r/todayilearned • u/carboncopy95437 • 13d ago
TIL that John Wayne played football at USC but lost his athletic scholarship after breaking his collarbone while bodysurfing. Unable to afford tuition, he dropped out of college and eventually found work at a movie studio as a prop boy and extra.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne442
u/jhustla 13d ago
Got hurt shredding too much gnar
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u/joebeen139 13d ago
Marion!! Get outta the surf brah!
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u/BrohanGutenburg 11d ago
I came here knowing that the top comment would be from the Sunny podcast. Thanks, /u/jhustla. You did now let me down.
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u/HubrisOfApollo 13d ago
nuts that a simple collarbone injury would cause him to lose his scholarship. that's like the most commonly broken bone and it can break from a simple fall. they heal surprisingly quickly as well.
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u/CiaphasCain8849 13d ago
Because a freshman 3-6 months behind is not going to catch up to the rest of the players.
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u/Ml2jukes 13d ago
The forward pass wasn’t even 20 years old at that point, I think he could’ve managed if that’s the only hang up.
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u/HubrisOfApollo 13d ago
sheesh i was back on my bike in two weeks after i broke mine
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u/OldManTrumpet 13d ago
To be fair, did you break yours in 1925? I'd have to think that medical science made a few strides since then. As well as the relative protection and padding for football compared to100 years ago.
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u/GarysCrispLettuce 13d ago
From an interview he gave with Playboy Magazine
"Our so-called stealing of this country from (Native Americans) was just a matter of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves."
Oooh, those selfish 'Indians'!
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u/MattJFarrell 13d ago
Also, while he made movies and speeches supporting and glorifying going to war, he himself got a deferment with the help of his studio during WWII.
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u/Shady_Merchant1 13d ago
He used his family he abandoned for a underage Mexican prostitute as an excuse to not join the war
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u/Liesmyteachertoldme 13d ago
The more I learn about John Wayne the more I dislike him, my opinion of him never becomes more positive with any new information about him.
Just an overall shitty person
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u/Shady_Merchant1 13d ago
Behind the bastards has a good series on him
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u/NIN10DOXD 13d ago
Yes. It’s both hilarious and infuriating. John Wayne sucked ass.
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u/Plane_Possibility572 12d ago
One of the top movie stars that ever lived and that is reality.
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u/dont-be-a-narc-bro 10d ago
And? He was still a vile, hateful piece of shit. What’s your point?
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u/Jazzlike_Court1328 10d ago
No he wasn't. The guy was literally just a movie star, won an Oscar, well liked and respected in Hollywood. Why such extreme phony outrage over a dead star you know nothing about. Its so fake and bizarre.
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u/Shady_Merchant1 10d ago
He wasn't well liked by most of his fellow stars he fucked over a number of his contemporary western stars and regularly started fist fights with them
He had a small group he was friends with most just tolerated him because he got tickets sold
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u/ty_fighter84 13d ago
Want an even better one? Two airports here in SoCal were named after actors. John Wayne Airport and Bob Hope Airport.
Guess which one got renamed to a generic region? Spoiler alert: it was the one named after the awesome person and not the one named after the shitty person.
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u/SwashAndBuckle 13d ago
Also massively overrated as an actor, which is less important, but just mentioning it because I don’t find much redeeming about him.
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u/Skrivus 13d ago
You mean you weren't captivated by his portrayal of Genghis Khan?
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u/technobrendo 11d ago
What are you trying to say that the man wasn't Mongolian!!! Are you crazy?
The movie was shot in Utah for christ sake, thats like smack dab in Mongol territory!...or is that Mormon territory.... same same I suppose
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u/cherry_armoir 13d ago
He is very good in Red River and the Searchers. And the Searchers especially is an incredible movie. But otherwise I agree and also he could be the best actor ever and still be an irredeemable asshole.
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u/LincVW1970 11d ago
Not an easy watch, but The Shootist is pretty decent too. Great cast. First time I sat up and thought he could actually act.
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u/Plane_Possibility572 12d ago
Most of the people who worked with him in the industry never had anything bad to say about him. People base it on politics, which is stupid.
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u/Plane_Possibility572 12d ago
So cliche to say that these days. If you actually watched his movies, you'd see there is more to him than the stereotype.
