Why was John Wayne nicknamed ‘The Duke’?
As far as genuine icons of American cinema go, it’s undeniable that John Wayne embodied the kind of masculinity and bravado that defined the greatest movies of the western film genre, and in doing so, ‘The Duke’, as he would come to be known, unduly emerged as one of the all-time acting legends of his native United States.
While Wayne could frequently burst into a conservative, right-wing tirade and issue damning and downright rude indictments of his fellow actors, his contributions to the cinematic medium remain undoubted and the likes of True Grit, The Searchers and Rio Bravo all profited from his talent and charisma in front of the camera.
Interestingly, Wayne’s name isn’t actually John Wayne at all, but rather Marion Robert Morrison, which remained his legal name for the entirety of his life, which ended in 1979. The early part of Wayne’s career saw him take on bit-part roles for the Fox Film Corporation, through which he was once credited as Duke Morrison, but when it came time for his first starring role in 1930’s The Big Trail, director Raoul Walsh suggested him a new stage name.
Walsh thought that Wayne might like to be called Anthony Wayne, named after the Revolutionary War General ‘Mad’ Anthony Wayne, but an executive at Fox felt that it sounded “too Italian”. Walsh then suggested John Wayne, and even though the actor himself wasn’t present at the meeting, the Fox exec agreed, and Wayne was credited as John Wayne from thenceforth.
While Morrison eternally became Wayne, he still retained the nickname The Duke, which had stuck with the actor ever since he was a child. In his youth, Wayne was an excellent football player, and he studied at the University of Southern California on a scholarship while playing for the school’s team.
Having such skills in the field led to an air of local notoriety for the young Wayne, and when he began visiting the local fire station in Glendale, California, in 1916, he was often joined by the family’s dog, which had been called Duke. The firefighters of Glendale quickly started calling the dog Big Duke and the future actor Little Duke, and the name stuck.
“There’ve been a lot of stories about how I got to be called Duke,” Wayne once noted. “One was that I played the part of a duke in a school play, which I never did. Sometimes, they even said I was descended from royalty! It was all a lot of rubbish. Hell, the truth is that I was named after a dog!”
Eventually, Wayne made the transition from the juvenile Little Duke to just The Duke, although this didn’t occur until the actor had established himself in Hollywood as John Wayne. Wayne’s frequent director, John Ford, had caught wind of Wayne’s childhood nickname, and when he began using it, Wayne himself took it on with open arms, preferring it in the public sphere for the remainder of his life.
The Duke epitomises the man himself, of course, an actor of stark opinion and little compromise. After becoming one of America’s all-time most iconic acting legends, Wayne’s nickname, The Duke, continues to ring throughout the ages, giving hints as to the time reigned over the western frontiers of the film industry, giving some of the most memorable and timeless performances of all time. Not bad for a man named after a dog.