Although he never fired a bullet in combat or rescued a damsel in distress, John Wayne is remembered as a hero, the kind of guy your grandfather looked up to. Wayne had a vast filmography, appearing in nearly 250 movies. Some of his best roles were taken on when he was in his late sixties. Below are 10 facts about an American icon, from his brush with the KGB to rumors about his colon.
10
Stalin Ordered His Death
Joseph Stalin was quite the film buff and found himself outraged at the anti-communist sentiments Wayne expressed in the late 1940s. Reportedly, he ordered a hit on the movie star, dispatching two KGB assassins in 1951. But the FBI were wise to the plot and intercepted the two hit men. The agency also allegedly foiled other plots to kill Wayne, including a sniper attack when he visited Vietnam in 1966.As evidence that Stalin was responsible, we have, first, the word of an unnamed Soviet source. But we also have the word of Stalin’s successor, Premier Nikita Khrushchev. When Khrushchev met John Wayne in 1958, he apologized for the incident, telling him, “That was the decision of Stalin in his last mad years. I rescinded the order.”
