John Wayne

My real name is Marion Morrison. Im happy people call me Duke - if you were my size, wore cowboy boots and a big hat, outrode, outfought and outshot all the bad men in the West, how would you like to climb down off a horse, throw your saddle over the corral rail and then walk off-camera to a chair labelled, Marion? This freshly revised and fully expanded edition of John Wayne; A Giant Shadow, timed to coincide with the 110th birthday of the star, provides a high profile and unusual look at Hollywoods most enduring icon. It is a comprehensive flesh and blood study, unashamedly aimed at the audience, the way he liked to do business. The page-turner brings back to life the character, strength, independence and grit that was John Wayne riding tall in the saddle along with Duke, the man who left normality behind to create his own legend. It is his story, largely in his own words; it is direct and personal. Of all the complexities that made up John Wayne, the images he left behind perhaps shine the brightest, but around the world people still remember a real man of resolution and absolute honesty, the ultimate personification of American courage and honour, the embodiment of everything that was best about the land of the free and home of the brave. At this moment of fraught uncertainty, the world is nostalgic in its need for symbols of tradition and the image of John Wayne continues offering a warm sense of comfort and protection. His personal life perfectly fitted the John Wayne image and that image remains, casting a towering shadow, not just in film but in American life and politics.