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).
John Wayne made 142 movies in his career, mostly westerns and war films.
When actor John Wayne visited American soldiers in Vietnam in the summer of 1966, he was warmly welcomed. As he spoke to groups and individuals, he was presented gifts and letters from American and South Vietnamese troops alike. This was not the case during his USO tours in 1942 and ’43.
According to author Garry Wills’ 1998 book, “John Wayne’ America: the Politics of Celebrity,” the actor received a chorus of boos when he walked onto the USO stages in Australia and the Pacific Islands. Those audiences were filled with combat veterans. Wayne, in his mid-30s, was not one of them.
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