The Duke

OK...so I know this isn't really the "Duke"...but he is a respectable likeness of one of my film heroes. Last night we attended a game for the Fort Worth Cats, a minor league baseball team. Prior to the game they had these cowboy actors do a simulated gun fight. This man had obviously patterned himself after the one and only John Wayne.

Did you know that the "Duke" was born as Marion Robert Morrison. In 1999 he was named by the American Film Institute the 13th among the greatest male starts of all time.

Do you know how he got his start in films?
Well...he applied for the US Naval Academy, but was turned down. He then took a football scholarship to the University of Southern California and studied as pre-law. Tom Mix (a western star) got Wayne a job in the prop department in exchange for USC football tickets. An accident ended Wayne's athletic career and without his scholarship he couldn't afford to stay in school, but Wayne had started a friendship with director John Ford while working in the props department...and soon "pilgrim" the Duke hit the silver screens.

Wayne was born May 26th 1907 and died June 11th 1979. This post is my tribute to him and his movies.