This Day in History: April 7, 1970
Growing up in the 50s and 60s meant cowboys and Indians, instead of iPhones and iPads! Time was spent outdoors playing the games children should play, enjoying nature and getting dirty. Mud on our faces, dirt in our shoes, soiled shirts and grass-stained jeans were nothing unusual.
When time was allowed for television, some of the best shows on TV were the Westerns...the shoot 'em ups where the bad guys were shot but always lived to play another 'baddie' part in yet another Western movie. NO foul language, NO obscene sex.
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One of the (if not THE) GREATEST Western heroes is John Wayne, aka the Duke. Over the course of his long and storied career, Wayne appeared in some 150 movies. He established his tough, rugged, uniquely American screen persona most vividly in the many acclaimed films he made for the directors John Ford and Howard Hawks from the late 1940s into the early 1960s.
It was on this day April 7, 1970 that the Motion Picture Academy considered John Wayne worthy of an oscar. This would be his first - and only - oscar. Hard to believe it took Wayne playing a one-eyed fat man in the movie True Grit to earn him the award.
Prior to this he had starred in many truly outstanding roles and completed exceptional performances.
The Academy had failed to even nominate Wayne for any of his most celebrated performances, in films such as Stagecoach (1939), Red River (1948), The Quiet Man (1952), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) and especially Ford’s The Searchers (1956), considered by many to be the greatest Western ever made. Source: This Day in History
John Wayne possessed a unique American screen persona and loved his country, America, as much if not more than anyone possibly could! Behind the man is a great legend...a legend laced with true grit!
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