The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lincoln at Gettysburg brings his eloquence, wit, and on-target perceptions of American life and politics to this fascinating, well-drawn protrait of a twentieth-century hero. In this work of great originality—the biography of an idea—Garry Wills shows how John Wayne came to embody Amercian values and influenced our cultoure to a degree unmatched by any other public figure of his time. In Wills's hands, Waynes story is tranformed into a compelling narrative about the intersection of popular entertainment and political realities in mid-twentieth-century America.

“Sure I wave the American flag. Do you know a better flag to wave?” —John Wayne A true American to the end, there was nothing John Wayne loved more than his country. In John Wayne: Made in America, John Wayne’s patriotism is explored through photos, his personal letters and mementos, and more memorabilia from the Wayne family archives. Carefully curated by the editors of the Official John Wayne magazine, this book gives new insight to the man who embodied the American spirit and was a living legend for more than 40 years.

"John Wayne remains a constant in American popular culture. Middle America grew up with him in the late 1920s and 1930s, went to war with him in the 1940s, matured with him in the 1950s, and kept the faith with him in the 1960s and 1970s. . . . In his person and in the persona he so carefully constructed, middle America saw itself, its past, and its future. John Wayne was his country’s alter ego." Thus begins John Wayne: American, a biography bursting with vitality and revealing the changing scene in Hollywood and America from the Great Depression through the Vietnam War. During a long movie career, John Wayne defined the role of the cowboy and soldier, the gruff man of decency, the hero who prevailed when the chips were down. But who was he, really? Here is the first substantive, serious view of a contradictory private and public figure.

This revelatory biography shows how both the facts and fictions about John Wayne illuminate his singular life.

The family photo abums, the classic film costumes, the telgrams and medals, from the internationally-beloved icon, The Duke! All collected here for the first time. An undisputed American icon, John Wayne is recognized the world over for his signature drawl and confident swagger; the ultimate personification of American courage and honor. This fall, John Wayne Enterprises has chosen powerHouse Books to produce the first-ever exclusively authorized photographic record of his life, both on-screen and off. John Wayne: The Legend and the Man celebrates Duke's life and legacy through film stills and backstage photos and snapshots ranging from his cinematic masterpieces-True Grit, Rio Grande, Sands of Iwo Jima, The Quiet Man, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Fort Apache, and The Alamo-to a surprising variety of early-career, leading-man films: The Big Trail, Stagecoach, Flying Tigers, They Were Expendable. Also included are a wide selection of fan mail art; family albums, photos from friends and loved ones, and the many treasures gathered over the years in his immense archive (famed film costumes, publicity photos exchanged with costars, telegrams and medals), many of the photos and these personal effects being published for the first time, and all from Duke's personal archive. Duke was more than just his on-screen persona-he was known by loved ones for his warmth, charm, charisma, passion, loyalty, and spirit. Through an in-depth expose of the memorabilia, the private moments, the inner thoughts, and familial memories, John Wayne: The Legend and the Man captures both the man and the myth and furthers the legacy of this giant of American cinema. "This wonderful collection of photographs gives us John Wayne the figurehead, John Wayne the actor, and John Wayne the human being. It's a rich experience to look through these pages and see where Wayne's three roles converged and diverged.... And in all the photos, you see another, earlier America with different ideas of glamor, beauty, fashion, and behavior, a world that now feels as distant as the renaissance. A movie-made hero...a superstar, one of the very first...an image of manhood...and a great American artist. This book affords us a generous look at John Wayne from every angle." -Martin Scorsese, from the Introduction "To the people of the world, John Wayne is the United States of America. He is what they believe it to be. He is what they hope it will be. And he is what they hope it will always be." -Maureen O'Hara "In my acting, I have to identify with something in the character. The big tough boy on the side of right-that's me. Simple themes. Save me from the nuances. All I do is sincerity, and I've been selling the hell out of that ever since I started." -John Wayne (Time, June 9, 1967)

John Ford and John Wayne, two titans of classic film, made some of the most enduring movies of all time. The genre they defined—the Western—and the heroic archetype they built still matter today. For more than twenty years John Ford and John Wayne were a blockbuster Hollywood team, turning out many of the finest Western films ever made. Ford, known for his black eye patch and for his hard-drinking, brawling masculinity, was a son of Irish immigrants and was renowned as a director for both his craftsmanship and his brutality. John “Duke” Wayne was a mere stagehand and bit player in “B” Westerns, but he was strapping and handsome, and Ford saw his potential. In 1939 Ford made Wayne a star in Stagecoach, and from there the two men established a close, often turbulent relationship. Their most productive years saw the release of one iconic film after another: Rio Grande, The Quiet Man, The Searchers, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. But by 1960 the bond of their friendship had frayed, and Wayne felt he could move beyond his mentor with his first solo project, The Alamo. Few of Wayne’s subsequent films would have the brilliance or the cachet of a John Ford Western, but viewed together the careers of these two men changed moviemaking in ways that endure to this day. Despite the decline of the Western in contemporary cinema, its cultural legacy, particularly the type of hero codified by Ford and Wayne—tough, self-reliant, and unafraid to fight but also honorable, trustworthy, and kind—resonates in everything from Star Wars to today’s superhero franchises. Drawing on previously untapped caches of letters and personal documents, Nancy Schoenberger dramatically narrates a complicated, poignant, and iconic friendship and the lasting legacy of that friendship on American culture.