John Wayne: His
most puzzling legacy
He could ride a horse okay, and he rode quite a few
By Heidi Dawley
Jan 28, 2008
In one sense, John Wayne is quite dead. It's officially recorded that he passed away in 1979. That seems like a long time ago. It was. But John Wayne never really died, as anyone who watches TV knows, and today he's more alive than ever.
The real proof comes once a year and in the oddest way. That's when the Harris Poll releases its list of the 10 actors most revered by Americans. Each year, John Wayne makes the list, right up there with Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks and Johnny Depp. He's made the list each year since it was first compiled, in 1993.
In the 2007 poll he was No. 6. He’s never been lower than seventh. In 1995, he was No. 1.
This year, Wayne has swaggered onto the list--again.
Actors come and go, rising and falling in popularity, coming onto the list and dropping off, some of them quite gifted actors, but Wayne never fades.
What makes it all the more curious is that Wayne is the only dead actor to make the list, ever. Do Americans not know he's dead?
Also, keep in mind, and this is not to disrespect the late film star, that John Wayne was no actor in the way, say, Hanks is a real actor. He was big and he could ride a horse and he could memorize lines with the rest of them. But what came out of his mouth were not the words of an actor but of a big guy who could ride a horse and couldn't act so good.
Consider him against other actors of his generation, of the '30s, '40s and '50s. He was not Gary Cooper, not by a long short. He was no Humphrey Bogart, no Jimmy Cagney, no Edward G. Robinson, and no Clark Gable. He couldn't hold a candle to Frank Sinatra, who was first a singer anyhow.
Consider too that Wayne was in what seemed an endless slew of mediocre to bad movies. There were exceptions, and one was "Stagecoach," the classic John Ford movie that won two Oscars out of five nominations. Wayne was not nominated.
But fans, all sorts of fans, loved him, and still do. The Harris poll, which involved questioning 1,114 U.S. adults, reveals Wayne's popularity is across the board. He doesn’t pop with just one demographic as some of the stars did.
“It was everyone that voted for him,” says Regina Corso, director of the Harris Poll.
He’s particularly popular with boomers (those 43 to 61) and matures, those over 62, but generation Xers, the 31-to-42s, vote for him too. Only the youngest of respondents, the echo boomers ages 18 to 30, fail to send many votes his way.
Wayne is more popular with men and Republicans, but women and Democrats sent votes his way too.
“It’s amazing,” says Corso. In fact, one of the first things the Harris people do is to look at the results to see if Wayne has made it again.
What gives?
If as Woody Allen has so famously quipped, 90 percent of life is showing up, Wayne showed up the most, and by far. While tallies vary, he appeared in some 170 movies, far more than any other Hollywood actor. Gable made around 80, as did Bogart, while Cary Grant was in around 70.
Wayne's career was also the longest. He began in the '20s at the tail end of the silents--he was a young USC football player--and he kept at it another five decades. His last movie was “The Shootist” in 1976. It was at the end of his career that he got an Oscar for "True Grit."
His movies are all over television, lots more than those of any other actors of his time.
But another reason for Wayne's popularity is that the character he played never went out of style. Grant was finished off in the '60s when fine tailoring and style gave way to bell bottoms and long hair. Bogart was a skilled actor but his genre was the hard-boiled detective movie, which went out of fashion in the post-war boom of the '50s.
Wayne was the gruff, scruffy, not-very-handsome protagonist who was awkward around ladies and always quick to lose his cool and pull out his pistol in the face of danger. That just happens to be the sort of person Americans can identify with, and do.
And he spoke to a time that's passed into history, as Robert Thompson, the pop culture maven at Syracuse University, observes.
“He symbolizes that pre-1960s image of America--strength, old-fashionedness, machismo,” says Thompson. “Some of the appeal of John Wayne, especially to younger people, is that he is such an extreme example of a culture that has passed us by.”
Meanwhile, elsewhere in popcult, the new comedy “Meet the Spartans” topped the box office over the weekend with $18.7 million in ticket sales. The new Sly Stallone movie “Rambo” came in at No. 2 with $18.2 million brought in.
In DVD rentals for the week ended Jan. 20, according to IMDb.com, the new release “Good Luck Chuck” debuted at No. 1, with another new release, “Mr. Woodcock,” claiming the No. 2 position.
On iTunes this morning, Flo Rida’s “Low” was No. 1 for the 11th straight week, while Rihanna’s “Don’t Stop the Music” was at No. 2 for the second week in a row.
