I knew there would be some of this when I posted. It seems the movie going public doesn't agree on his acting below.
And there is this: REAGAN ANGERED JOHN WAYNE:
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/16/us/reagan-angered-john-wayne.html
AP
Published: March 16, 1987
ATLANTA, March 14— John Wayne, staunch Republican though he was, wrote letters bluntly criticizing Ronald Reagan and praising Jimmy Carter for their stands on the Panama Canal.
The letters and Mr. Carter's responses are among more than six million documents on file at the library of the Carter Presidential Center here.
Mr. Wayne, the movie star who died in 1979 when he was 72 years old, took Mr. Carter to task on many issues.
However, he was one of Mr. Carter's staunchest supporters on the Panama Canal Treaty, which turned over to Panama the canal built by the United States near the turn of the century. More at link.
OS
http://emanuellevy.com/comment/john-wayne-as-box-office-champion-7/
February 15, 2006 by EmanuelLevy
The movies of John Wayne have grossed collectively more than any star, male or female of his generation; the amount is roughly estimated at $700 million in the United States alone.
Based on annual polls, Variety named him the box-office champion of all time. Indeed, Wayne has been the only movie star with 32 pictures on the Variety compilation of all-time money-grossers. His earliest film on the list is Reap the Wild Wind in l942, grossing four million dollars, and his latest (and last) is The Shootist, whose domestic rentals amounted to six million dollars. On Variety’s compilation are two movies of the l940s (Red River is the other one), seven in the l950s, sixteen in the l960s, and seven in the l970s. Significantly, from l967 to l976, only two of the sixteen films he made, The Train Robbers and Brannigan, were not among Variety’s all-time champions. Wayne’s movies have been consistently among the top grossing movies, regardless of their individual merit.
With the possible exception of The Big Trail, which cost two million dollars and was a financial fiasco, very few of his movies failed at the box office. Even his “B” Westerns were profitable. Westward Ho! for instance, cost 17,000 dollars, but grossed over half a million dollars, a 30 to 1 pay off. Many films panned by the critics proved to be popular smash hits. Sea Chase, for example, received unanimously unfavorable reviews, but grossed six million dollars in the United States alone, an equivalent of over 30 million dollars at present. This was a fantastic figure in the l950s, when few movies grossed more than four million dollars.
Wayne’s box-office popularity becomes more dramatic when compared with other stars of his generation. Contrasted with Wayne’s thirty all-time grossers, Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant had each twelve, Henry Fonda nine, Spencer Tracy eight, Clark Gable seven, Gary Cooper six, Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney each three, Alan Ladd and Robert Taylor each two, and Tyrone Power only one.
FULL story at link.
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