While not exactly known for making sequels, John Wayne played the same character a whopping eight times in a classic 1930s Western franchise. John Wayne fronted around 80 Westerns in his career, and despite starting in every other kind of genre, he was forever (and happily) typecast as a cowboy; even Wayne’s final film, The Shootist, was a Western. Hollywood was very different when Wayne became a star, with sequels and franchises generally frowned upon. In fact, outside of reprising the role of Rooster Cooburn, Wayne himself tended to avoid sequels.
There was once talk of a follow-up to his hit war movie Sands of Iwo Jima called Devil Birds, though that film ultimately went unmade; how it would have explained the survival of Wayne’s very deceased Stryker is another question. Sequels to even major hits were fairly uncommon during Hollywood’s so-called “Golden Age,” so it’s not surprising Wayne went almost his entire career without reprising a role.
John Wayne’s Role In The Mesquiteers Franchise Explained
The Three Mesquiteers was a huge series back during the 1930s and 1940s
When Wayne’s The Big Trial flopped it set his career back a decade, with this 1930 Western epic having been intended to make the young actor a star. He then spent years fronting “Poverty Row” Westerns, cheapie B-movies that were churned out fast. One of Wayne’s most notable projects from this time was The Three Mesquiteers, a serial Western that ran for an incredible 51 movies between 1936 and 1943. Of course, Wayne didn’t stick around for every entry in this Republic Pictures saga, though he did play the role of Stony Brooke eight times.
Wayne’s breakthrough role came in the form of 1939 classic Stagecoach, so he departed from The Three Mesquiteers following 1939’s aptly titled New Frontier.
Not only is Stony the part Wayne played the most by a sizable margin but all eight of his installments were released between 1938 and 1939. The series itself revolved around the misadventures of the titular trio, consisting of Stony Brooke, Tucson Smith and Lullaby Joslin. These movies typically ran under an hour and were high-energy mixtures of traditional Westerns with more modern adventure films, with the series also featuring a revolving cast of actors.
Brooke was played by Bob Livington an eyewatering 29 times before Wayne replaced him, while Tom Tyler took over for the rest of The Three Mesquiteers franchise. Ray Corrigan and Bob Steele played Tucson Smith, while Lullaby Joslin was played by four actors: Max Terhune, Jimmie Dodd, Rufe Davis and Syd Saylor. Wayne’s breakthrough role came in the form of 1939 classic Stagecoach, so he departed from The Three Mesquiteers following the aptly titled New Frontier.
Which Other Roles Did John Wayne Play More Than Once?
The list of John Wayne franchises is REAL short
Following his stint on The Three Mesquiteers, Wayne essentially avoided sequels for the next 40 years. Rooster Cogburn remains Wayne’s only true sequel, with this 1975 effort seeing him don the eyepatch again to reprise his Oscar-winning role as Rooster Cogburn. Secondly, Wayne’s penultimate film proved a pale shadow of True Grit, despite pairing Wayne with another icon in Katharine Hepburn.
It could also be argued Wayne’s Rio Bravo trilogy is his other big franchise, though the three movies aren’t direct sequels to one another. Instead, Wayne and director Howard Hawks remixed the same basic plot, characters and themes from Rio Bravo into El Dorado and Rio Lobo. In Wayne’s only horror movie Haunted Gold (though “horror” should be applied loosely), he played a character named John Mason. Curiously, three years later in 1935, he played another John Mason in The Dawn Rider. Despite the names, there’s nothing to suggest the two films are directly related.