John Wayne was fiercely proud and protective of his beloved Western and war movie genres. He vocally blasted films like Gary Cooper’s High Noon or Clint Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter that he believed degraded the ideals and values of the Old West – values which the conservative Duke believed should apply to his own times too.
Yet the handwritten list of favourite actors he submitted to The 1977 People’s Almanac includes nobody from either genre while his list of films even contains one classic that is very clearly anti-war.
A letter from the popular book of lists was sent out on July 8, 1977, care of the Screen Actor’s Guild offices and said: “Dear Mr Wayne, we are undertaking an exclusive poll of all living Academy Award-winning actors – individuals who know the most about film acting – on their opinion of who were and are the five best motion picture actors of all time.”
We are also asking the Academy Award winning actors to vote on the five pictures they feel are the five best motion pictures of all time.
“The results of this poll will be featured in the People’s Alamanac II and you will be notified among the contributors to a poll that will be referred to and quoted for years to come.”
Rather surprisingly, Wayne barely included any films or actors from his own war and Westerns genres. His Top five started off with two historical epics, A Man For All Seasons with Robert Shaw and Paul Scofield as Henry VIII and Sir Thomas More, and Gone With The Wind.
They are followed by a rather surprising choice, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It’s assumed Wayne meant the 1921 silent classic starring Rudolph Valentino, not the 1962 Vincente Minnelli flop starring Glenn Ford.
Either way, the story both times is strongly anti-war and ends on a passionate plea for peace, while Wayne was notorious for his patriotic, jingoistic and very vocal support for the military throughout his life.
The final two films on Wayne’s shortlist are The Searchers and The Quiet Man. The former, of course, is director John Ford’s magnum opus Western and starred The Duke, alongside Natalie Wood.
The latter was another of the many Ford and Wayne collaborations across their interconnected careers, but was a far lighter comedy-drama, also featuring Maureen O’Hara.
There are no stars known primarily for war and Western epics in Wayne’s list of the five greatest actors of all time. Wayne named three male stars and two female stars, all of whom remain legends to this day.
It’s unclear whether the top five are ranked in order, but the list comprises Spencer Tracy, Elizabeth Taylor, Katherine Hepburn, Laurence Olivier and Lionel Barrymore.
It is fascinating that Wayne included actors like Olivier and Barrymore who were primarily acclaimed for their artistry, rather than The Duke’s own film star contemporaries like Humphrey Bogart, James Stewart and James Cagney who traditionally rank high on lists of the greatest actors of all time.
Wayne’s replies came to light when his letters were auctioned by Heritage Auctions, but you will have to track down the original People’s Almanac to find out who all his contemporaries voted for as the overall winners.