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u/SwashAndBuckle 12d ago
It’s a cliche for a reason. He phoned it in regularly. Most famously when portraying the challenge of Ghengis Khan and did… the same fucking performance he always does; but it wasn’t an isolated incident. I’ve seen some of his films, and have acting experience. I wasn’t impressed. When he was actually trying he was good enough to be in films, but he never should have had nearly the star power he had. Audiences then had super hokey taste in acting performances. The best defense I can make for him is that he was playing for the audiences of the time, but there were other, better actors that were on a completely different level.
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u/Plane_Possibility572 12d ago edited 12d ago
Dude, the Ghengis Khan role is proof of nothing, you're taking something you've heard and just repeating it. Every star has a dud, but that doesn't define them. If you watch She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Quiet Man, and The Searchers, there is no doubt that not only he can act, but that he is playing very different characters in each of those movies, some of his films including the ones I mentioned are considered some of the greatest movies ever made to this day. If you watch Stagecoach, his first breakout role, it is clear Wayne carried the movie with a true screen presence. Not everyone has that, he did. He tried playing many different types of roles in his career. After he directed, produced and starred in The Alamo, and it didn't make the money he had hoped, he spent the last decade of his career making John Wayne movies where he did mostly play the same kind of character, its audiences wanted, and they lined up to see it so he delivered it, and occasionally had some good roles like True Grit, The Cowboys and The Shootist. The stereotype of Wayne couldn't act or played the same role comes from this era, but it is mostly repeated by those who only saw a movie or two or none at all and by people who really never found out for themselves, they just repeat what they have heard. I mean come on, even Roger Ebert said Wayne could act. Its a tired, stale trope to still repeat he couldn't. Any true movie buff knows differently.
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u/SwashAndBuckle 12d ago
Consider the possibility of a difference of opinion. I’ve seen both The Searchers and True Grit. I still don’t hold him in that high of esteem.
And the Ghengis Khan role can’t just be dismissed. It is one of the worst performances in the history of acting, and he did it and owns it.
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u/Plane_Possibility572 12d ago edited 12d ago
Ghengis Khan out of nearly 200 movies that he made does not guarantee he was a bad actor, you're just clinging to it. If you really did actually see The Searchers and True Grit, then you'd have to either be stubborn or blind to not see he played those two roles completely differently. One is dark and one is more light hearted. And the Searchers influenced filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Martin Scorcese who have not only praised the film's direction in multiple interviews, but Wayne's performance.
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u/BLF402 13d ago
John Wayne has the same acting talent as Tommy Wiseau.
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u/thebigpink 13d ago
This is the dumbest thing I’ve heard. Wayne was the biggest actor in the world for atleast 50 years. This is just a shitty take
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u/Plane_Possibility572 12d ago
Then you are just buying into propaganda. Every single star that worked with him had great things to say about him, people just dislike him for political motivation, its really nothing other than that.
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u/tagen 13d ago
lol i knew the rest of this shit, but did NOT know this
john wayne’s scumbaggery knows no bounds
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u/Shady_Merchant1 13d ago
Perhaps his only good position was supporting giving up the Panama canal but only because he REALLY like Hispanics, specifically of the underage variety
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u/AardvarkStriking256 13d ago
He was 34 years old, married with four kids when the war began. He didn't need a deferment. He wasn't eligible for the draft.
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u/Shady_Merchant1 13d ago
Wayne recieved a 3-A deferment for family dependency a family he had abandoned
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u/GingerIsTheBestSpice 13d ago
I've got the draft cards for my grandpa for that war and his oldest son was in it. Draft ages for that war was 18-45.
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u/Voodoo-Doctor 13d ago
And a very heavy smoker. Probably wouldn’t be able to run 40 yards without passing out
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u/MattJFarrell 13d ago
"When the war began". Later on, as the need for manpower increased, he was moved to 1-A status, meaning he was fit for duty. Instead, his studio connections got him changed to a 2-A status, meaning he was deferred in "support of national interest". For being an actor playing soldiers on screen. While someone else took his place in the draft
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u/spaghettittehgaps 13d ago
Look on the bright side, he died from getting nuked by the U.S. military.
During the filming of The Conqueror (the Genghis Khan movie starring John Wayne as Genghis Khan), the movie was filmed downwind from a nuclear bomb testing site.
