THE DUKE

Born May 26th 1907 in Iowa, heartland of the WASP, to a poor family, Marion Robert Morrison idolised his charming father and dreaded his scolding mother who never forgave him for weighing in at over 13 pounds.
At the age of five his identity was stolen and given to his younger sibling, Little Robert. His new name, Marion Mitchell Morrison, saw him mercilessly taunted and physically brutalised throughout his school years. The antithesis of the macho-man, he was bullied and lonely until he began his fight-back.

Still it wasn't until he was nine and neighbourhood firemen dubbed him Duke after the faithful dog who followed him everywhere, that life changed for the better. He began to emerge as a football star, a student leader of standing, a straight-A student who won a scholarship to the University of Southern California.

Arriving in Hollywood he found a meritocracy more than willing to accept his handsome face, youthful talent and awesome, fizzing energy. A lack of money never held him back in the journey to the top that became the stuff of legend.

Working as a prop man at Fox Studios to supplement his meager scholarship, Duke was spotted by Raoul Walsh the director casting the biggest epic Western of its day, The Big Trail. Walsh, running out of funds to pay a big star, launched the skinny kid into the lead role, "The sonofabitch looked like a man. I selected him because he was the type who could start any trail……and finish."

The film's release co-incided with the Great Depression. It became an expensive flop and Duke, bitten by the acting bug, was left struggling in Poverty Row productions for the next ten years. Until 1939 he slowly forced his way into the imagination of millions of movie-going Americans on the platform of a hundred B movies. And then John Ford, the mentor, arrived and Stagecoach took off with Duke perched precariously up top…

DH Lawrence defined the ultimate Westerner, "hard, stoic, isolate….and a killer." Wayne, together with John Ford, created dozens of brilliant images in a thousand unsentimental comments to illustrate each rugged quality. Together they provided a certain guaranteed performance to an audience hungry to escape Depression, war and their own humdrum realities. Together they built the legend and wrote the mythology of The West. Their story is well documented. Less well known is the man who embodied the creation. Duke rarely chose to reveal the inner self, preferring to hide his vulnerable soul in the shadows. He enjoyed simple, intense and highly personal pleasures away from the bright lights. Not for him the parties and clubs frequented by Hollywood's elite. He said the town reminded him of Soddom and Gomorrah where the men acted like stallions let loose in a mare's barn. He preferred to relax out at sea, away from prying eyes and so his own myth became larger than any single role he ever played.