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Show more movies (about 180) or knows more about fiimmaking than Wayne. He was bom in Winterset, iowa, on May 26, 1907, and was christened Marion Robert Morrison, although subsequent records list him as Marion Michael Morrison. His father was a poor and sickly drugstore clerk. At 9, while growing up in Glendale, Cal., the future actor was given the nickname Duke, after his pet Airedale. Ever since 1925, when he was a running guard on the University of Southern California football team, Duke Wayne has toiled in the motion picture industry first as laborer, driver, messenger, prop man and extra later as stuntman, scout, actor, grip, gaffer, cameraman, r, publicist, producer. In view of the longevity of his career, which has turned him into a living legend and an American institution, one wonders why he does not occupy today the same financial stratum as, say, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra and Cary Grant, who are in the bracket. $50 million-plu- s "I had nothing to begin with," Duke points out. "When I went into the motion picture business, I think they paid me $35 a week as a prop man. There were no unions then. I did a few silents for Ford John Ford, the director and when Raoul Walsh picked me for my first decent acting job in The Big Trail, the guys at Fox offered me $45 a week. Walsh screamed and said, 'How the hell can you pay your leading man 45 bucks a week? At least give the kid 250.' "I had no lawyer, no agent, no advice back then. Hell, was happy to the have a job. This was in 1929-3the he Walsh Raoul was Depression. director who named me John Wayne and gave me my real acting start in the business I liked him. So signed contract starting at $75 a a five-yeweek and ending at $500 "I never really made any big money until the 1960's by that time the government was taking 90 percent of it in taxes I'm not squawking, but managing or investing money has never been one of my great talents. I probably should have let Michael This oldest sop, who presides over Wayne's look company, Batjac Productions after my finances." During his prime years when he was turning out from three to eight motion pictures .annually, supporting his first wife and four children, and working up to 16 hours a day Wayne assigned his funds to Bo Roos, one of 180-pou- writer-directo- Hollywood's first business managers. investment counportly, selor, Roos had grandiose schemes and optimistic expectations. "He cost me a fortune," Duke admits. "But I'm not going to engage in recrimination. If I have any strength, I guess it's my love of human beings." In contrast to many older people, Wayne does not particularly like to dwell on past glories or sorrows. He sees no point in discussing his first wife, the former Josephine Saenz, whom he courted for seven years and stayed technically married to for 12, 1933-4He describes her as "one of the most lovely, gracious and intelligent women it has been my good fortune to know." The truth is that their marriage, to which her family always objected, involved a socially prominent, devoutly g, Catholic wife and a boisterous, irreligious, actor. Duke's first marriage, however, was rescued intermittently by the arrival of four children, two sons and two daughters. Now all grown, they have produced a total of 21 offspring. Duke A d, always-on-locati- ar 11 I I "True Grit' cast Wayne as an over-the-hi- ll lawman, won him 7969 Oscar. can't remember all their names, but he is proud of the patriarchal feeling. Hispanic women have always fascinated Wayne. once asked him why, and he replied: "You die in your way, and I'll die in mine." Duke's second wife was a tempestuous Mexican whom he Baur, actress, Esperanza called "Chata," Spanish for "pug nose." In marrying Chata, Wayne committed a monumentally stupid move: He asked his mother-in-lato move in with them, and she accepted. The marriage was hellish, childless and tormenting, the divorce settlement costly. In November 1954, one year after the divorce, Esperanza Baur Wayne died of a heart attack in a Mexico City hotel room. On the first day of that same month, Duke Wayne married Pilar Palette Peruvian beauty. Weldy, a After 24 years and three children Aissa, 22, John Ethan, 16, and Marisa, 12 this marriage has also foundered. Pilar and Duke are separated, with little chance of reconciliation. When I asked Wayne if he might make a fourth try at matrimony Pat Stacey, 37, his attractive secretary and chief of staff from Oak Grove, La., has been mentioned as the next Mrs. Wayne Duke shook his head: "Three strikes and you're out." Where women are concerned, however, the Duke has been known to change his mind. What he apparently will not or cannot change is his fixation upon work. w I "The Quiet Man," '52 tale of in Ireland, featured Maureen O'Hara er surgery. few weeks ago, after this second successful bout with major surgery, I again suggested retirement. "What do you want," I asked, "that you don't already have?" "I'd like to get my good health need is back," he answered. "What about four more hours a day to meet all my commitments. And since you're asking what want that I don't have, the answer is $10 million for the next 10 years." For many years Wayne resided in a house on five acres sprawling in Encino in the San Fernando Valley, but he sold it in 1965 and moved temporarily to the Wild Goose, his 136-foyacht, while builders finished his present Newport Beach home. Wayne says he has to support himself, his wife, three children, a seven-ma- n boat crew, three secretaries, four in help, a couple of gardeners. At 71, Wayne feels that he should maintain the standard of living to which he's accustomed himself and his family, "And that calls for work, which luckily also happen to like," he says. "I'm not a guy who's reconciled to inactivity. So long as people like to watch me, I intend to perform. "Why do they like to watch me? think it's because there's something about the character play that they around been with. so long I've identify and I've made so many pictures, some good and some pretty bad, that people have had a chance to see me in all kinds of situations. And each person identifies with the image he or she likes best. "What do I want to be remembered for? You mean beside pictures like Stagecoach, Red River, The Alamo and True Grit? I'd like to be remembered as a guy who learned how to get along with the average person, to be a little tolerant, understanding and forgiving. "My epitaph? You're really morbid this morning! I'll tell you what I'd like on my tombstone: my name, the years of my birth and death, then three short, simple Spanish words: 'Feo, Fuerte y Formal.' They mean 'ugly, strong and with human dignity.' " A I 0, OCTOBER 22, 1978 rt hard-drinkin- two-fiste- cancerous left lung, I 5. I PARADE 1964, following the removal of I suggested Duke retire. His reply: "I don't know how to retire. What in hell would do?" He then went on to star in more than a dozen films including True Grit, for which he won an Oscar until last summer, when he came down with a weakened heart and was flown to Massachusetts General for open-heaIn his fast-talki- 20-roo- m ot I I I |