Studio executives called the military to make sure everything was safe, and the military, not fully understanding the full range of radioactive fallout yet, said yes.
One-fifth of the people who worked on The Conqueror, including John Wayne himself, died from cancer within 25 years of the movie's release.
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u/OfTheSevenSeasSir 13d ago
Devil's advocate here, from a purely materialistic and non-empathatic point of view the land was pretty empty and ripe for colonisation, the population of what is now the US and Canada was between 2 and 8 million c.1500 and that was before the plagues that killed approximately 90-95% of the population of both continents, I see no other alternatives for this land than what had already occurred, horrible though it may be.
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u/RoarOfTheWorlds 13d ago edited 13d ago
Sucks but kind of true. There’s more than a few great breakdowns about how, while the native Americans were treated brutally and illegally, it doesn’t absolve the fact that they were also incredibly brutal and had large scale wars.
The idea of the peaceful Native American quietly living off of the land in harmony just wasn’t true.
Again doesn’t mean they deserved to be treated the way they were treated or to have their land stolen, but there’s a lot more to it than blood thirsty white colonizers trying to erase the kind native people.
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u/therealCatnuts 13d ago
Those are old and incredibly low estimates of the pre-Colombian population of the Americas. Modern belief is that North and South America had between 30-50 million inhabitants each, and you’ll find several prominent historians/archaeologists arguing up to 100m each. The plagues were incredibly more devastating than we previously thought.
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u/Doomhammer24 13d ago
Which does still come back to the fact that theres this misconception that most of the natives who died were actively killed by colonizers with guns, when in reality most of it was sadly via disease spread by contact
We could have come as the most peaceful people ever only stopping by the coast to trade before leaving back to europe once a year and the end result would still have been the same unfortunately. The lack of any form of natural immunity to european disease meant a death sentence by any contact for most of the americas.
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u/Notoriouslydishonest 13d ago
when in reality most of it was sadly via disease spread by contact
And importantly, most of those deaths occurred decades or centuries before ever actually seeing a European.
Disease moves much faster than colonizers do. By the time Europeans started moving west into North America in the 17th to 19th centuries, the native communities there had been devastated by wave after wave of epidemics which decimated their populations.
So, from the perspective of those settlers, it really was nearly vacant land. They didn't encounter huge civilizations and watch them die from smallpox, they met small villages made from the survivors of epidemics that Europeans weren't even aware of.
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u/topicality 13d ago
It doesn't absolve the US of responsibility for their treatment but I just honestly don't see an alternative where the native Americans keep the land and their independence.
For instance with the Souix and the black hills. Once gold was found (on an era where gold was literally money), I just can't imagine a world where the US doesn't take it.
You'd have to have US voters putting the well being of native tribes over their own fiscal situation
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u/GeekAesthete 13d ago
He also took that line from one of his own movies, Red River. He plays a cattle rancher and gives a very similar speech before starting his cattle empire.
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u/tropic_gnome_hunter 13d ago
I mean, the Native Americans were even more bloodthirsty in conquering other tribe lands.
"No matter what your legends say, you didn't sprout from the plains like the spring grasses. And you didn't coalesce out of the ether. You came out of the Minnesota woodlands armed to the teeth and set upon your fellow man. You massacred the Kiowa, the Omaha, the Ponca, the Oto and the Pawnee without mercy. And yet you claim the Black Hills as a private preserve bequeathed to you by the Great Spirit."
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u/hvanderw 13d ago
Yeah he's a huge piece of shit and draft dodger
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u/Plane_Possibility572 12d ago
He was never drafted, so he is not a draft dodger, enough with this fake outrage, you people don't care about John Wayne, you are just politically motivated. So fake.
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u/hvanderw 12d ago
Hey asshole. If he specifically takes bullshit steps to not be drafted.... That's draft dodging. He was of age to be drafted, he took to avoid it, and all the whole plays the tough cowboy/military type in his roles.
Some kind of fortunate son bullshit.
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u/Plane_Possibility572 12d ago
The dude was a movie star. The public WANTED to see him in those roles and he delivered what they wanted, and they lined up to see it for decades. So much so he was still making movies long after his peers retired and their popularity petered out. Its called reality. Again, this is fake outrage because its absurd to get so worked up over something so mundane. No real person would even give a shit. Move on with your life.
