{"id":33444,"date":"2026-06-13T17:46:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T17:46:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/13\/america-250-cancer-kills-film-legend-john-wayne\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T17:46:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T17:46:29","slug":"america-250-cancer-kills-film-legend-john-wayne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/13\/america-250-cancer-kills-film-legend-john-wayne\/","title":{"rendered":"AMERICA 250: Cancer kills film legend John Wayne"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-wysiwyg-article-content=\"true\">\n<p data-wisiwig-body1=\"true\" class=\"txtStyle_body1 mb_$body1\"><span>Those who knew the actor well said Wayne was careful to maintain the continuity of that screen image, not only because it was financially successful, but because the characters he portrayed struck a truthful chord in the man himself.<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-wisiwig-body1=\"true\" class=\"txtStyle_body1 mb_$body1\"><span>As a child, Wayne was fond of telling interviewers, his father had imparted to him the following life-philosophy, summed up in three rules: \u201cAlways keep your word. A gentleman never insults anyone intentionally. Don\u2019t look for trouble, but if you get into a fight, make sure you win it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-wisiwig-body1=\"true\" class=\"txtStyle_body1 mb_$body1\"><span>The actor once said he had tried to live by those rules, with the possible exception of the second which, he admitted \u2014 usually with a satisfied, devilish glint in his eye \u2014 he had amended to: \u201cA gentleman never insults anyone unintentionally.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-wisiwig-body1=\"true\" class=\"txtStyle_body1 mb_$body1\"><span>But it was not merely the roles he played as an actor that created the enduring love affair with his fans.<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-wisiwig-body1=\"true\" class=\"txtStyle_body1 mb_$body1\"><span>It was as if, over the years, the actor and the man seemed to merge together \u2014 both in the minds of many Americans, and within Wayne himself \u2014 to form one, indistinguishable symbol of courage, endurance and indestructabillty.<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-wisiwig-body1=\"true\" class=\"txtStyle_body1 mb_$body1\"><span>The culmination of that metamorphosis \u2014 of what might be called the blending of the man and the myth \u2014 became complete in 1964 when Wayne, then 57, successfully, and publicly, defeated cancer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-wisiwig-body1=\"true\" class=\"txtStyle_body1 mb_$body1\"><span>Two months after leaving Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, Wayne \u2014 against the advice of his own public relations advisers \u2014 called a press conference at his home to advise the world he had undergone surgery for lung cancer.<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-wisiwig-body1=\"true\" class=\"txtStyle_body1 mb_$body1\"><span>A startled nation learned that, by virtue of early detection, the Duke had \u201clicked the Big C.\u201c It was, at the time, cancer\u2019s most public defeat. Almost immediately, doctors reported getting requests from patients for \u201cthe kind of operation John Wayne had.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-wisiwig-body1=\"true\" class=\"txtStyle_body1 mb_$body1\"><span>As if to underscore the totality of his recovery \u2014 less than four months after he\u2019d first entered Good Samaritan \u2014 Wayne, with only, one lung, headed to Durango, Mexico, to film, in high altitude, the physically demanding \u201cSons of Katie Elder.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-wisiwig-body1=\"true\" class=\"txtStyle_body1 mb_$body1\"><span>Later, Wayne would disclose that diagnosis of the presence of a cancer the size of a golf ball in his left lung had made him feel as if \u201csomeone hit me across the gut with a ball bat.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p data-wisiwig-body1=\"true\" class=\"txtStyle_body1 mb_$body1\"><span>Born Marion Robert Morrison, May 26, 1907, in his family\u2019s home in Winterset, Iowa, Wayne grew up on stories spun by oldtimers of the days when Jessie James robbed banks and trains in the area and tall tales about wagon trains, Indians, and the hardships endured, seemingly without complaint, by his pioneer ancestors.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Those who knew the actor well said Wayne was careful to maintain the continuity of that screen image, not only<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33445,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_animmysite_disable_animation":false,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/public-assets-prod.pubgen.ai\/brand_4fc3eb37-4c8a-4951-9324-365f6e4b53fd\/asset_134fbaf1-a2fb-53e0-a51d-c90db4de0f52.jpg?w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[212],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trendifyhubusa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}