An epic biography of one of America's most popular and iconographic
movie stars. John Wayne, who used to boast, "I don't act, I react,"
brought a relentless and sometimes compelling trademark sameness to
almost every role in the 200 movies he starred in. The irony, as
historians Roberts (Purdue Univ.) and Olson (Sam Houston State
Univ.) note, is that "he had never served a day in the military and
he was America's ideal marine; he disliked horses and he was the
country's favorite cowboy." The authors try to make the case that
it was precisely because of such contradictions that Wayne was (and
is) America personified. They are more convincing when they stick
to the detail and circumstance of Wayne's life - which they do
relentlessly. In fact, this is not so much a tell-all as a
tell-everything biography. Still, there are fascinating digressions
on the economics of B movies, Hollywood in the McCarthy era, John
Huston (who rescued Wayne's free-falling career in the '30s), and
so on and on. The authors are admirably restrained in
psychoanalyzing Wayne, but their insights into his character are
invariably shrewd and subtle. They convincingly connect, for
example, his guilt over avoiding military service during WW II to
his later, rabid anticommunism. They also detail at length how his
personality was ultimately shaped, even absorbed, by his roles.
Over the years, John Wayne the man and the actor both endured an
almost ceaseless barrage of criticism, but as Roberts and Olson
(who coauthored When the Domino Fell: America in Vietnam,
1945-1990, 1991) demonstrate, he had an undeniable "something," a
force, a charisma, a basic decency that still radiates in his
films. Despite its occasional clunkiness, this is very likely to be
the definitive Wayne biography for years to come. (Kirkus Reviews)
"John Wayne remains a constant in American popular culture. Middle
America grew up with him in the late 1920s and 1930s, went to war
with him in the 1940s, matured with him in the 1950s, and kept the
faith with him in the 1960s and 1970s. . . . In his person and in
the persona he so carefully constructed, middle America saw itself,
its past, and its future. John Wayne was his country's alter ego."
Thus begins John Wayne: American, a biography bursting with
vitality and revealing the changing scene in Hollywood and America
from the Great Depression through the Vietnam War. During a long
movie career, John Wayne defined the role of the cowboy and
soldier, the gruff man of decency, the hero who prevailed when the
chips were down. But who was he, really? Here is the first
substantive, serious view of a contradictory private and public
figure.
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