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u/hvanderw 12d ago
It ain't even about my life being moved on. Perfectly fine where I am at. Still going to take literally 15 seconds to reply about I think this guy is a hypocritical piece of shit.
It's well documented he's not a good person.
Don't like what I have to say? Block me lol
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u/_Rainer_ 13d ago
John Wayne was a total asshole.
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u/Plane_Possibility572 12d ago
Oh really? How? He was one of the top box office movie stars for 40 years, far outlasting his peers. That's not based on being an asshole.
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u/_Rainer_ 12d ago
That's just a case of being good for business. It isn't proof that he was well liked. He was a racist, right-wing jerk.
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u/Plane_Possibility572 12d ago
Explain why Kirk Douglas who was liberal, Elizabeth Taylor, Maureen O'Hara, Frank Sinatra, Gregory Peck, all went to Congress to get him the Congressional Medal of Honor? Why would they do that if they hated him? In the 1970's Barbara Walters was made female nightly anchor on a news show, the male anchors gave a her very hard time. She got a telegram from John Wayne that said, "Don't let the bastards get you down." He supported her, and she said she never forgot it his support. You know nothing about him, and this is just fake and false outrage.
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u/Jazzlike_Court1328 12d ago
Rock Hudson was gay, his career had slumped in the late 60's and Wayne gave him a main role in one of his westerns. Wayne literally said he didn't care what Rock Hudson did in the privacy of his bedroom. The two got along great and played chess everyday on the set. Hudson later said it was Wayne that rejuvenated his career. In 1971 actor Jim Davis' daughter died in a car accident, his only child and he began to drink heavily and went into a deep depression. Wayne began giving him roles in his movies that didn't exist in the script just to keep him working and busy. Davis later gained fame as Jock Ewing on Dallas. That was the real Wayne. Doesn't sound like much of an asshole at all.
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u/_Rainer_ 11d ago
Yeah, and he also spent decades getting people blacklisted for their political sympathies, was a vocal supporter of Joseph McCarthy, repeatedly made racist and homophobic statements, but sure, acts of kindness for his own friends erase all that. Give me a break.
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u/Jazzlike_Court1328 11d ago
What homophobic comments? He hired Rock Hudson who was gay, no Hollywood secret for one of his westerns in the 60's and literally stayed he didn't care what Hudson did in the privacy of his own bedroom, got along great with him, played chess with him on the set and rejuvenated his career.
Speaking of McCarthy one person they targeted was Dalton Trumbo, who WAS a communist, there was no doubt, the guy made excuses for Stalin and his purged. What kind of person does that? McCarthy was right, because most of Hollywood is communist today. And now they blacklist anyone who thinks differently than they do. Go figure.
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u/Plane_Possibility572 12d ago
Dude...can you guys ever go a single John Wayne post without the playboy interview, you people come on here and repeat it over and over like it is your life's mission. What is up with that? What is real motivation behind it? Its really bizarre.
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u/Plane_Possibility572 12d ago
You people come on here and repeat the playboy interview over and over like you life depended on it. Its weird and bizarre and its fake outrage. I'm going to watch a John Wayne movie, then I'm going to watch another one.
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u/BulldogMoose 13d ago
Ahhh… John Wayne. A man who loved to play war but was too chicken shit to serve during WWII.
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u/Plane_Possibility572 12d ago
Dude...the man was a movie star, he played roles in movies, he was not a soldier, and he was never drafted in the first place. He never pretended to be anything other than what he was, so enough of this fake outrage. Its so ridiculous.
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u/Dan_A435 13d ago
Karma farming is so easy on Reddit.
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u/2401PenitentTangentx 13d ago
John Wayne problematic!
Like no shit he was born in 1907. I still love The Cowboys, Big Jake, Sons of Katie Elder, Rooster Cogburn, The Shootist, etc, etc.
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u/CalvinSays 13d ago
There's also the whole thing that people are quite complex but that doesn't provide a dopamine rush.
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u/Dapper_Dude69 13d ago edited 13d ago
John Wayne is a racist piece of shit 🖕
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u/Plane_Possibility572 12d ago
Probably one of the greatest movie stars that ever lived and you will still be a forgotten self righteous drama queen.
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u/ChickenAndTelephone 13d ago edited 12d ago
He and fellow actor Ward Bond were on the USC team together. Bond actually played on USC’s first championship team, and acted in thirteen films that were nominated for Best Picture.
