Dimensions
163 x 236 x 36mm
Acclaimed Hollywood biographer Marc Eliot is known for getting behind the masks of the most inscrutable tough-guy screen idols. His bestselling Clint Eastwood book, for example, was one of the author's biggest critical and commercial successes. Now, he turns his attention to Clint's forebear (and perhaps Eliot's most ambitious subject ever), the most legendary Western film hero of all time.
John Wayne was a hero to many, a symbol of American power and masculinity, but behind it all he was also a human being. In this book, Eliot pays tribute to the man and the myth, and examines the many interesting contradictions that made him who he was: an actor associated with cowboys and soldiers who actually didn't like horses and didn't serve in the war; a Republican icon who voted for Roosevelt and Truman; and someone who was often accused of racism but married three Mexican wives.
A top box-office draw for more than three decades, Wayne's life and career was remarkable in how it paralleled virtually the entire 20th century, from the Depression through World War II and the upheavals of the 1960s. In this way, Eliot's masterful portrait of the man they called Duke becomes not just the story of John Wayne but of the "American Century."
