John Wayne's Controversial 1971 Playboy Interview

For more than 41 years, the barrel-chested physique and laconic derring-do of John
Wayne have been prototypical of gung-ho virility, Hollywood style. In more than 200
films—from The Big Trail in 1930 to the soon-to-be-released Million Dollar
Kidnapping—Wayne has charged the beaches at Iwo Jima, beaten back the Indians at
Fort Apache and bloodied his fists in the name of frontier justice so often—and with nary
a defeat—that he has come to occupy a unique niche in American folklore. The older
generation still remembers him as Singing Sandy, one of the screen's first crooning
cowpokes; the McLuhan generation has grown up with him on The Late Show. With
Cooper and Gable and Tracy gone, the last of the legendary stars survives and flourishes
as never before.