John Wayne, the face of the Hollywood Western, died at 72
On this day · 11 June 1979
After half a century and well over 150 films, the actor known as the Duke lost a long fight with cancer.
On June 11, 1979, John Wayne died at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles at age 72, following a long battle with stomach cancer. Born Marion Morrison in Iowa and nicknamed “the Duke,” he had become the personification of the American Western hero.
Wayne appeared in well over 150 films across a career spanning half a century, from the silent era into the 1970s. His Westerns — among them Red River, The Searchers, and True Grit, which won him the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1969 — defined the genre for generations of moviegoers.
He had made his last public appearance just two months earlier, presenting at the Academy Awards in April 1979.
His death felt like a curtain falling on a particular kind of Hollywood. The following year, in 1980, he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
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