MY HEROES
John Wayne: American Hero; American Legend; but above all John Wayne, American!
When I was a young boy, I couldn't wait for Saturday to come around! Why? Because that's when I could live out my
fantasy of being a real live cowboy! I would go to the picture show (for you youngsters, that's cinema) and sometimes set
through the western movie twice. Then as soon as I got home, I would don my western gear, jump astride my stick horse,
and ride, ride, ride! I still love western movies and guess I always will.
I guess my first hero was the Lone Ranger with Roy Rogers coming in a close second; I liked Gene and Hoppy, but the
Lone Ranger and Roy were my favorites, with Hoppy third, and Gene coming in fourth. Actually, any western star was my
hero, ie: Buck Jones, Tim McCoy, Hoot Gibson, Tom Mix, etc. In later years all these heroes had to take a back seat to
"The Duke" (The background for this page is a scene from Cahill; United States Marshal.); nobody else could compete
with him as far as I was, and still am, concerned. After The Duke, in no particular order, my new heroes became "Coop"
(Gary Cooper), "Mitch" (Robert Mitchum), "Hank" (Henry Fonda), Glen Ford, Randolph Scott, Jimmy Stewart, Alan
Ladd, Audy Murphy, Charles Bronson, Joel McCrea, etc, etc.
My favorite movies are anything by The Duke, but especially The Searchers and The Quiet Man (although not a western);
Coop's High Noon; Mitch's River of No Return; Fonda's My Darling Clementine; Ford's Cimarron; Stewart's Rare Breed,
and of course Ladd's Shane.
Sadly, in my opinion, we don't have movie stars of this caliber anymore! Children don't have many heroes anymore, at
least none like the above!
This page is dedicated to these and other heroes from out of the past. I have included thumbnails of the pictures to make
downloading faster. If you want to see a larger size of any picture, just click on it.
The first one above is from Hondo, then Katie Elder, Rooster Cogburn, The Shootist, The Searchers, True Grit, The Quiet
Man, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Red River, and The Big Trail, his first starring
role.
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