The name John Wayne is one of the most famous in Hollywood history, and everybody knows the legendary star was born Marion Morrison before eventually settling on the moniker that would become embedded in the cinematic consciousness.
It took a while to get there, though, with the actor working through a period of trial and error before being gifted the stage name that served him so well. Nobody called him Marion once he’d become a star, and nobody even called him John, with peers, colleagues, contemporaries, audiences, and fans alike all referring to him as ‘The Duke’.
Strangely enough, there’s a shade of Indiana Jones to it, with Harrison Ford’s intrepid adventurer taking his own nickname from George Lucas’ dog. When Wayne was growing up, his family had a faithful canine that followed the youngster everywhere he went. What was his four-legged compatriot called? Duke.
He once shared that his dog would follow him to school every morning, and because the local firemen he passed on a daily basis knew his face but not his name – although they were familiar with the dog for some reason – they started calling him ‘Little Duke’. It almost stuck, with Wayne receiving one solitary screen credit under the nickname that became synonymous with his persona.
The first time he ever received a credited role in a picture came in the 1929 musical comedy Words and Music, where he was billed as Duke Morrison. It doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, with studio bosses deciding that maybe he’d be better off taking his cues from an American Civil War general.
Director Raoul Walsh suggested that he rebrand himself as Anthony Wayne, which was quickly shot down by 20th Century Fox head Winfield Sheehan, who thought it was “too Italian.” The actor was on the cusp of his first-ever leading role, so it was important that his all-American ideals be reflected in his name.
“The studio decided that it was not American enough for a boy who was going to play Breckenridge Coleman in The Big Trail back in 1929,” he recalled of Marion and Anthony being rejected. “So the studio heads were put together, and they came up with the name John Wayne.”
Anthony Wayne doesn’t exactly come across as a name that would instantly alert the world to a person’s Italian heritage, but still, he was now John. The Big Trail gave the star top billing for the first time in his career, officially introducing John Wayne to the world for the first time. As it turned out, it was a pivotal moment in American cinema, looking at everything he went on to accomplish in the decades to come, not that anyone could have realised it at the time.