X-Nico

32 unusual facts about John Wayne


All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes

I just had this image of the average American hero – somebody like a Clint Eastwood or a John Wayne.

Anna Der-Vartanian

Her Executive Officer was Capt. William J. Lederer and the office conducted tours to the USS Arizona Memorial, including notable visitors such as James Michener, Margaret Bourke-White, and John Wayne.

Bikini Planet

People eventually forget what they were taught, and learn from the past through old John Wayne films.

Black Boys

A fictionalized version of the Black Boys Rebellion was depicted in the 1939 Hollywood film Allegheny Uprising, starring John Wayne as James Smith.

Buck Knives

Buck Knives has produced art knives for and under license with other companies and organizations such as: the National Rifle Association, the Boy Scouts of America, Colt Firearms, Anheuser-Busch (Budweiser), Republic Studios, Harley Davidson, Indian Motorcycles, Ford Motor Company, Chevy Truck, Elvis Presley Estate, John Wayne Estate, Roy Clark, Purina, NHRA, Monroe Auto and Ducks Unlimited.

Can opener

They were also known as a "John Wayne" because the actor was shown in a training film opening a can of K-rations.

Comanche language

In the 1956 film "The Searchers", starring John Wayne, there are several badly pronounced Comanche words interspersed, such as "Nawyecka" (nooyʉka 'move camp around') and "timoway" (tʉmʉʉ 'buy, trade').

Desmond Ford

While Burnside was a dynamic presenter, Ford's biographer Milton Hook describes him as a fundamentalist (see: historic Adventism), and draws an analogy with a rugged, gung-ho cowboy like a John Wayne character.

Downings

The dunes that connect the Rosguill peninsula to the mainland are also home to the Rosapenna Links course designed by Old Tom Morris, and although the original hotel and clubhouse that was patronised by the likes of John Wayne and Errol Flynn burnt down in the sixties, the new buildings seek to emulate the charm of the originals.

Earl Dwire

Noted for his almost frightening long face, Dwire worked mainly as a villain in westerns, including Riders of Destiny (1933) with John Wayne in the first singing cowboy movie and The Trail Beyond (1934) opposite Wayne, Noah Beery, Sr., and Noah Beery, Jr. He also appeared in Bob Steele vehicles such as Alias John Law (1935).

Fort Bedford

The incident was portrayed in the 1939 Hollywood film Allegheny Uprising, starring John Wayne as James Smith.

Fort Parker massacre

John Wayne's character Ethan Edwards, in the John Ford Western The Searchers, was modeled by author Alan Le May after Parker and others affected by child abductions.

Gray Angels

The Marines used a few of their planes to form an aerial formation-flight demonstration team, dubbed The Flying Leathernecks (which was also the title of a 1951 film starring John Wayne, concerned with Marine aviation activity in World War II).

Grierson's Raid

The movie The Horse Soldiers, directed by John Ford, and starring John Wayne, William Holden and Constance Towers, and the Harold Sinclair novel of the same name on which it is based, are fictional variations of Grierson's Raid.

Howard W. Gilmore

In the movie Operation Pacific, John Wayne's character as Executive Officer of USS Thunderfish orders Thunderfish submerged, leaving his wounded Commanding Officer (played by Ward Bond) on the bridge.

Isotta Fraschini

An Isotta also makes a featured appearance in the 1946 film Without Reservations with John Wayne and Claudette Colbert.

Jeff Cravath

He graduated from Santa Ana High School in Santa Ana, California, and entered the University of Southern California, starring as a center on the football team from 1924 to 1926; among his teammates was a young John Wayne and Ward Bond.

John Wayne Elementary School

Dedicated in honor of John Wayne on October 28, 1982, "John Wayne Elementary School Day".

John Wayne Shot Me

Allegedly due to a legal issue about their bandname with the inheritors of the late actor Marion Michael Morrison, also known as John Wayne, the band decided to split up in December 2006 .

