Easily overlooked amid the prolific acting career and larger-than-life persona was John Wayne’s generosity. He was generous with his family, whom he welcomed into his own career with open arms. And in the years since his ԁеаtһ, the philanthropy carried out by his estate has been dedicated to cancer research.Recently, the official John Wayne Instagram account posted a throwback photo from 1970.

It shows Duke visiting a Mexican orphanage with actress Raquel Welch.“Giving back to the community was important to Duke, he’s pictured here with Raquel Welch visiting an orphanage in Mexico in 1970,” the caption of the post reads.The heartwarming photo shows John Wayne giving a smile to a child outside the orphanage. Raquel Welch can be seen behind him to the right, doing the same thing.

John Wayne Had an Affinity for Mexico : John Wayne spent a lot of time in Mexico. For one, the iconic Western actor filmed no less than six movies in the country throughout his career. Beyond his acting career, however, Duke just loved spending time there.Granted, most of that time wasn’t spent at orphanages. But John Wayne did his small part in other ways too.

The town of Chupaderos in Northwestern Mexico was effectively built by Wayne and the movies he filmed there. Although, it did fall on hard times after he stopped making movies there.Nonetheless, Mexico was one of Wayne’s favorite destinations. His estate posted another photo back in April of the Western icon taking in the sights of Acapulco.“Duke loved to travel all over the world and one of his favorite places to visit was Mexico.

He’s pictured here in Acapulco in the late 1940’s, where he owned a hotel called Hotel Los Flamingos with his friend Johnny Weissmuller, who played Tarzan,” part of the caption reads.One of the things that brought Wayne to Mexico was his yacht, the Wild Goose. One of his favorite activities was sailing it down the coast of Mexico with his family.“For a long time, whenever I dreamed about him, we were on the boat,” John Wayne’s daughter Marisa said.Duke Owned a Hotel in Acapulco, Mexico : As the caption from the Instagram posts mentions, John Wayne owned a hotel in Mexico.

Along with a group of celebrities, John Wayne bought Hotel Los Flamingos in 1954 to use as a private getaway.After using it for vacations and private events for a few years, the group decided to sell the hotel. Today, Hotel Los Flamingos is still in operation. And fortunately for travel-inclined fans of the Duke, getting a room there is actually pretty affordable.

Having made his name as a singer in 1956, Elvis Presley’s manager Colonel Tom Parker had a vision for his client to become a Hollywood movie star. That same year The King acted in his first movie, a Western called Love Me Tender. Among his musical romantic comedies, he starred in three more Wild West films in Flaming Star, Frankie and Johnny and Charro, which caught the eye of John Wayne himself.

During this period, Wayne was America’s cowboy star, having acted in his first Western in 1930’s The Big Trail, before making iconic movies with John Ford like The Searchers.In 1969, the 62-year-old starred in one of his last box office successes, an adaptation of Charles Portis’ novel True Grit.

The storyline saw Duke play Rooster Cogburn, a tough one-eyed old United States Marshal who helps a 14-year-old girl track down the drunk who killed her father.They did this with the help of Texan Ranger LaBoeuf, a part that initially was set for Elvis.However, in the late 1960s, Elvis was tired of making poor musical rom-coms and returned his focus to live performances with his 1968 Comeback Special and subsequent Las Vegas residences.

The King’s cousin Billy Smith described on his son Danny’s Memphis Mafia Kid YouTube channel how John Wayne asked Elvis to co-star in a few of his movies. He said: “In fact, he asked him a couple of times.” In the end, his manager The Colonel pushed it too far by demanding that Elvis should receive top billing above Wayne if he were to play the Texan in True Grit.Billy added: “Of course, it was always carried through Colonel and at that time when he was asking, Elvis was such a big star.

Colonel didn’t want him to play second co-star or second star…with anybody else, so that ruled that out.”Since Wayne was already such a huge star, True Grit’s producers declined Elvis even though he was their original choice for the role of LaBoeuf.

Instead, another musician, Glen Campbell, was cast as the Texan ranger, which saw him nominated for a Golden Globe.If that wasn’t enough, Duke himself won the Golden Globe and his first and only Oscar in the Best Actor category for Rooster Cogburn.The Western legend said during his Academy Awards speech: “Wow! If I’d known that, I’d have put that [eye] patch on 35 years earlier.”

John Wayne died of stomach cancer on June 11, 1979 at the age of 72. Just three years later he starred in what many believed to be his final movie, The Shootist. The 1976 Western co-starring Lauren Bacall, James Stewart and Ron Howard saw Duke play JB Books, an ageing gunfighter with cancer at the turn of the 20th century.

It’s an urban legend that Wayne was terminally ill like his character when filming The Shootist.Duke had been cancer free after having his left lung and several ribs removed in 1964 after a diagnosis of the disease.However, in early 1979, metastases were found in his stomach, intestines and spine and he died that summer.

What might surprise fans of the Western star is that he had an uncredited cameo in 1977’s original Star Wars movie, later retitled Episode IV: A New Hope.Star Wars director George Lucas was a big fan of Wayne growing up, allegedly inspiring his later reedit of Han Solo only shooting Greedo after the alien fired at Han first.

The reason being that shooting first would be something that a Wayne Western character wouldn’t do, according to CBR.On top of this, when Luke Skywalker finds the burnt bodies of his aunt and uncle, the scene is clearly inspired by John Ford’s The Searchers, when Duke’s character finds the charred corpses of his brother, sister-in-law and nephew.

Now while Wayne’s voice is in 1977’s Star Wars it turns out this wasn’t included by Lucas.The uncredited cameo itself sees Wayne’s vocals from some stock audio used to voice Garindan, a long-snooted Kubaz who sells information to the highest bidder as an Imperial spy.In Star Wars, the creature tells the Stormtroopers where Luke, Obi-Wan and the droids are located.

Garindan’s vocals are all squeaky because the audio is simply Wayne’s voice distorted. Star Wars sound designer Ben Burtt explained years later how he ended up creating what was technically The Hollywood legend’s last screen role.Burtt said: “I always wanted to do an insect man – we didn’t really have an insect man come along until Poggle the Lesser [from Episodes II and III]. We had that character that looked kind of like a mosquito from the first Star Wars [Garindan] that we found we needed a sound for.

“And I was wondering back a few months ago how I did it – because I keep notes and tapes – and I discovered it was an electronic buzzing which had come off of my synthesizer that was triggered by a human voice.”The Star Wars sound engineer then went on to share how he discovered the vocals was that of Wayne himself.Burtt continued: “And I listened to it and realised it was John Wayne. I had found some loop lines in the trash from the studio that had been thrown away.“So the buzzing was triggered by some dialogue like ‘All right, what are you doin’ in this town’ or something like that.”So by the sounds of it neither Lucas nor Wayne himself had anything to do with this incredible Easter egg.