American Titan

Starred review from October 13, 2014
In this incisive biography, Eliot (American Rebel: The Life of Clint Eastwood) reveals the man behind the on-screen paragon of stoic, all-American manhood: an insecure actor (he would passively bow to the humiliating on-set insults showered on him by his mentor, director John Ford); a husband with mother-in-law issues and messy public divorces; a sex slave of Marlene Dietrich; an assiduous avoider of military service during WWII as he became the movie industry’s reigning action hero; and a sometimes guilt-stricken right-wing bully who helped enforce the McCarthy-era blacklist against leftists in the movie industry. Eliot’s narrative is briskly paced, with plenty of entertaining show-biz profiles and anecdotes, and not given much to thumb-sucking rumination, but his critical appreciations (and depreciations) of Wayne’s movies are pithy and evocative, from the mediocre Blood Alley, which imported Lauren Bacall “to add some romantic relief for the women” who wanted more than to “see Wayne beat up some Commies,” to the sublime western The Searchers, in which Wayne displays “deep passion... humanity, great physical strength and endurance, weariness, courage... eerie coldness.” Eliot’s canny, well-judged study gives us the complexity of Wayne the man and the archetype. Photos.

December 1, 2014

Marion Morrison of Winterset, IA, moved to Southern California in 1914 at age seven. He went to the University of Southern California on a football scholarship, which led to bit parts in the movies, and was noticed and rebranded as John Wayne. In 1939, the director John Ford made him a star in the movie Stagecoach. Wayne made two dozen films with Ford and remained a renowned actor until his death in 1979. Eliot, who has written biographies of Cary Grant, Clint Eastwood, and Walt Disney, studies Wayne as an auteur. Eliot's focus is on the films--how they got made, their messages, the acting, and the critical and public response. He particularly highlights Wayne's politics. Unlike most of the big stars of that time, Wayne did not serve in the armed forces in World War II, and Eliot traces his superpatriotism and anticommunist fervor to that fact. The actor detested the 1952 Western High Noon, starring Gary Cooper, as thoroughly un-American and repeatedly pushed a hard-line message in his films such as The Alamo (1960) and The Green Berets (1968). It's a readable, solid book based on library research.

Screenwriter and playwright Brode's book is a well-illustrated guide to the Duke's films, describing each with a short life lesson (e.g., the lesson from 1968's Hellfighters is "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do; his woman must either accept and live with that or cut and run." VERDICT Eliot's book is a great account of the star's life more for film buffs in general than for fans of Wayne. Brode's well-done work will make an excellent present for those who love Wayne's films.--Michael O. Eshleman, Bloomington, IN

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2014
A veteran biographer of pop-culture icons (Cary Grant, Walt Disney, Clint Eastwood) returns with an account of the astonishing film career of Marion Robert Morrison (1907-1979).Eliot (Nicholson: A Biography, 2013, etc.) dispenses with much one might expect in a thick biography-e.g., interviews with those who knew Wayne, sordid sexual details (the author does show us an actor who enjoyed relations with myriads of women) or pompous declarations about what Wayne symbolized. Instead, he focuses on the career of the Duke (the name of a boyhood dog), carefully charting his rise from a modest Iowa family-his father, who frequently failed and eventually left, was sometimes a druggist-to his enduring status as one of Hollywood's most popular actors, despite his intransigent right-wing political views in a left-wing community. Nothing happened quickly. Wayne worked behind the scenes and took modest walk-on parts before gradually finding his place as an actor. It was John Ford's Stagecoach (1939) that ignited his career, though even then he did not leap to stardom. More minor (and bad and horrible) films followed, and Eliot, to his credit, pulls no punches in his assessments of Wayne's performances. However, the author also agrees with Wayne's conviction that the liberal Hollywood establishment denied him Oscar nominations even for his finest roles-in The Searchers, for example, a 1956 film (and Wayne performance) that Eliot continually praises. Eliot is careful to quote reviews of key performances, to let us know the box office successes (and failures) and to give us a peek at Wayne's behavior on the set. We also see his relationships with key directors John Ford and Howard Hawks, and there are plenty of touching moments-e.g., Wayne's final appearance at the Oscars shortly before he died of stomach cancer. A close, unblinking look at a bright star with some internal darkness.

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October 1, 2014
Astute readers might find themselves wondering: hey, didn't we see this book already? They're probably thinking of Scott Eyman's John Wayne: The Life and Legend, which came out earlier this year. Eliot's new book tells pretty much the same story, about a young man who stumbled into acting and whose on-screen persona became a film legend (even though that persona bore only a passing resemblance to the man himself). It's a case of bad timing, more than anything else, that makes this book seem redundant: if Eyman hadn't already published his biography of the screen icon, Eliot's might have captured a large audience. But given that it tells the same story without any unique insights, the book can't help coming across as a bit been there, done that. Still, it's a solidly written account of Wayne's life and does a credible job with the question of how the legend affected Wayne, the person. Libraries with room on the shelves for two new Wayne biographies should slide this one in beside Eyman's work.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)