We all remember John Wayne for being the honorable, heroic cowboy— yet The Duke was not without a temper. While filming his 1970 Western film, Chisum, Wayne proved to be a lot like the man he played in westerns.

During a 2018 interview, Wayne’s co-star, Chris Mitchum opened up about what it was like to work with the legend. According to the actor, Wayne was much like the character he presented on the screen: just and stern when he felt it necessary.

“He was big enough that he would state when he was wrong,” Mitchum began about working with Wayne on set. “He also was extremely fair. I remember one time when we were doing Chisum, the prop guy asked the cast to check their guns when they left the set as it was unsafe around Durango and he did not want them to be misplaced.”

John Wayne Yelled at an Actor

According to Mitchum, the prop guy went to find Geoff Duel, another actor on set who made a mistake of not keeping a close watch on his guns— which were real firearms.

“Duke waited until everybody was seated having lunch. Duke stood up and ripped Geoff apart for not checking his gun. He hollered, ‘Everybody on the set has a job to do, and we help everybody do their job. We work as a single unit here. You were asked to check your gun. Do it and don’t make him come running!’” Mitchum continued.

Even though Wayne was known for being a bit hot-headed at times, he only acted that way when he saw someone not being treated fairly.

“The next day there was an actor standing and Duke said, ‘Why don’t you go sit down? It’s hot.’ This actor replied, ‘Well Duke, I don’t have a chair.’ Duke had gotten his start as a prop man for Fox in the late 1920s. He called the prop guy over and just ripped him a new one for not having a chair there. Duke gave it out to everybody who was out of line,” Mitchum said of John Wayne.

Mitchum also described Wayne as being “more of a mentor and a father to me in the business than my own father was.” He also added that “Duke did nothing but give me support. He took me from a two or three-line role to costarring with him. He basically made my career.”

Throughout his career, Mitchum would star alongside Wayne in films such as Chisum, Rio Lobo, and the legendary Big Jake.

Actor John Wayne, known as The Duke by many dads and cowboy movie lovers, was a Hollywood and American icon. His western movies, such as The Searchers, Stagecoach, and Rio Grande, often overseen by director John Ford, are still iconic pieces of Hollywood western lore.

But the man who starred in The Quiet Man and Sands of Iwo Jima and as Rooster Cogburn in True Grit (his only Academy Award win) was far more than just an actor. He was a family man as well. John Wayne had seven children in total from two marriages (another marriage resulted in no children).

Get to know all of John Wane’s kids below.

1. Michael Wayne (November 23, 1934 – April 2, 2003)

The John Wayne Foundation’s former president and chairman of the board is John Wayne’s first child. He started his film career as a production assistant on The Quiet Man and worked for his father’s production company, Batjac Productions. Michael also served as a producer on several of his famous dad’s movies, including The Green Berets, Cahill U.S. Marshal, McLintock! and The Alamo.

2. Mary Antonia “Toni” Wayne LaCava (February 25, 1936 – December 6, 2000)

Born in Los Angeles, California, Toni was the Oscar winner’s first daughter. Like her older brother, she appeared in The Quiet Man in a cameo role. Toni also had an uncredited role in The Alamo.

In 1956 she married Donald La Cava. The couple would go on to have eight children: Anita, Mark, Brigid, Kevin, Christopher, Peter, David and Brendan. She spent the rest of her life privately, as a mother and wife.

3. Patrick Wayne (born July 15, 1939)

Patrick John Morrison, or as he’s known on the screen, Patrick Wayne, is the legendary American actor’s second son. Patrick has had a prolific acting career, including in films like Mister Roberts and The Searchers, which starred his father as well. Patrick also had a great career in sci-fi, starring in films like Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger and The People That Time Forgot. Patrick also screen-tested for the role of Superman.

