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Famous Historic Figures’ Public Image vs the Reality of their Lives

Khalid Elhassan June 3, 2020 34 min

John Ford - The Searchers — John Wayne. Pintrest

37. Becoming a Star

1941 poster for ‘Lady From Louisiana’, starring John Wayne. Wikimedia

The success of Stagecoach secured John Wayne a place in Hollywood. By 1941, while not yet among the top drawer elites, such as Gary Cooper or Jimmy Stewart, Wayne had established himself as a reliable star. Then late that year, came the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and America’s subsequent entry into WWII.

John Wayne’s course of action during that conflict would forever after shape his self-image and self-perception of his manhood. His reaction to and regrets about what he did – or more accurately did not do – during the war, shaped the public image he strove to project for the rest of his life.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.