John Wayne in "Flying Leathernecks." (Warner Bros.)
9 Jun 2021
John Wayne became a symbol of American manhood and patriotism over his five-decade career in Hollywood. Always most famous for his westerns, Wayne also made a dozen World War II movies in the two decades after the United States entered the conflict in late 1941.
The Duke obviously made other war movies, most notably “The Green Berets,” his 1968 takedown of anti-Vietnam War sentiment in the United States. He played Davy Crockett in “The Alamo,” (1960); a post-Civil War Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman in “How the West Was Won” (1962); and a general who eventually supports Kirk Douglas’ determination to help Israel form an army in the nation’s early years in “Cast a Giant Shadow” (1966).