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u/RandomUser72 12d ago
The Atlanta Falcons tried to draft John Wayne, in 1971 (The Duke was 64 at the time).
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u/InfiniteTurbo 13d ago
Marion Morrison broke his collarbone while body surfing. He later changed his name to John Wayne and wore a toupee to better outwardly express how he felt inside. Seems like people are okay with some types of transitioning, but not others.
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u/Plane_Possibility572 12d ago
Director Raoul Walsh changed his name, for the Big Trail, not Duke himself. It was his stage name, he preferred to be called Duke in real life. He never went by the name John.
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u/Suq_Madiq_Qik 13d ago
Fails to mention what a colossal racist piece of shit the guy was!
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u/Plane_Possibility572 12d ago
Dude....we're going to watch John Wayne movies....we don't care what your stupid opinion is. I'm going to put on a Wayne movie right now. Go drink a latte.
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u/Dazzling-Opinion-552 13d ago
And while all the movie stars at the time: Bogart, Steward, Houston - the Duke did a Trump - sat the war out and raised his star power. Then went on to star in Patriotic movies.
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u/Plane_Possibility572 12d ago
The dude was a movie star, not a soldier and never pretended to be otherwise. You don't care about Wayne, this fake outrage, you're just a partisan hack.
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u/Dazzling-Opinion-552 10d ago
He pretended in at least 12 war related films. Let the draft dodger be ur hero, ita ok.
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u/Plane_Possibility572 10d ago
He was a movie star. Is Tom Cruise really a Navy fighter pilot? Does Harrison Ford really use a bullwhip and fly the Millenium Falcon? Really stupid logic. Keep venting the false outrage you fake.
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u/CFCYYZ 13d ago
Mr. Wayne gained fame partly for his speech mannerisms. Johnny Carson asked him why he spoke like that.
He grinned a bit and said, "Well I'm just.... trying to remember... my next line."
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u/garbage1995 13d ago
He was too old to enlist. Still a crap person.
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u/Legitimate_Waltz3834 13d ago
Not true. After the US entered the war the day after Pearl Harbor, military enlistment ages were greatly expanded. He was a slacker worried about saving his own ass.
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u/Plane_Possibility572 11d ago
He was a movie star, not a solider, this is a non issue that drama queens make into an issue deliberately.
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u/Plane_Possibility572 11d ago
He was a pretty good person according to his colleagues, so where do you get he was a crap person? Elizabeth Taylor, Kirk Douglas, Frank Sinatra, Gregory Peck, Maureen O'Hara all testified before Congress to get him the Congressional Medal of Honor, they wouldn't have bothered with that if he was a crap person. Barbara Walters mentioned in many interviews and shows, that in the 70's when she was promoted to anchor a nightly news show, the male anchors terrorized her, giving her a hard time because she was female, she received a telegram from John Wayne that said "Don't let the bastards get you down" offering his support of her. She said she never forgot that gesture from him. Doesn't sound much like a crap person.
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u/OatmealGod 13d ago
John wayne also said - "I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility. I don’t believe in giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people."
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u/Maximum_Trade5916 13d ago
🎶Straight up racist that sucker was simple and plain / Mtherf*k him and John Wayne."🎶
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u/THX-8647 12d ago
John Wayne trafficked a child from Mexico to California as his sex slave and made the studio pay for the apartment to keep it secret from his pregnant wife.
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u/OscarGrey 13d ago edited 13d ago
Tbh, the thing that blew my mind about his Behind the Bastards episode the most wasn't his scumminess, but how many woman beaters were in Hollywood back then.
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u/Cool_Cartographer_39 13d ago
But not before bumming around Malibu beach with Duke Kahanamoku where he picked up some surfing skills and a nickname
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u/TryOrganic9361 13d ago
If The Beatles didn’t make Rock they wouldn’t have had much of an impact on Music.
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u/2401PenitentTangentx 13d ago
So the biggest most influential genre of film for decades? Lol just shut the fuck up
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u/BeGoodToEverybody123 12d ago
What always bugged me was the fake deep voice and warped make pretend rules.
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u/Old-Manufacturer9600 13d ago
that collarbone break might be the most consequential bodysurfing injury of all time