Was a heavy smoker. After he died of lung cancer, his son made a point not to license footage of him smoking cigarettes. An exception was made for a scene in Thank You For Smoking, a satire of the tobacco industry.
Was a member of the far-right-wing John Birch Society.
Was a member of the first class to be inducted into the DeMolay Hall of Fame on Monday, November 13th, 1986.
Was named the #1 box office star in North America by Quigley Publications, which has published its annual Top 10 Poll of Money-Making Stars since 1932. In all, the Duke was named to Quigley Publications' annual Top 10 Poll a record 25 times. (Clint Eastwood, with 25 appearances in the Top 10, is #2, and Wayne's contemporary Gary Cooper, with 18 appearances, is tied for #3 with Tom Cruise.) Wayne had the longest ride on the list, first appearing on it in 1949 and making it every year but one (1958) through 1974. In four of those years he was No. 1.
Was named the #13 greatest actor on The 50 Greatest Screen Legends list by the American Film Institute
Was very close friends with Maureen O'Hara and often visited her house. She had a wing for him that she often referred to as 'The John Wayne Wing'.
Wayne appeared in a very uncomplimentary light in the Public Enemy song "Fight the Power," from the 1990 album "Fear of a Black Planet". Wayne has frequently come under fire for racist remarks he made about black people and Native American Indians in his infamous Playboy magazine interview from May 1971. He was also criticized for supporting Senator Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election, after Goldwater had voted against the Civil Rights Act, and for supporting segregationist former Alabama governor George Wallace during his presidential campaign in 1968.
Wayne denounced the subject of homosexuality in Tennessee Williams' Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) as "too disgusting even for discussion"--even though he had not seen it and had no intention of seeing it. "It is too distasteful," he claimed, "to be put on a screen designed to entertain a family, or any member of a decent family." He considered the youth-oriented, anti-establishment film Easy Rider (1969) and Midnight Cowboy (1969), which to his dismay won the Best Picture Oscar in 1970, as "perverted" films. Especially when early in "Midnight Cowboy" Jon Voight dons his newly acquired Western duds and, posing in front of a mirror, utters the only words likely to come to mind at the moment one becomes a cowboy: "John Wayne!" Wayne told Playboy magazine, "Wouldn't you say that the wonderful love of these two men in 'Midnight Cowboy', a story about two fags, qualifies as a perverse movie?".
Wayne did not serve during World War II. The knee injuries he received in College kept him from running the distances required by Military Standards.
Wayne nearly got into a fight with British film critic Barry Norman on two occasions, both times over politics. In November 1963, on the set of Circus World (1964), the two had a serious argument over Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign. Nearly six years later, while Wayne was promoting True Grit (1969), the two nearly came to blows on a train over the Vietnam War. Despite this, Norman wrote favorably of Wayne as an actor in his book "The Hollywood Greats" (1986).
Wayne publicly criticized director Sam Peckinpah for his film The Wild Bunch (1969), which he claimed "destroyed the myth of the Old West".
Wayne tried not to make films that exploited sex or violence, deploring the vulgarity and violence in Rosemary's Baby (1968), which he saw and did not like, and A Clockwork Orange (1971) or Last Tango in Paris (1972) which he had no desire to see. He thought Deep Throat (1972) was repulsive - "after all, it's pretty hard to take your daughter to see it." And he refused to believe that Love Story (1970) "sold because the girl went around saying 'shit' all the way through it." Rather, "the American public wanted to see a little romantic story." He took a strong stance against nudity: "No one in any of my pictures will ever be served drinks by a girl with no top to her dress." It was not sex per se he was against. "Don't get me wrong. As far as a man and a woman are concerned, I'm awfully happy there's a thing called sex," he said, "It's an extra something God gave us, but no picture should feature the word in an unclear manner." He therefore saw "no reason why it shouldn't be in pictures," but it h
Wayne was asked to be the running mate for Democratic Alabama Governor George Wallace in 1968, but Wayne vehemently rejected the offer and actively campaigned for Richard Nixon. He addressed the Republican National Convention on its opening day in August 1968.
Wayne was buried in secret and the grave went unmarked until 1999, in case Vietnam War protesters desecrated the site. Twenty years after his death he finally received a headstone made of bronze which was engraved with a quotation from his infamous Playboy interview.
Wayne was initiated into DeMolay in 1924 at the Glendale Chapter in Glendale California.
Wayne's westerns were full of action but usually not excessively violent. "Fights with too much violence are dull," claimed Wayne, insisting that the straight-shooting, two-fisted violence in his movies have been "sort of tongue-in-cheek." He described the violence in his films as "lusty and a little humorous," based on his belief that "humor nullifies violence." His conservative taste deplored the increasing latitude given to violence and sex in Hollywood. In the 1960s he launched a campaign against what he termed "Hollywood's bloodstream polluted with perversion and immoral and amoral nuances." Most of his westerns steered clear of graphic violence.
When he was honored with a square at the Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood the sand used in the cement was brought in from Iwo Jima, in honor of his film Sands of Iwo Jima (1949).
While filming True Grit (1969), Wayne was trying to keep his weight off with drugs - uppers for the day, downers to sleep at night. Occasionally, he got the pills mixed up, and this led to problems on a "The Dean Martin Comedy Hour" (1965) taping in 1969. Instead of taking an upper before leaving for the filming, he took a downer - and was ready to crash by the time he arrived on the set. "I can't do our skit," Wayne reportedly told Martin when it was time to perform. "I'm too doped up. Goddamn, I look half smashed!" Naturally, Martin didn't have a problem with that. "Hell, Duke, people think I do the show that way all the time!" The taping went on as scheduled.
While making The Barbarian and the Geisha (1958), he apparently became so enraged with director John Huston (who was something of a tough guy himself and was nearly as tall as Wayne but not as massive) that he throttled and punched him out. It is unknown what Huston did to earn the beating, but the director was known to have a mean streak. Wayne later re-enacted the incident for Peter Bogdanovich, who was somewhat terrified to be used as a substitute for Huston.
While visiting the troops in Vietnam in June 1966, a bullet struck Wayne's bicycle. Although he was not within a hundred yards of it at the time, the newspapers reported he had narrowly escaped death at the hands of a sniper.