One Sketch #115) John Wayne (Wednesday 18th July)

He had staying power
That's a fact
A constant superstar
(Who needs to act?)

You might be wondering why I painted John Wayne for Wednesday’s sketch. After all, he’s another movie icon, but I painted the first two – Laurel and Hardy, and Marilyn Monroe whole England were playing in the World Cup, but the World Cup is now well and truly over. Well, the fact is that I had cast around for suggestions whom I should paint should England reach the finals , and the Duke was a suggestion I really rather liked.

Which is odd. For I have never been anything that could even remotely be described as a fan. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I hated John Wayne – I didn’t – but it’s a little complicated. 

It all stems from my father. A lot of blokes born in the 30s and 40s – my Dad was born in 1940 – loved Westerns as a genre, and John Wayne in particular. With my generation, it was different. For a lot of blokes who were born in the 1960s, I’d guess it was space stuff and science fiction. After all, I was 5 years old when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the Moon for the first time, and that made a huge impression on me. I was 12 or 13 when Star Wars hit the UK, and that also made a great impression. So I can understand the affection my Dad’s generation had for the Western genre, I just never felt it myself. As for John Wayne, well, I don’t want to upset anyone, but I don’t think he was the world’s greatest actor, for all that he won the Best Actor Oscar for “True Grit”. For the record I rather enjoyed that one. 

Whenever I was in the same room as the old man when he was watching one of Wayne’s films, it always struck me that he was playing the same character in all of them, which was probably what he was like in real life. But looking back, I guess that this is the point. A huge number of people liked that character, and didn’t tire of seeing it in film after film after film. I did read that John Wayne stayed in the top 10 box office stars for the best part of three decades, which puts pretty much anyone else you can think of to shame.