John Wayne and in them he played cowboys, cavalrymen, and unconquerable loners extracted from the Republic's central creation myth." Wayne's other roles in Westerns include a cattleman driving his herd north on the Chisholm Trail in "Red River" (1948), a Civil War veteran whose young niece is abducted by a tribe of Comanches in "The Searchers" (1956), a troubled rancher competing with a lawyer (James Stewart) for a woman's hand in marriage in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962), and a cantankerous one-eyed marshal in "True Grit" (1969). He is also remembered for his roles in "The Quiet Man" (1952), "Rio
John Wayne title was a play on the Dumas classic. He was mentored by stuntmen in riding and other Western skills. Stuntman Yakima Canutt and Wayne developed and perfected stunts and onscreen fisticuffs techniques which are still in use. Wayne's breakthrough role came with John Ford's "Stagecoach" (1939). Because of Wayne's B-movie status and track record in low-budget Westerns throughout the 1930s, Ford had difficulty getting financing for what was to be an A-budget film. After rejection by all the major studios, Ford struck a deal with independent producer Walter Wanger in which Claire Trevor—a much bigger star at the time—received top