RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR

When John Wayne, the first of the great Hollywood heroes, was born over 100 years ago, he did not know he would become a legend.

What made Wayne, John Wayne was clear. He sculpted a new style: what with his Stetson always pulled down cockily on one side, with the scarf loosely tied by a solitary knot.

His face mirrored true grit and willpower. His clothing was, for most part, jeans, and a shirt loosely worn, with his pistols, again, ready to blaze into action at the proverbial drop of a hat.

He was, quite simply, Wayne -- because, he’d be nothing else.

Wayne was a damn good actor, and he was America's alter ego. A movie marvel, no less. As he once said: "I've established a character on the screen that maybe rough, that maybe cruel, and that may have a different code, but has never been mean, petty, or small."

Wayne, quite plainly, made the Hollywood Western a form of Shakespearean drama, a Greek tragedy. He was one of the most accomplished actors in Hollywood films -- or, films of his era. Witness his grand portrayal of quintessential Western characters like Thomas Dunson, Ethan Edwards, Rooster Coburn, and Nathan Brittles.

No wonder why 100 years after he was born, and 30 years after his death, Wayne’s image lives larger than life. More so, through his expansive bio, The American, which is grandly steeped in Wayne data -- a real tonic to bolster the great man's image.

Note James Stuart Olson and Randy W Roberts, Wayne’s biographers: "He [Wayne] was so American, so like his country… big, bold, confident, powerful, loud, violent, and occasionally overbearing, but simultaneously forgiving, gentle, innocent, naive, almost childlike. In the persona he so carefully constructed, America saw itself, its past, and its future."

It is only befitting that Wayne’s greatness prompted the American Film Institute to name him 13th among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time [1999]. Another poll placed him third among America's favourite film stars. He’s, in fact, the only departed star on this list; and, the only one to have appeared on the annual poll, year after year.

Wayne’s movie career began in silent films of the 1920s. He emerged as a star in the 1940s, and did not look back till the 1970s. What made him a towering figure was his close association with both Westerns and World War II epics -- including the great classic, The Longest Day [1962]. In addition, he also made a broad range of films in a host of genres, including biographies, romantic comedies, wildlife [Hatari, 1962], and so on.

Wayne lived in the present-moment, and he also saw tomorrow. As he once said in an interview: "Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. It comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives, and it puts itself in our hands. It has hopes we've learned something from yesterday."

Wayne has been a much-sough-after name in the US landscape. Just think of it: John Wayne Airport in Orange County, CA, where his life-size statue adorns the entrance. The John Wayne Marina in Washington is another, so is John Wayne Elementary School in Brooklyn, NY, which houses a 38-foot mosaic mural. It is aptly called, "John Wayne and the American Frontier.” This ain’t all. There is also a 150-plus kilometre track named "John Wayne Pioneer Trail," in Washington State's Iron Horse State Park. The list is long.

Born Marion Morrison to well-meaning, but utterly contrasting, parents, Wayne was an overachiever from childhood. At every step, he hoped to win his mother's approval through work, sport, or any other activity, he could come up with. Result: a sense of duty, as well as a taste for manly support, or companionship, marked Wayne's psychical compass and radar.

He’s, therefore, to those that adulated him the Duke, and yet they’re aware of his "weakness" for women, drinking and compulsive shopping. But, they, like true fans, contend that the man, Wayne, and the national values he so dearly espoused, on the screen and off it, were identical, and not opposed.

Wayne first fancied a career in the US Navy, but he could not make the grade. But, what he could not do on a ship, he made good through his political career, holding his ideological masts in place, albeit his radicalism, or rigid anti-communist element, put him at loggerheads with the Soviet Union. It’s said that Josef Stalin ordered his “hit-men” to assassinate Wayne. Fortunately, Stalin died before his order was put into effect.

Wayne may have been a hypocrite. He may also have foisted values on the world that he couldn't live up to in his own home. But, the fact was he believed in his own myth. He was a great propagandist, and a highly underrated actor, according to some critics. His endeavour to shape public beliefs with private ideologies may also have been contradictory, but his heart was in the right place.

Wayne's resolve was tough, his will vigorous.

Wayne went to Hollywood because it was the truest meritocracy in the US -- the one place, where his lack of wealth and connections could not have hurt him. After spending the first decade of his career in utter difficulty, Wayne emerged as a big star in Stagecoach [1939]. The rest is history.

Wayne was a non-ideological conservative at heart, too; a man who believed in simple justice, and common decency -- attributes that will always endear him to movie buffs the world over.

But, what’s so unique about Wayne, the Duke, who's still King of his genre? Over to his biographers: "During much of the 20th century… watching a John Wayne movie was like peering over and over again, into a great cultural mirror; we saw ourselves, what we thought was our past, and what we believed was a birthright of freedom, opportunity, security, and justice."

In an age of few heroes, Wayne was the genuine article. He belongs not just to America. He belongs to us all, wherever we are, or wherever we turn.