John Wayne's Early Career

By the time Stagecoach made John Wayne a silver-screen star in 1939, the thirty-one-year-old was already a veteran of more than sixty films, having twirled six-guns and foiled cattle rustlers in B Westerns for five studios.

Rise to Fame

By the 1950s he was Hollywood’s most popular actor—an Academy Award nominee destined to become an American icon.

Biography and Legacy

This biography reveals the story of his early life, illustrated with rare archival images.