I watched an early John Wayne movie on the Grit Network recently and found it awful. I didn’t see the start of it so I don’t know the title, but it had been colorized with an unnatural look. I didn’t expect much of the dialogue, but Wayne’s singing was simply horrible. He was serenading his…
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John Wayne’s Arizona Affection: Unraveling the Bond That Made the Desert State His Beloved Home
Corrections & Clarifications: A previous version of this story gave an incorrect year for John Wayne’s death. He died on June 11, 1979. All right, pilgrim, Hollywood may have been where Western movie icon John Wayne made his fame and fortune, but he clearly also left a mark – and perhaps a piece of his…
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Unveiling 1968’s Legendary Onset Prank: How Rock Hudson Earned John Wayne’s Respect on The Undefeated
Back in 1968, having shot his Oscar-winning performance as Rooster Cogburn in True Grit, John Wayne made another Western with Rock Hudson. The Undefeated followed the French Imperial intervention in Mexico during the 1860s and was loosely based on a Confederate General’s real escape south of the US border after the American Civil War. Originally…