And in books, Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat, Pray, Love” was No. 1 for the seventh week in a row on The New York Times’ paperback nonfiction bestsellers list for the week ended Jan. 19, and it also moved back up to No. 1 on USA Today’s chart for the week ended Jan. 20.
|
TOP MOVIES
Weekend Box Office Estimates
Weekend of Jan. 25-27, 2008
|
|
Rank
|
MOVIE
|
Engagements
|
Box office (millions)
|
|
1
|
Meet the Spartans (Fox)
|
2,605
|
$18.73
|
|
2
|
Rambo (Lionsgate)
|
2,751
|
$18.15
|
|
3
|
27 Dresses (Fox)
|
3,074
|
$13.60
|
|
4
|
Cloverfield (
Paramount)
|
3,411
|
$12.70
|
|
5
|
Untraceable (Sony)
|
2,368
|
$11.20
|
|
6
|
Juno (Fox Searchlight)
|
2,426
|
$10.30
|
|
7
|
The Bucket List (Warner Bros.)
|
2,915
|
$10.20
|
|
8
|
There Will Be Blood (
Paramount Vantage)
|
885
|
$4.89
|
|
9
|
National Treasure: Book of Secrets (
Buena Vista)
|
2,154
|
$4.66
|
|
10
|
Mad Money (Overture Films)
|
2,470
|
$4.61
|
|
Source: Yahoo Movies
|
|
IMDb TOP DVD RENTALS
Week ending January 20, 2008
|
|
Rank
|
TITLE
|
Last week
|
|
1
|
Good Luck Chuck
|
-
|
|
2
|
Mr. Woodcock
|
-
|
|
3
|
3:10 to
Yuma
|
1
|
|
4
|
Rush Hour 3
|
3
|
|
5
|
War
|
2
|
|
6
|
The Kingdom
|
4
|
|
7
|
Death Sentence
|
5
|
|
8
|
The Heartbreak Kid
|
7
|
|
9
|
Resident Evil: Extinction
|
6
|
|
10
|
The Simpsons Movie
|
8
|
|
Source: IMDB
|
|
ITUNES TOP 8 SONG DOWNLOADS
for week ended Wednesday, January 28, 2008
|
|
Rank
|
TITLE
|
|
1
|
Low, Flo Rida feat. T-Pain
|
|
2
|
Don’t Stop the Music, Rihanna
|
|
3
|
With You, Chris Brown
|
|
4
|
Love Song, Sara Bareilles
|
|
5
|
Take You There, Sean Kingston
|
|
6
|
Piece of Me, Britney Spears
|
|
7
|
Apologize, Timbaland
|
|
8
|
No One, Alicia Keys
|
|
Source: iTunes
|
|
NEW YORK
TIMES BESTSELLING BOOKS
Week ending January 19, 2008
|
|
Fiction (hardback)
|
|
Rank
|
TITLE
|
Last week
|
Weeks on chart
|
|
1
|
Plum
Lucky by Janet Evanovich
|
1
|
2
|
|
2
|
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
|
3
|
3
|
|
3
|
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
|
2
|
35
|
|
4
|
Beverly Hills
Dead by Stuart Woods
|
-
|
1
|
|
5
|
World Without End by Ken Follett
|
5
|
15
|
|
Nonfiction (hardback)
|
|
1
|
Tom Cruise by Andrew Morton
|
-
|
1
|
|
2
|
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
|
1
|
3
|
|
3
|
Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg
|
10
|
2
|
|
4
|
An Inconvenient Book by Glenn Beck and Kevin Balfe
|
3
|
9
|
|
5
|
I Am America (And So Can You) by Stephen Colbert
|
2
|
15
|
|
Fiction (paperback)
|
|
1
|
Plum
Lovin by Janet Evanovich
|
1
|
2
|
|
2
|
The Manning Sisters by Debbie Macomber
|
-
|
4
|
|
3
|
The Overlook by Michael Connelly
|
2
|
3
|
|
4
|
Atonement by Ian McEwan
|
5
|
7
|
|
5
|
Shadow Dance by Julie Garwood
|
-
|
4
|
|
Nonfiction (paperback)
|
|
1
|
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
|
1
|
52
|
|
2
|
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
|
2
|
51
|
|
3
|
The Innocent Man by John Grisham
|
3
|
9
|
|
4
|
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
|
4
|
139
|
|
5
|
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
|
5
|
4
|
|
Source: New York Times
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
USA
TODAY BESTSELLING BOOKS
Week ending January 20, 2008
|
|
Rank
|
TITLE
|
Last week
|
|
1
|
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
|
2
|
|
2
|
Plum
Lucky by Janet Evanovich
|
1
|
|
3
|
Atonement by Ian McEwan
|
3
|
|
4
|
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
|
6
|
|
5
|
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
|
4
|
|
6
|
The Pillars of Earth by Ken Follett
|
5
|
|
7
|
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules by Jeff Kinney
|
94
|
|
8
|
Eat This Not That! by David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding
|
16
|
|
9
|
The 6th Target by James Patterson
|
11
|
|
10
|
Tom Cruise by Andrew Morton
|
-
|
|
Source:
USA Today
|
|
|
|