Jumbo Kingdom

Over 30 million visitors have visited Jumbo Kingdom, including Queen Elizabeth II, John Wayne, Tom Cruise, and Gong Li.

Madison County, Iowa

Madison County is famous for being the county where John Wayne was born, and for a number of covered bridges.

MV Westward

Among the many people who have traveled aboard the Westward are A. C. Gilbert, inventor of the Erector Set, George Eastman (of Eastman Kodak), banker Paul Mellon, George Pabst of Pabst Brewing Company, investor E.F. Hutton and his wife Marjorie Merriweather Post, Walt Disney, John Wayne, Phil Harris, Fibber McGee & Molly and Amos & Andy.

Okolehao

In Operation Pacific, a 1951 John Wayne movie, when Wayne's submarine crew get arrested for crashing and busting up a luau with the local Hawaiians asking for damages beyond Wayne's budget, he finds out the locals had illegal "okoolihau" which caused his men to get drunk.

Paramarines

Though never actually used as such in reality, the Paramarines were mentioned in both the 1944 RKO film Marine Raiders and the 1965 John Wayne movie In Harm's Way.

Paula Fletcher

In 2008, Fletcher requested Leslieville’s Duke of York Tavern to paint over a mural of a rifle-wielding John Wayne at the corner of Queen Street East and Leslie Street.

Pensacola and Fort Barrancas Railroad

The trestle across Bayou Grande, immediately north of Chevalier Field on NAS Pensacola, was featured in the 1957 MGM film "Wings of Eagles" starring John Wayne, with a steam-powered freight train crossing the span during a floatplane buzz job.

Pleasures of the Harbor

Ochs composed it after watching a screening of John Ford's 1940 film The Long Voyage Home, which starred one of Ochs' movie idols, John Wayne.

Popi

He was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama but lost to John Wayne in True Grit.

The Three Mesquiteers

The Three Mesquiteers is the umbrella title for a Republic Pictures series of 51 Western B-movies released between 1936 and 1943, including 8 films starring John Wayne.

For example, from 1937 to the end of the series in 1943, The Motion Picture Herald consistently ranked the series in its top ten, reaching a peak of 5th place in 1938, when a pre-Stagecoach John Wayne was the series lead.

Virginia and Truckee 22 Inyo

In 1962 she played the Southern Pacific #9 in the John Wayne feature McLintock!.

Washington, Mississippi

Portions of Disney's 1993 movie The Adventures of Huck Finn were filmed here and shot in Natchez, as well as the 1959 John Wayne film The Horse Soldiers.


Alan Le May

He also wrote or co-wrote the screenplays for Reap the Wild Wind (1942; with John Wayne and Paulette Goddard) and Blackbeard the Pirate (1952; with Robert Newton), North West Mounted Police (1940; for Cecil B. DeMille), and the novel for Along Came Jones (1945; with Gary Cooper), as well as a score of other screenplays and an assortment of novels and short stories.

Betty Compson

In 1930, she made a version of The Spoilers in which she played the role later portrayed by similar-looking Marlene Dietrich in the 1942 remake, while Gary Cooper played the part subsequently acted in the later film by John Wayne, perhaps the only time that Cooper and Wayne played precisely the same role.

Brauntex Theatre

Many members of the staff recalls many highlights of the early movie operations such as the time that Pedro Gonzalez appeared while filming the John Wayne classic, The Alamo.

Doyle Dykes

Dykes is an avid collector of old Western movies, including the films of John Wayne, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and Steve McQueen.

Empire Ranch

Around the same time, the ranch was featured in several Western films starring many actors, such as John Wayne, Gregory Peck and Steve McQueen.

Esperanza Baur

Esperanza Baur Díaz (c. 1924 – March 11, 1961) was a Mexican actress, and was the second wife of John Wayne.

Ford Island

Several motion pictures were filmed on Ford Island, including In Harm's Way starring John Wayne, Tora Tora Tora, and the 2001 Michael Bay picture Pearl Harbor.

