When John Wayne showed up on television, he was usually playing himself in a showbiz cameo, like his “I Love Lucy” guest appearance. As one of the century’s biggest movie stars, he didn’t exactly need exposure.

But Ward Bond, Wayne’s co-star in many of legendary director John Ford’s movies, struggled over whether or not he should make a move to television. When Ford discussed it with Bond, he got blunt. According to Joseph McBride’s book “Searching for John Ford,” the director called his friend a “dumb Irishman” and asked, “Don’t you act for a living?” Bond listened, and took a leading role in “Wagon Train,” a major TV western of the ’50s and ’60s. The show was once the highest-rated western on television, even beating out its regular competition, “Gunsmoke.” And Bond was far from the only movie star to appear in it.

The show began in 1958, and owed a great deal to John Ford’s vision of the American West. Every one of its many episodes focused on a unique character, either somebody in the wagon train or somebody the wagon train encountered, which made the show particularly supple ground for guest stars. When Ford directed an episode of the show, 1960’s “The Colter Craven Story,” the ostensible star was Carleton Young, another Ford stock actor, who played the part of Colter Craven. But dig into the credits and you’ll find another name: Michael Morris … who was actually John Wayne, perhaps the biggest star to appear on the program. And he did it in near secret.

Rise of the TV western

As televisions became more commercially available in the 1950’s, the TV western became one of its most ubiquitous genres, lovingly homaged in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” There were so many western TV shows that only a few are still widely remembered today, regardless of their contemporaneous popularity (shows like “Gunsmoke” and “Bonanza” remain cultural milestones even as others vanished). Like many film westerns, these shows took place a couple of years after the Civil War, using national scars and the rocky terrain of the country’s westward expansion as raw material.

“Wagon Train” was one of those shows. It didn’t just incorporate the communal warmth and actors of John Ford’s westerns — it borrowed story beats from his 1950 film “Wagon Master,” about 19th century Mormon pioneers. When Ford came on to direct his episode, he even used the movie’s location photography to give the episode a grandeur that differentiated it from the other westerns on television, according to Joseph McBride’s “Searching for John Ford.”

Where the initial movie was more concerned with the historic transport of pacifistic Mormons across the wilderness, the TV show became more secular by cutting out the Mormon element. The premise needed to carry the show through 284 hour-long episodes. All that mattered was that the wagon train kept moving.

The Colter Craven Story

In “Wagon Train,” Ward Bond plays wagon master Major Seth Adams, his typically irascible screen image softened for television. While he played the lead role for the show’s first four seasons (until his passing shortly after filming “The Colter Craven Story”), his character often takes a backseat to the main drama of the episode. Exceptions include the first season’s origin story two-parter “The Major Adams Story” and “Colter Craven.”

“Searching for John Ford” notes that by the end of the 1950’s, Ford’s five-decade filmmaking career had stalled somewhat, which saw him visiting the sets of his old friends’ projects. When he wasn’t bullying John Wayne on the set of Wayne’s directorial debut, “The Alamo,” he would hang around Ward Bond’s TV show. Ford’s passion for American history and its complicated players made him pitch Bond an episode dealing with U.S. president and Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant. Bond acquiesced.

Because of Ford’s interest in Grant, the saga of Colter Craven (Carleton Young) is just one piece of the episode. Craven, a surgeon whose experience in the Civil War has traumatized him to the point of alcoholism, joins the wagon train with his wife. When Major Adams (Bond) needs Craven to perform a C-section, he explains his own past with the Civil War, talking about his time in Shiloh, where he reunited with an old friend named Sam (Paul Birch). Hidden in this flashback is the appearance of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, who is played by actor Michael Morris. Who is actually John Wayne.

Wayne in the open

“Sam” is Ulysses S. Grant, and Ford portrays him first as a hapless drunk who sparks the ire of townspeople. His Civil War moment comes later, in Shiloh. Adams and Sam reunite, they share a haunting conversation, interrupted by the arrival of Sherman.

In a show with major roles for actors like the Oscar-winning Bette Davis, Agnes Moorehead, and Lou Costello, it feels almost perverse to shoot its sole John Wayne appearance like Ford does. Sherman is kept at a distance, in wide shot, with only one line. Wayne’s familiar posture and voice are the only clue that this mysterious figure is a famous movie star. It was a favor from Wayne to his buddies Ford and Bond — they remained tight even after Wayne almost walked away from his role in “The Searchers.”

As for John Wayne’s credited name for “Wagon Train,” Michael Morris? That’s closer to his actual name: Marion Robert Morrison.

While Ford’s choice to barely show Wayne was almost certainly a typical bit of rebellious behavior (according to “Searching for John Ford,” the director also got in trouble for giving Grant a cigar in a show sponsored by cigarettes), it suits the show well, keeping the focus on Adams and Grant. In 1962, Ford would get the chance to show the aftermath of Shiloh again in the anthology film “How the West Was Won,” depicting Grant (Harry Morgan) and Sherman (John Wayne again, now fully credited) in conversation. You get to see his face that time.

