John Wayne Net Worth

John Wayne's Quotes

• I never trust a man that doesn't drink.
• [at Harvard in 1974, on being asked whether then-President Richard Nixon ever advised him on the making of his films] No, they've all been successful.
• [on presenting the Best Picture Oscar in 1979] Oscar and I have something in common. Oscar first came to the Hollywood scene in 1928. So did I. We're both a little weatherbeaten, but we're still here and plan to be around for a whole lot longer.
• When people say a John Wayne picture got bad reviews, I always wonder if they know it's a redundant sentence, but hell, I don't care. People like my pictures and that's all that counts.
• [When asked if he believed in God] There must be some higher power or how else does all this stuff work?

Interesting Facts about John Wayne

1. Holds the record for the actor with the most leading parts - 142. In all but 11 films he played the leading part.
2. Ranked #16 in "Empire" (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list in October 1997.
3. Born at 1:00pm-CST.
4. Children with Pilar Wayne: Aissa Wayne, Ethan Wayne and Marisa Wayne.
5. Sons with Josephine: Michael Wayne (producer) (died 2003, age 68) and Patrick Wayne (actor); daughters Toni Wayne (died 2000, age 64) and Melinda Wayne.
6. His production company, Batjac, was originally to be called Batjak, after the shipping company owned by Luther Adler's character in the film Wake of the Red Witch (1948). A secretary's typo while she was drawing up the papers resulted in it being called Batjac, and Wayne, not wanting to hurt her feelings, kept her spelling of it.
7. In the comic "Preacher", his ghost appears in several issues, clothed in his traditional gunfighter outfit, as a mentor to the hero of the series, Jesse Custer.
8. Great-uncle of boxer/actor Tommy Morrison, aka "The Duke".
9. An entry in the logbook of director John Ford's yacht "Araner", during a voyage along the Baja peninsula, made a reference to one of Wayne's pranks on Ward Bond: "Caught the first mate [Wayne] pissing in [Ward] Bond's flask this morning --must remember to give him a raise".
10. He and his drinking buddy, Ward Bond, frequently played practical jokes on each other. In one incident, Bond bet Wayne that they could stand on opposite sides of a newspaper and Wayne wouldn't be able to hit him. Bond set a sheet of newspaper down in a doorway, Wayne stood on one end, and Bond slammed the door in his face, shouting,"Try and hit me now!" Wayne responded by sending his fist through the door, flooring Bond (and winning the bet).
11. His favorite drink was Sauza Commemorativo Tequila, and he often served it with ice that he had chipped from an iceberg during one of his voyages on his yacht, "The Wild Goose".
12. Was offered the lead in The Dirty Dozen (1967), but went to star in and direct The Green Berets (1968) instead. The part was eventually given to Lee Marvin. He also felt that the film portrayed the military in a bad light.
13. The evening before a shoot he was trying to get some sleep in a Las Vegas hotel. The suite directly below his was that of Frank Sinatra (never a good friend of Wayne), who was having a party. The noise kept Wayne awake, and each time he made a complaining phone call it quieted temporarily but each time eventually grew louder. Wayne at last appeared at Sinatra's door and told Frank to stop the noise. A Sinatra bodyguard of Wayne's size approached saying, "Nobody talks to Mr. Sinatra that way." Wayne looked at the man, turned as though to leave, then backhanded the bodyguard, who fell to the floor, where Wayne knocked him out by crashing a chair on top of him. The party noise stopped.
14. Was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity.
15. His spoken album "America: Why I Love Her" became a surprise best-seller and Grammy nominee when it was released in 1973. Reissued on CD in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001, it became a best-seller all over again.
16. Pictured on one of four 25¢ US commemorative postage stamps issued on 3/23/90 honoring classic films released in 1939. The stamp featured Wayne as The Ringo Kid in Stagecoach (1939). The other films honored were Beau Geste (1939), The Wizard of Oz (1939), and Gone with the Wind (1939).
17. Upon being cast by Raoul Walsh in Fox's The Big Trail (1930), the studio decided his name had to be changed. Walsh said he was reading a biography on American Revolutionary War Gen. "Mad" Anthony Wayne and suggested that name. The studio liked the last name but not the first and decided on "John Wayne" as the final rendition.
18. Once made a cameo appearance on The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) in the episode The Beverly Hillbillies: The Indians Are Coming (1967). When asked how he wanted to be paid, his answer was, "Give me a fifth of bourbon--that'll square it.".
19. In 1973 he was awarded the Gold Medal from the National Football Foundation for his days playing football for Glendale High School and USC.
20. Arguably his worst film, The Conqueror (1956), in which he played Genghis Kahn, was based on a script that director Dick Powell had every intention of throwing into the wastebasket. According to Powell, when he had to leave his office at RKO for a few minutes during a story conference, he returned to find a very enthused Wayne reading the script, which had been in a pile of possible scripts on Powell's desk, and insisting that this was the movie he wanted to make. As Powell himself summed it up, "Who am I to turn down John Wayne?".