When John Wayne stepped onto the Oscar stage in April of 1979, the entire room rose to its feet as if lifted by a single heartbeat. The Duke had been part of Hollywood’s identity for half a century, yet this appearance felt different—fragile, historic, almost sacred. Just three months earlier, he had survived a brutal nine-hour surgery that removed his entire stomach after doctors discovered cancer. He had beaten lung cancer once before, in 1964, losing a lung and several ribs in the process. Now seventy-two, thinner and weakened but determined, he arrived at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion because he refused to let illness define his final chapter.Continue reading…
