I didn't have a computer back when this blog was created but I too have a story about John Wayne, but Ms. Lora F. you must divert your eyes.Back when I was working full time everbody complained about the toilet paper in the reastrooms. Us workers complained and asked what was the name of the paper they bought. Some smart ass (my kinda guy) personnel guy said thats John Wayne toilet paper. We said, what! He said yea, its rough and tough and don't take no sh#t off nobody.

In the hot barrels blog I said I liked D.P.'s material, but that all might change after the upstate NY remark in this blog!! What is your take on upstate NY,Dave? Just looking back through some old issues for rut tactics and read about the deer rifles in the august 2001 deer gear issue.And on page 52 there he was "the original death in long grass" drawing a fine steady bead in the deer woods of NY!!! Where was that Dave? Just curious..

I'll modify my earlier comments about John Wayne. In addition to portraying stalwart, manly characters he was also reasonably funny in comedic roles. McClintock! comes to mind, for example. In a way, he was the Arnold Schwarzenegger of his era. Arnold also has very limited range as an actor, but is entertaining in action and action/comedy roles.

I am a JW fan as well,so are my sons (ages 8 & 9).I have to say in this day and time with all the crap on T.V.,it pleases me they (my sons) had rather watch a JW movie than the moral lacking crud that airs daily.JW did dominate the screen and his scenes,he stood for what was right and didn't back down.When he told Liberty Valance(Lee Marvin) to pick up his steak off the floor,I laughed so hard thinking, man this guy is larger than life.

John Wayne stars in "They Were Expendable" (with Robert Montgomery, I think) and that just happens to be one of my favorite movies. I have several of his Westerns and war movies (Stagecoach, the Searchers, Red River, Rio Bravo, The Cowboys, The Green Berets, True Grit, The Flying Tigers, Sands of Iwo Jima).I'm more partial to Gary Cooper and Clint Eastwood myself, but I have more John Wayne movies than Gary Cooper movies. I also give JW his due praise for being - as a few posters have already mentioned - good at being John Wayne, movie hero.I will no longer comment on his hero credentials outside the movies, because I already said much in an earlier thread (the "brokeback" one).As for the thespic abilities of our movie heroes, I'm a fan of Charlton Heston, too. I don't think JW was a bad actor, he was just boxed in by his own image or stereotype. But he died in "The Cowboys" (killed by Bruce Dern), so he was at least capable of taking risks with his chosen characters (some big stars won't accept roles where they get killed). And he was good in "The Searchers" and "True Grit", although I must add that the best member of the True Grit crew was the horse wrangler. That was the only Western I've seen where the stamina of horses is accounted for in the story.Orson Welles once said that when you shoot a scene with Gary Cooper, either as his co-actor or director, you're never impressed with him much because he was quiet and ordinary, until you see the rushes, and then he dominates the screen. Well, John Wayne already dominates the screen. If he was a bigger man in real life than he was on screen, Dave, then I can't imagine how big that is.

While I don't mean to disparage the dead, John Wayne was not a military hero; quite the opposite. He was the beneficiary of a great public relations campaign. Please keep it real and save the term "hero" for war veterans so really put it on the line! Walt Chapman

I understand Ned Beatty did his own stunts in Deliverance, too.

What would John Wayne do? Feh.What would Audie Murphy do?That is the question.

The Searchers was a movie that played to John Wayne's strengths, such as they were, as an actor. He did the strong, not-to-talkative loner very well. It's when he was required to convey a feeling of something beyond stalwart manliness that his performances typically fell apart. His romantic scenes with his female co-stars tend towards the ridiculous, for example. I will give the man full credit, though, that he did an absolutely capital job of portraying John Wayne. He came to fame in an era when movie stars had carefully manufactured public personas_thanks to the studio system_and he did extremely well at playing John Wayne for the remainder of his life. The studios never had to do damage control for him the way they had to for Errol Flynn, Rock Hudson, et. al. It can't have been easy not breaking character for all those years.

John Wayne wasn't you would call a great actor or anything, but he did what he did VERY well, and that was to be John Wayne: larger than life tough guy, man's man, and icon. I really like John Wayne.Petzal is almost the same, but, as an outdoors writer, doesn't rate the fame and status of a Hollywood actor. And he's too ugly. Good thing he writes so well. He's the first thing I look for in every issue of Field and Stream. So I guess I really like Dave Petzal, too.(Dave; You can send the check to...)

To JA Demko: Conventional wisdom has it that the billionaires in Jackson Hole have driven the multi-millionaires to Cody, who have driven the millionaires to Sheridan and Bozeman. Not bad for a state with only 600,000 people or so.

I enjoyed your story. John Wayne has never been a particular favorite of mine; other than True Grit and The Quiet Man his movies tend to leave me cold and I won't even go into his "military record." Still, I guess you should be happy it was someone with John Wayne's public persona that upstaged you rather than, say, Rip Taylor or Charles Nelson Reilly.Other than not having to be around the poor, what attracts the rich to Cody?