May 26, 1907: John Wayne's birthday
103 years ago today, Western hero John Wayne is born on this day in Winterset, Iowa, and christened Marion Michael Morrison.
As a child, friends nicknamed the boy Duke, and he went on to play his earliest film roles under the name Duke Morrison. Wayne worked at Fox Film Corp. as a laborer in the late 1920s and began appearing in bit parts in 1928.
Throughout the 1930s, he starred in mediocre westerns, sometimes filming as many as two a week. Wayne's breakthrough came in 1939, when his friend John Ford cast him in Stagecoach.
Wayne went on to play larger-than-life heroes in countless movies, appearing in 250 films during four decades of acting. In 1969, he won an Oscar for his role in True Grit. He died from cancer in 1979.
