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June 12, 1979OBITUARY'Duke,' an American HeroBy RICHARD F. SHEPARDIn more than 200 films made over 50 years, John Wayne (http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0526.html) saddled up to become the greatest figure of one of America's greatest native art forms, the western. The movies he starred in rode the range from out-of-the-money sagebrush quickies to such classics as "Stagecoach" and "Red River." He won an Oscar as best actor for another western, "True Grit," in 1969. Yet some of the best films he made told stories far from the wilds of the West, such as "The Quiet Man" and "The Long Voyage Home." In the last decades of his career, Mr. Wayne became something of an American folk figure, hero to some, villain to others, for his outspoken views. He was politically a conservative and, although he scorned politics as a way of life for himself, he enthusiastically supported Richard M. Nixon, Barry Goldwater, Spiro T. Agnew, Ronald Reagan and others who, he felt, fought for his concept of Americanism and anti- Communism. But it was for millions of moviegoers who saw him only on the big screen that John Wayne really existed. He had not created the western with its clear-cut conflict between good and bad, right and wrong, but it was impossible to mention the word "western" without thinking of "the Duke," as he was called. |
