John Wayne

John Wayne, born Marion Robert Morrison in Winterset, Iowa in 1907, was an American actor nicknamed Duke who became one of the most recognisable stars of Hollywood's Golden Age. He worked his way up from small parts at the Fox Film Corporation, took a leading role in the early widescreen epic The Big Trail in 1930, and spent the rest of that decade in B Westerns until John Ford's Stagecoach in 1939 made him a mainstream star. His best known parts include Red River, The Searchers, The Quiet Man, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and True Grit, which earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor. He appeared in 179 film and television productions, was named by the American Film Institute among the greatest male stars of classic American cinema, and died in 1979.