John Wayne: American Screen Persona

Part  Four of Nine:

Part One,   Part Two, Part Three

John Wayne’s screen persona can be described in terms of some pecific and basic elements, the most important of which are:

Forceful screen presence

Physical and moral strength

Virile masculinity

Honesty and sincerity

Distinctly American heroes

Indestructibility.

The typical Wayne’s screen hero is inner-directed, charismatic, and independent.  He played characters that are often alone and lonely–in conflict with their marital and familial duties.

The single most important element of his persona was serving as a role model for soldiers and cowboys, adults and children–teaching them skills, a code of ethics, and a way of life.

Wayne’s physical presence was probably his strongest asset, a quality he has always possessed–even before he developed as an actor or became a movie star.

Louise Brooks, the beautiful silent star, recalled meeting Wayne on the set of an unmemorable Western, Overland Stage Raiders, one of her last screen appearances.  On the first day of shooting, she observed two figures, “one was a cherub, five feet tall, carrying a bound script; the other a cowboy, six feet four inches tall, wearing a lovely smile.  The cherub was director George Sherman; the star, Wayne.”  “Looking up at him,” she thought, “this is no actor but the hero of all mythology, miraculously brought to life.” 

A giant of a man, Wayne rose to 6’4″ and weighed well over 220 pounds at the peak of his career.

He was so big, he tended to overshadow those around him.  Everything he did on screen–talking, swearing, fighting–was with full force and gusto.

Wayne’s bigness became central to his screen image in both real and symbolic ways.  His pictures abounded with references to his size: he played the title roles in Big Jim McLain and Big Jake, for example.

Even Wayne’s enemies–real or fictional–had to be big, in order to stress the strength and fortitude that it took to battle and conquer them.

Wayne himself referred to his 1964 successful bout with cancer as “The Big C,” thus coining one of his most quoted lines, “I licked the Big C.”

Audiences and critics also described him in terms of size or force.  Numerous reviews of his pictures were entitled, “Wayne is bigger than the film,” or “The Big Duke does it again.”  In addition to size, Wayne’s physical presence was endowed with steely gray-blue eyes, a cold cynical look and an ironic (lopsided) grin.  His voice, incisive and curled at the edges, was particularly effective in expressing two contradictory feelings: contempt but also emotion (in romantic scenes).

One of Wayne’s most distinctive trademarks was his walk, which he learned from Yakima Canutt.  It was a slow, though sure, walk, sort of a shuffle with the cutting in of the hands across the body.  Many actors tried to imitate it, but as Dean Martin observed, “nobody walks like John Wayne.”

“He’s so big, most people don’t realize how graceful he is,” said director Howard Hawks, “he’s as light on his foot as a dancer.”

Edward Dmytryk, who directed him in Back to Bataan, reported that Wayne threw his huge body “like a lightweight gymnast.”

Katharine Hepburn, who co-starred with Wayne at the end of his career, described him as a man “with great legs and tight buttocks, a real great seat, and small sensitive feet.”  “He carries his huge frame lightly, like a feather,” she remarked, and his walk was “very fine, light.” 

At the suggestion that his walk was sexy, Wayne simmered, “God, I get hot when they say I wiggled my rear and all that stuff.”  But when challenged by Playboy magazine, as to whether sexuality was still part of his magnetism, he conceded, “Well, at one time in my career, I guess sexuality was part of my appeal.”

But in 1970, he said: “I’m 63 years old now, how the hell I know whether I still convey that.”  “All that crap comes from the way I walk,” Wayne once explained, “there’s evidently a virility in it, otherwise why do you deep mentioning it?”  He denied, however, he was “conscious” of his particular walk,” though he  agreed that “I must walk different from other people, but I haven’t gone to any school to learn how.”

Wayne’s presence projected tremendous strength, physical as well as moral.  President Reagan claimed that everything about Wayne, “his stature, his style, his convictions–conveyed enduring strength.”.

Katharine Hepburn recalled that during the shoot of Rooster Cogburn, she leaned against his as often as possible, even when the script did not call for it, because “it was like leaning against a strong tree.”

Names of screen characters sometimes suggest personality traits.  The names of Wayne’s protagonists often signified physical strength.  For example, his hero’s name was Rocklin in Tall in the Saddle, Robert Marmaduke Hightower in Three Godfathers, Wilder in Blood Alley, Jack Cutter in The Comancheros, and Captain Rockwell in In Harm’s Way.  At times, his screen name implied more than just physical force.  In McLintock! his hero’s name was George Washington McLintock, and in both McLintock! and Big Jake he played a respected citizen with towns named after him.

Wayne’s image glorified virile masculinity–fans admired him for being a man’s man.  “It is not enough for an actor to look the part and say his lines well,” John Ford said of Wayne, “something else has to come across to audiences, something which no director can instill or create: the quality of being a real man.”

Wayne hismelf believed that he was the stuff that real men are made of.  Though his screen roles varied, they shared some common links. the most important of which was virility. Whether he played a soldier or a cowboy, Wayne was always the two-fisted, iron-willed man.