Despite his decades-long career, Rooster Cogburn was the only time John Wayne appeared in a sequel. Wayne made his screen debut with an uncredited appearance in 1926’s Brown Of Harvard and ended his acting career 50 years later with Don Siegel’s The Shootist. Wayne appeared in many different kinds of genres during his long career, from bizarre romantic drama The Barbarian And The Geisha – where Wayne fought his director – to war movies like Sands of Iwo Jima.

Despite his success with other genres, Wayne is forever tied to Westerns. 1939’s Stagecoach was the film that made him a star, while he went on to appear in many classics of the genre, including The Searchers, Rio Bravo and 1969’s True Grit. While the success of Westerns waned during the late ’60s and ’70s, Wayne continued to headline in movies like Cahill U.S. Marshal and The Cowboys. His second last movie was 1975’s Rooster Cogburn, which saw him reprise the title character from True Grit.

Wayne won his only Oscar for playing Cogburn in True Grit, an aging, cantankerous U.S. Marshall hired by a teenage girl to track the man who killed her father. Rooster Cogburn arrived six years later and saw Wayne – who turned down a Clint Eastwood Western – titular’s character having been stripped of his badge for misconduct. He’s given a chance to redeem himself by chasing after a gang of bank robbers, and during the story, he’s joined by Hollywood legend Katharine Hepburn as a spinster who – just like True Grit’s Mattie Ross – wants to find her father’s killers. Rooster Cogburn is also notable for being the only time in Wayne’s career he made a sequel or reprised a character, with the team-up between him and Hepburn being the highlight of the movie.

Sadly, Rooster Cogburn is utterly inferior to True Grit despite its leads, and while it’s not Wayne’s worst Western, it’s far from his best either. Reviews for the sequel weren’t kind either, with critics feeling both Wayne – whose grandson Brendan is also an actor – and Hepburn were much too old to convincingly portray their characters. During this era in Hollywood, sequels and franchises were still more of the exception than the rule, and while many of Wayne’s Westerns were essentially variations on the same stories or characters, he may have wished to avoid direct follow-ups for the stigma attached to them at the time.

He had appeared in thematic trilogies like John Ford’s Cavalry Trilogy or thinly veiled remakes like Rio Bravo riff Rio Lobo, but Rooster Cogburn was his only direct sequel. It appears there were plans for a franchise had the movie being a success, with a third movie called Someday being developed. Rooster Cogburn proved to be a box-office disappointment, however, though a TV movie titled True Grit: A Further Adventure aired in 1978 with Warren Oates playing Cogburn.

Over the years, actors have not always used their real names onscreen. John Wayne happens to fall in that category. So, how did he get his name? After all, Marion Morrison wasn’t going to cut it in Hollywood or in movies. The decision to change that name actually happened through Wayne’s movie studio at the time, Fox Studios.

John Wayne Gets Help On Stage Name Thanks To His Movie Studio At The Time

The story goes that Fox Studios didn’t like his birth name. At first, director Raoul Walsh tossed out the name of a war general named Anthony Wayne. Studio exec Winfield Sheehan said nope, sounds “too Italian.” Then John Wayne gets tossed out there and everyone says yes.

Did they not think about using “Duke”? Not for his movie name. That nickname came from a childhood Airedale Terrier named Duke. People apparently would call Wayne “Big Duke” and his dog “Little Duke.” So, there you go. And yes, Wayne didn’t have any input about his new name. It was going to be that way and, thankfully, he would become a motion picture superstar for decades to come.

Over the years, Wayne played many different types of roles. Westerns, military movies, even a cop sometimes. What roles would he turn down in his career? “Anything mean and petty,” he said according to an article from Express. “I think I’ve established a character on a screen that may be rough, may be cruel, may have a different code than the average person, but it’s never been mean and petty or small.”

Actor Shares Some Of His Favorite Movies From His Career

That’s focusing on the type of role that he would turn down. Back in 1976, Wayne sat down in Chicago for an in-depth interview and questions from audience members with Phil Donahue. He was asked what were some of his favorite movies to appear in at that time.

“Well, you like different pictures for different reasons,” Wayne said. “I loved Stagecoach, naturally because I stepped on that stagecoach and it’s carried me a long way. I like Hatari! which was a picture we made in Africa because I had a three-month safari free. I mean rich men don’t get that, you know. And The Quiet Man because I got to work with all the Abbey Players and some forebears of my own family.”

John Wayne died in 1979 after battling cancer throughout his life. His movie legacy is broad, wide, and about as big as he was in life. The fact that Wayne remains a piece of American entertainment to this very day speaks volumes about the man and his fans.