Page 210 - Cousins - Celebrities, Saints & Sinners

A local fireman at the station on his route to school in Glendale started calling him "Little Duke" because he
never went anywhere without his huge Airedale Terrier, Duke. He preferred "Duke" to "Marion", and the
nickname stuck. Wayne attended Wilson Middle School in Glendale. As a teen, he worked in an ice cream shop
for a man who shod horses for Hollywood studios. He was also active as a member of the Order of DeMolay.
He played football for the 1924 league champion Glendale High School team.

Wayne attended the University of Southern California (USC), majoring in pre-law. He was a member of
the Trojan Knights and Sigma Chi fraternities. Wayne also played on the USC football team under
coach Howard Jones. A broken collarbone injury curtailed his athletic career; Wayne later noted that he was
too terrified of Jones' reaction to reveal the actual cause of his injury, a bodysurfing accident. He lost his
athletic scholarship, and without funds, had to leave the university.

America's entry into World War II resulted in a deluge of support for the war effort from all sectors of society,
and Hollywood was no exception. Wayne was exempted from service due to his age (34 at the time of Pearl
Harbor) and family status (classified as 3-A – family deferment). Wayne repeatedly wrote to John Ford saying
he wanted to enlist, on one occasion inquiring whether he could get into Ford's military unit, but consistently
kept postponing it until after "he finished just one or two pictures". Wayne did not attempt to prevent his
reclassification as 1-A (draft eligible), but Republic Studios was emphatically resistant to losing him since he
was their only A-list actor under contract. Herbert J. Yates, President of Republic, threatened Wayne with a
lawsuit if he walked away from his contract, and Republic Pictures intervened in the Selective Service process,
requesting Wayne's further deferment.

U.S. National Archives records indicate that Wayne, in fact, did make an application to serve in the Office of
Strategic Services (OSS), precursor to the modern CIA, and had been accepted within the U.S. Army's allotted
billet to the OSS. William J. Donovan, OSS Commander, wrote Wayne a letter informing him of his acceptance
into the Field Photographic Unit, but the letter went to his estranged wife Josephine's home. She never told
him about it. Wayne toured U.S. bases and hospitals in the South Pacific for three months in 1943 and
1944. with the USO. During this trip, he carried out a request from Donovan to assess whether
General Douglas Macarthur, commander of the South West Pacific Area, or his staff were hindering the work
of the OSS. Donovan later issued Wayne an OSS Certificate of Service to memorialize Wayne's contribution to
the OSS mission.

By many accounts, his failure to serve in the military later became the most painful part of his life. His widow
later suggested that his patriotism in later decades sprang from guilt, writing: "He would become a
'superpatriot' for the rest of his life trying to atone for staying home.
Throughout most of his life, Wayne was a vocally prominent conservative Republican in Hollywood,
th
supporting anti-communist positions. However, he did vote for Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt (6
cousin, 2 times removed) in the 1936 presidential election and expressed admiration for Roosevelt's successor,

A close friend of Wayne's, California Congressman Alphonzo E. Bell Jr., wrote of him: "Duke's personality and
sense of humor were very close to what the general public saw on the big screen. It is perhaps best shown in
these words he had engraved on a plaque: 'Each of us is a mixture of some good and some not so good
qualities. In considering one's fellow man it's important to remember the good things ... We should refrain
from making judgments just because a fella happens to be a dirty, rotten SOB.”

Although he enrolled in a cancer vaccine study in an attempt to ward off the disease, Wayne died of stomach
cancer on June 11, 1979, at the UCLA Medical Center. His body was buried in the Pacific View Memorial Park
Cemetery in Corona del Mar, Newport Beach.

References:
1. Relative Finder, associated with FamilySearch, and the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS)
2. Wikipedia.org
3. Learn more – John Wayne Documentary
4. LDS Family Tree attached
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