Glenn Corbett

In movies, Corbett also starred with John Wayne in the 1970 film Chisum, as sheriff Pat Garrett, opposite Wayne's role as Lincoln County rancher John Chisum.

Great Western Arms Company

Wilson presented John Wayne with an engraved blued pair with smooth ivory grips that Wayne used in The Shootist.

Hollywood Athletic Club

During its early years as a health club, its membership included Johnny Weissmuller, Errol Flynn, Charlie Chaplin, John Wayne, Walt Disney,John Ford, Douglas Fairbanks Sr, Mary Pickford, Cecil B de Mille, Cornel Wilde, Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Frances X. Bushman, Howard Hughes, Joan Crawford and Rudolph Valentino, Mae West, Walt Disney, Buster Crabbe and Pola Negri.

Hotel Bolívar

In the 1940s and 1950s, the hotel attracted Hollywood movie stars such as Orson Welles, Ava Gardner, and John Wayne, where many also discovered the local cocktail, the Pisco Sour.

Jaunting car

This form of vehicle also featured in the 1952 movie The Quiet Man, particularly to notable comedic effect during the first formal courting scene involving the characters played by John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, and Barry Fitzgerald.

Jimmy Lile

In addition to creating the Rambo knives, Lile designed and made several Bowie knives that he presented to Governor Bill Clinton and U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, and Gerald R. Ford, Jr. Other owners of his work included John Wayne, Peter Fonda, Fess Parker, Bo Derek, and Johnny Cash.

King Kung Fu

Police Captain J.W. Duke (who resembles a certain Western Movie star) and his patriotic-helmeted little assistant Officer Pilgrim get involved in the city-wide chase along with the phony-looking ape's love interest Rae Fey (a beautiful blond Pizza Hut waitress/model), Rae Fey is the only one who understands that Fu just wants to see the sights like any other tourist.

Norma Lyon

She later expanded to creating other sculptures, including Garth Brooks, Elvis Presley, John Wayne, Peanuts characters, a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, American Gothic by Grant Wood and the Last Supper.

Poverty Row

Republic began by releasing serial shorts and Westerns with Gene Autry in the 1930s before eventually riding the success of eventual superstar John Wayne and embarking on more ambitious projects, such as 1953's Wayne hit, The Quiet Man.

The Lawless Nineties

The Lawless Nineties is a 1936 American Western film directed by Joseph Kane and starring John Wayne and Lane Chandler as federal agents in Wyoming.

Set in the 1890s, undercover federal agents John Tipton (John Wayne) and Bridger (Lane Chandler) heads for Crocket City Wyoming to supervise the vote on whether to join the Union.

They Were Expendable

They Were Expendable is a 1945 American war film directed by John Ford and starring Robert Montgomery and John Wayne and featuring Donna Reed.

Trojan Knights

Famous alumni of the organization include actors John Wayne and Tom Selleck, who were also both members of Sigma Chi, Disneyland's First President Jack Lindquist, the "winningest" college baseball coach of all time Raoul "Rod" Dedeaux, Nevada Senator Dean A. Heller, Richard Nixon's USC Mafia Members Donald H. Segretti and Dwight Chapin, and real estate developer Rick J. Caruso.

Velvet painting

They often depict images of Elvis Presley (see Velvet Elvis), Dale Earnhardt, John Wayne, Jesus, Native Americans, dogs playing poker, wolves, and cowboys, and the colors are often bright and vivid to contrast the dark velvet.

Victor A. Gangelin

Along with his Academy Award-nominated films, his 47 film and television credits include the John Wayne epics The Searchers and The Alamo as well as episodes of The Roy Rogers Show and My Mother the Car.

Yellowstone Kelly

The film was originally supposed to be directed by John Ford with John Wayne in the Clint Walker role but Ford and Wayne opted to make The Horse Soldiers instead.

Ylla

Her life work of photographing animals inspired famous movie director and producer, Howard Hawks, so much that he had his script writer, Leigh Brackett, change the script to create one of the main characters based on Ylla for his blockbuster movie, Hatari!, starring John Wayne.