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RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR
His Stetson was always pulled down
cockily on one side; the scarf, loosely tied by a single knot.
His face reflected true grit and determination. His attire
was jeans and a shirt loosely worn, with the guns at his sides
ready to blaze into action at the proverbial drop of a hat.
His identity? John Wayne, who else?!
John Wayne was a damn good actor, and
he was America's alter ego. A movie legend, 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 simply, made the Hollywood
Western a form of Shakespearean drama, a Greek tragedy. He
was one of the most accomplished actors in Western films.
Witness his grand portrayal of quintessential Western characters
like Thomas Dunson, Ethan Edwards, Rooster Coburn, and Nathan
Brittles.
Long after his death, Wayne lives larger than life -- more
so, through his expansive bio, The American, which
is grandly steeped in data whose sheer enormity would be any
biographer's delight. It's, quite simply, a real tonic too
to bolster the great man's image.
According to James Stuart Olson and
Randy W Roberts, authors and historians: "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."
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.
Olson and Roberts have given Wayne a new dimension, too. He
is, to them, the Duke, and yet they chronicle his "weakness"
for women, drinking and compulsive shopping. In so doing,
they contend that the man, Wayne, and the national values
he so dearly espoused, on the screen and off it, were identical,
not inimical.
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. 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 connexions
could not have hurt him. After spending the first decade of
his career in abject penury, Wayne emerged as a star in Stagecoach.
He never looked back… It's here that Olson and Roberts'
reappraisal explains Wayne's appeal brilliantly. It also tells
how Wayne was a non-ideological conservative at heart; a man
who believed in simple justice, and common decency -- attributes
that will always endear him to movie buffs the world over.
What's so unique about Wayne, the Duke, who's still King? Over
to Olson and Roberts: "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 the US. He belongs to us all.
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