The 10 Toughest John Wayne Moments

You know that you're an exemplar of the American way of life when the Russkies try to have you killed. In the early '50s, no man embodied American-ness quite like John Wayne, and the outspoken actor had plenty to say about the loss of freedoms behind the Iron Curtain. As a result, Joseph Stalin dispatched multiple agents to the States to end Wayne's life. The most notable came at the Warner Brothers lot, where a pair of commies disguised as FBI men very nearly did the deed only to be stopped by the real FBI. When Khrushchev came into power, he called off the operation, because he was a big fan.

Harvard's Hasty Pudding Club is the university's preeminent theatrical society, staging shows just about every year since 1944. They also honor a famous actor and actress every year in a hilarious ceremony. In 1969, the group pegged John Wayne to be the Grand Marshal of their annual parade, and instead of riding to the ceremony in a limousine, the Duke requisitioned an M-113 armored personnel carrier and drove it down the streets of swinging Cambridge.

On the set of "Hondo," John Wayne struck up a friendship with Rudd Weatherwax, the dog trainer most famous for raising Lassie. The film featured a collie that was either a descendent or a sibling of the legendary dog, and Wayne was very taken with it. In a late-night poker game, Wayne (who loved a friendly game of cards) got Weatherwax so deep in the hole that he actually bet ownership of the dog, and the Duke won. Like a boss, though, he gave the dog back the next morning.

When filming Howard Hawks's "Hatari", John Wayne -- like the other lead actors -- did all of his own animal-related stunts. Needless to say, the Hollywood maxim of "never work with kids or animals" was called into play multiple times. When Wayne had to wrestle a giraffe into a flatbed truck for one of the movie's scenes, he was so incensed by the animal's refusal to cooperate that he started cursing extravagantly, requiring Hawks to strip the audio from the footage and re-dub it afterwards, sans profanity.

One of my favorite under-rated John Wayne films is "Donovan's Reef," which pairs him with the equally craggy Lee Marvin for an explosion of badassitude. Wayne plays Michael "Guns" Donovan, an expat Navy man living on an island in French Polynesia.  Donovan and fellow vet Thomas "Boats" Gilhooley share a birthday, and these guys don't like to share. Every year for the 21 that they've known each other these two dudes have engaged in fisticuffs on their birthday, and the 22nd is no exception. The two tough guys go at each other with frantic zeal, and it's one of Wayne's best screen fights.

John Wayne wasn't in Hollywood for the approval of the critics. He made the movies he wanted to make, and he made them his way. But there was one occasion when those two worlds intersected admirably, and that was with 1969's "True Grit." The adaptation of the Charles Portis novel gave Wayne one of his most well-rounded characters in aging one-eyed Marshal Rooster Cogburn, and he won both a Golden Globe and an Oscar for the performance. Wayne's speech was typically terse, telling the assembled Academy "Wow! If I'd known that, I'd have put that patch on 35 years earlier."

One of the most important things a true badass can have is a sense of humor about himself. For all his craggy, stone-faced grandeur, John Wayne was a very down-to-earth guy who didn't mind poking fun at his own image every once in a while. One of the best examples of this came from his occasional guest appearances on "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" throughout the '60s. Wayne would show up in some seriously idiosyncratic situations, including reciting poetry and even once wearing a bunny suit. Now that takes real toughness.

This tale perfectly sums up the unique mixture of toughness and decency that made John Wayne a legend. In 1960, a burglar got ahold of Wayne's unlisted address in Encino, Calif. and broke into his home with the intent of stealing some priceless memorabilia. He didn't reckon on the Duke being home and the crook quickly found himself at the wrong end of a shotgun while Wayne's wife Pilar called the cops. The kicker, though? The crook had come to the job in a taxicab and the driver was waiting outside, ignorant of the whole thing. So, like a solid dude, John Wayne went out and paid the fare.