The New York Timesâbestselling biography: an âauthoritative and enormously engagingâ narrative of the Hollywood iconâs life and career (Peter Bogdanovich, The New York Times Book Review).
One of the biggest stars of Hollywoodâs Golden Era, John Wayne remains one of todayâs most instantly recognizable actors. In this lively and intimate biography, noted film historian Scott Eyman offers the most complete and nuanced portrait of the man behind such iconic roles as Rooster Cogburn, Davy Crockett, The Ringo Kid, and so many others.
âWe all think we know John Wayne, in part because he seemed to be playing himself in movie after movie. Yet as Eyman carefully lays out, âJohn Wayneâ was an invention, a persona created layer by layer by an ambitious young actorâ This biography reveals how Wayne became the symbol of his country at mid-century, and the quintessential American male against whom other screen heroes are still compared (The Washington Post).
Going beyond Wayneâs storied film career, Eyman delves his stormy marriages, his notoriousâand surprisingly long-livedâaffair with Marlene Dietrich, and his later days as an anti-Communist conservative. Eyman âgets at the details that the bean-counters and myth-spinners miss . . . Wayneâs intimates have told things here that theyâve never told anyone elseâ (Los Angeles Times).