Happy Birthday, Duke!

[gun sane]

It's said that Samuel Colt made men equal with his six-shooter. In his movies, John Wayne made lawful gun owners superior.

 

Source:  http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/john-wayne/images/31495013/title/john-wayne-photo

 

[hipower]

Yep. My wife already told me of this great day.

 

She misses you, Duke.

[TNWNGR]

Marion Michael Morrison AKA by his pet dog Duke's monicker. Either you liked him or you didn't, I don't think he ever lost sleep over it but he sure figured out how to make a good living and live large while doing so. Overall an interesting fellow well worth the time investment of watching his old movies and reading about him.

[EssOne]

My great grandfather served in the Civil War in the 9th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, which was essentially wiped out at Shiloh. After the war, the 9th's Chaplain wrote the wartime history of the Regiment. The Chaplain was a Major Marion Morrison. He was John Wayne's grandfather.

[runco]

Wow, I didn't know (consciously).  Maybe subconsciously I knew, because I watched The Man Who Killed Liberty Valance 2x this weekend.  Great movie.  Great actor.  I don't like Hollywood, but I wish they would produce another J. Wayne! 

[greenego]

Duke is still one of the most poplar actors. He has been gone now over 35 years.

Edited May 27, 2015 by greenego

[hipower]

My great grandfather served in the Civil War in the 9th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, which was essentially wiped out at Shiloh. After the war, the 9th's Chaplain wrote the wartime history of the Regiment. The Chaplain was a Major Marion Morrison. He was John Wayne's grandfather.

 

Very interesting. I didn't know that. Thanks for sharing that.

 

Duke is still one of the most poplar actors. He has been gone now over 35 years.

 

Wow. Has it actually been that long? Seems like just a few years ago that I heard it on the night time news.

[Mike.357]

John Wayne will always be Sgt.Stryker and Ethan Edwards to me. 

[runco]

Watched the Shootist last night with the kids, that was a good movie.  Amazing his last movie was about having cancer, and in real life 3 years later he died of stomach cancer.  According to Wikipeida, they suspect he might have acquired the cancer from filming in Utah downrange from a nuclear test sight.  One of his movies, 91 members of cast and crew developed some form of cancer.  

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne

 

Exert from the above link:

Death[edit]

Although he enrolled in a cancer vaccine study in an attempt to ward off the disease,^[44] Wayne died of stomach cancer on June 11, 1979, at the UCLA Medical Center, and was interred in the Pacific View Memorial Park cemetery in Corona del Mar, Newport Beach. According to his son Patrick and his grandson Matthew Muñoz, a priest in the California Diocese of Orange, he converted to Roman Catholicism shortly before his death.^[58][59] He requested that his tombstone read "Feo, Fuerte y Formal", a Spanish epitaph Wayne described as meaning "ugly, strong, and dignified".^[60] The grave, which went unmarked for 20 years, is now marked with a quotation from his controversial 1971 Playboy interview: "Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday."^[61][62][63]

Among the cast and crew who filmed the 1956 film The Conqueror on location near St. George, Utah, 91 developed some form of cancer at various times, including stars Wayne, Susan Hayward, and Agnes Moorehead, and director Dick Powell. The film was shot in southwestern Utah, east of and generally downwind from the site of recent U.S. Government nuclear weapons tests in southeastern Nevada. Many contend that radioactive fallout from these tests contaminated the film location and poisoned the film crew working there.^[64][65] Despite the suggestion that Wayne's 1964 lung cancer and his 1979 stomach cancer resulted from nuclear contamination, he believed his lung cancer to have been a result of his six-packs-a-day cigarette habit.^[66]