Name: John Wayne
Brand: Reel Publishing (UK)
SKU: 9781905764471
Price: 27.0 GBP
Availability: InStock

John Wayne

A Giant Shadow

By (author): Carolyn McGivern, Foreword by: Steven Spielberg

Published by Reel Publishing (UK)

Temporarily Out-of-Stock Available to Pre-order

£27.00

Format: Hardback
Pages: 520
ISBN: 9781905764471
Publication Date: 26-May-2017

Subjects:
Individual actors & performers

Quantity

My real name is Marion Morrison. Im happy people call me Duke - if you were my size, wore cowboy boots and a big hat, outrode, outfought and outshot all the bad men in the West, how would you like to climb down off a horse, throw your saddle over the corral rail and then walk off-camera to a chair labelled, Marion? This freshly revised and fully expanded edition of John Wayne; A Giant Shadow, timed to coincide with the 110th birthday of the star, provides a high profile and unusual look at Hollywoods most enduring icon. It is a comprehensive flesh and blood study, unashamedly aimed at the audience, the way he liked to do business. The page-turner brings back to life the character, strength, independence and grit that was John Wayne riding tall in the saddle along with Duke, the man who left normality behind to create his own legend. It is his story, largely in his own words; it is direct and personal. Of all the complexities that made up John Wayne, the images he left behind perhaps shine the brightest, but around the world people still remember a real man of resolution and absolute honesty, the ultimate personification of American courage and honour, the embodiment of everything that was best about the land of the free and home of the brave. At this moment of fraught uncertainty, the world is nostalgic in its need for symbols of tradition and the image of John Wayne continues offering a warm sense of comfort and protection. His personal life perfectly fitted the John Wayne image and that image remains, casting a towering shadow, not just in film but in American life and politics.

Described by the head of DreamWorks as appetising and very moving its also full of surprises and shocks. If you thought you knew John Wayne it is time to think again.

Carolyns narrative reads so true and feels so right, that it debunks any prejudice that only a family member or Wayne intimate or at the very least, an American, could possibly get this close to the real man. - Tim Lilley - The Trail Beyond

"Everything about John Wayne was larger than life: the hard-drinking friendship with John Ford and Ward Bond; his outspoken political views; his lonely crusade to film The Alamo; his heroic, heart-breaking battle against cancer. McGivern gives them all due and full attention. Theres a wealth of information about Waynes screen career, and a good deal of intelligent commentary about the films themselves. Yet it cannot be overstressed that this is primarily a book about John Wayne, the man and, as such, it is of inestimable value in deepening our appreciation of the enduring potency and poignancy of Wayne as an American icon. Louise Brooks, who co-starred with Wayne in Overland Stage Raiders in 1938, thought even then: [T]his is no actor but the hero of all mythology miraculously brought to life (p. 82). Appropriately for such a hero, McGivern has written an epic. Its the tale of a man who was loved and idolised by millions all over the world a man who had a truly wonderful life. Yet it is also the tragedy of a man who never found true contentment, a loyal friend who trusted too readily, an innately generous man whose heart often led him to make wrong choices. McGivern quotes a Playboy interview from 1971, in which the Duke was asked about the legacy he hoped to leave behind. Wayne replied: I hope my family and friends will be able to say that I was honest, kind and a fairly decent man (p. 376). The truth of that shines all the way through McGiverns book. One cant help feeling Wayne wouldve admired her true grit, wouldve been proud of the result, and wouldve been first in line to offer (to borrow from a Henry Fonda Western) a big hand for the little lady." - Film International