4. Melinda Wayne Munoz (born December 3, 1940)

John Wayne’s second daughter also had multiple appearances in his films as a child, but did not go into acting long term. Currently, Melinda lives in Newport Beach in Orange County, California, on Balboa, Island. She married Gregory Robert Munoz in 1964. The couple had five children together before divorcing in 1985.

5. Aissa Wayne (born March 31, 1956)

Aissa Wayne, like the rest of her siblings, had cameos in her dad’s movies as a kid, but she grew up to be a high-powered attorney.

According to her website, “Ms. Wayne is an experienced trial attorney having been trained as a criminal prosecutor for the City of Los Angeles. Our associate attorneys, Of Counsel and paralegals are qualified and experienced in the area of Family Law.”

6. John Ethan Wayne (born February 22, 1962)

The current director of John Wayne Enterprises and the John Wayne Cancer Foundation, which was founded after John Wayne died of stomach cancer, Ethan Wayne very much followed in dad’s footsteps. The actor has appeared in the NBC TV movie The Alamo: 13 Days to Glory, the CBS soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful, and the television series Adam-12.

7. Marisa Wayne (born February 22, 1966)

The daughter of John Wayne and his third wife, Pilar Pallete Wayne, was born on February 22, 1966, in Burbank, California. Marisa, like her other siblings, had cameos in a couple of her dad’s movies. She did not, however, pursue acting. She married Tony Ditteaux on May 4, 2005, and the pair have had two children.

Granddaughter Jennifer Wayne

The granddaughter of John Wayne and Pilar Wayne and the daughter of Aissa Wayne has followed in granddad’s footsteps, in a sense. No, she’s not an actress, but she is a performer. The country music singer and songwriter performs in the band Runaway June, who have hit songs including “Buy My Own Drinks” and “Head Over Heels.”

John Wayne. What can you say about him? Whether you enjoy the man’s work or not, there’s no denying that he has made a massive impact on film history and pop culture. But even as a fan, I can’t defend every aspect of the Duke, like the guy’s acting. I can’t think of anyone who’s watched a John Wayne film for his acting chops.

The man was more known for his screen persona than his acting abilities, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have some good advice on acting.There are, however, a couple of films in which Duke pull off a pretty good performance . There’s his iconic role as Ethan Edwards in The Searchers (1956) where he played a cold-hearted and cynical war veteran searching for his niece.

Then there’s his Oscar-winning performance as the one-eyed, fat, drunken Marshal Reuben J. “Rooster” Cogburn in True Grit (1969). But in this column, I’m going to talk about his last performance in a feature film :Тһе Տһootıѕt (1976), directed by Don Siegel.Based on the Glendon Swarthout novel of the same name, the film tells the story of an aging gunfighter named JB Books, played by Duke, who at the dawn of the 20th century finds out he has terminal cancer.

Per this news, he decided to try and spend his final days in peace. But as rumors spread about him through the tiny town of Carson City, Nevada, more people want to get a piece of him. It eventually climaxes with Books realizing that he’ll never escape his past and going out the only way he knows how.Before I go on about John Wayne in the film, I have to talk about the rest of the cast.

This film boasts an all-star ensemble, many of whom took the role purely as a favor to Wayne. There’s Dr. Hostetler (James Stewart) who delivers the bad news to Books about his health and becomes a closer friend throughout the film. “You know, Books,” he says, “I’m not an especially brave man. But, if I were you and had lived my entire life the way you have, I don’t think that the ԁеаtһ I just described to you is the one I would choose.”

Then there’s the late, great Lauren Bacall as the widowed boarding house owner Bond Rogers and Oscar-winning director Ron Howard as her wide-eyed idolizing son. The film also features a slew of great TV and Western legends — Richard Boone as the vengeance seeking Mike Sweeney, John Carradine as the town’s undertaker Hezekiah Beckum, Bill McKinney as the ill-tempered Jay Cobb, Scatman Crothers as the liver-stable owner Moses Brown, and Harry Morgan as the fast-talking and loud Marshal Thibido.