{"id":690255,"date":"2026-07-14T00:58:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T00:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/690255\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T00:58:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T00:58:15","slug":"the-actor-john-wayne-crowned-as-his-successor-in-1979","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/690255\/","title":{"rendered":"The actor John Wayne crowned as his successor in 1979"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"John<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ Hugo van Gelderen \/ Anefo<\/p>\n

Mon 13 July 2026 17:28, UK <\/p>\n

Getting singled out by a legend like John Wayne<\/a> for special praise would heap pressure on the shoulders of any actor, never mind being heralded as the future of Hollywood in what turned out to be the star\u2019s last-ever public appearance before his death.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Duke\u2019 wasn\u2019t one to mince his words, so adulation and damnation carried equal weight when they came from his lips. By the late 1970s, he wasn\u2019t exactly thrilled with Hollywood\u2019s direction, giving his industry-wide assessments an overarching theme of negativity.<\/p>\n

At the start of the decade, in a Playboy interview in 1971, he famously said, \u201cI\u2019m glad I won\u2019t be around much longer to see what they do with it. The men who control the big studios today are stock manipulators and bankers. They know nothing about our business. They\u2019re in it for the buck.\u201d His stance didn\u2019t soften at all in the intervening years.<\/p>\n

Whereas he\u2019d have evidently preferred the business he dedicated his life to carrying on in the proud, wholesome, and family-friendly traditions of the \u2018Golden Age\u2019, times had changed irrevocably by the time Wayne entered his twilight years. \u2018New Hollywood\u2019 was in full swing, and he couldn\u2019t have hat<\/a>e<\/a>d it more<\/a>. He slammed the \u2018sordid\u2019 descent of culture any time he could.<\/p>\n

Cinema has always been an art form in a constant state of evolution. Having spent decades playing thinly veiled variations on the persona<\/a> he\u2019d created for himself to become a superstar in the first place, a combination of turning down parts largely defined Wayne\u2019s latter years he didn\u2019t like and lambasting the boundary-pushing pictures emanating from the next generation of auteurs.<\/p>\n

\"John<\/a>Credit: Far Out \/ TCM<\/p>\n

However, he saw enough in one talent to sing their praises in the highest possible fashion and at the Academy Awards, no less. The last time The Duke was spotted in public before his passing at the age of 72 in June 1979 came two months previously when he received a rapturous standing ovation at the Oscars.<\/p>\n

Presenting the award for \u2018Best Picture\u2019 to Michael Cimino\u2019s The Deer Hunter, Wayne was introduced to Christopher Reeve at the ceremony. When he caught sight of the tall, handsome, charming, and charismatic actor who\u2019d exploded from unknown to sensation in an instant<\/a> when Richard Donner\u2019s Superman took flight the previous summer, he knew he was looking at a star.<\/p>\n

Per Ability Magazine<\/a>, Wayne turned to fellow legend Cary Grant and told him, \u201cThis is our new man. He\u2019s taking over.\u201d Endorsements and seals of approval don\u2019t come much higher than that, and if Reeve was already feeling under pressure to follow up the success of Superman with a career that could thrive outside of wearing his pants on the outside, then being lauded by one of the biggest names in Hollywood history would have increased it exponentially.<\/p>\n

Reeve tried his best to carve out a niche for himself away from Superman, but he didn\u2019t quite reach the levels Wayne had prognosticated. In a deliberate attempt to avoid being typecast, he actively avoided square-jawed, clean-cut, and heroic roles so as not to be stuffed into that box. Still, his more intimate and character-driven titles didn\u2019t make much of a splash with either critics or at the box office.<\/p>\n

He was a risk taker by nature, saying, \u201cEither you choose to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out into the ocean.\u201d This mindset meant that his film career was similarly filled with the sort of highs Wayne foresaw, and a few lows that seemed inevitable. <\/p>\n

He even had a similar outlook to the Wayne in many ways. \u201cWhat makes Superman a hero is not that he has power,\u201d Reeve once said, \u201cbut that he has the wisdom and the maturity to use the power wisely. From an acting point of view, that\u2019s how I approached the part.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wayne had seen plenty of stars come and go, but regardless of whether or not he lived up to the billing, Reeve getting the thumbs-up from \u2018The Duke\u2019 in his final public outing is a distinction that could never be taken away.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> The Far Out John Wayne Newsletter<\/p>\n

All the latest stories about John Wayne from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ Hugo van Gelderen \/ Anefo Mon 13 July 2026 17:28, UK Getting singled out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[42201,173019,6491,96,60089,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-690255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-1970s","tag-173019","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-john-wayne","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}