John Wayne and dogs

The story is told that Marion Morrison, later known as John Wayne, got his nickname "Duke" from his dog. He was little Duke, the dog was big Duke.
In early August 2009 I had the grand opening of my eBay store, David Lee Guss Rare Photos Gallery, featuring my photo essays paying homage to the arts. By far the most viewed image is a campy one of a chihuahua on a skateboard, decked out in a Tam o'Shanter and a coat. My 1970 photo of Wayne, at Old Tucson, Arizona on the set of Howard Hawks' "Rio Lobo," shortly after receiving his Oscar for "True Grit," is a distant second. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Walter Brennan, David Carradine, Johnny Cash, Angie Dickinson, Kirk Douglas, Robert Duvall, Clint Eastwood, James Earl Jones, Lee Marvin, Robert Mitchum, Jack Palance and Robert Taylor among others, are not even a blip on the radar screen.

There is a show business saying that actors should beware of acting with children and animals as they can easily steal the scene from the performers. It does not speak that well for acting. Perhaps there is something to Marlon Brando's disdain for the craft, sometime art, and Spencer Tracy's assertion that plumbers have more meaningful jobs than mere actors.

John Wayne's Oscar for his Rooster Cogburn in "True Grit" is labeled by some as a hammy caricature, while his turn as the embittered Ethan Edwards in John Ford's masterpiece, "The Searchers," is his greatest performance. He was never even nominated for "Searchers."

Several magnificent artists such as Fred Astaire, John Barrymore, Joseph Calleia, Lon Chaney, Jr., Laird Cregar, W.C. Fields, Greta Garbo, John Garfield, Will Geer, Lillian Gish, Cary Grant, Henry Jones, James Earl Jones, Buster Keaton, Arthur Kennedy, Angela Lansbury, Gene Lockhart, Carole Lombard, Peter Lorre, Bela Lugosi, Ida Lupino, Robert Mitchum, Claude Rains, Edward G. Robinson, Thelma Ritter, Robert Ryan, Barbara Stanwyck, Gloria Swanson, Conrad Veidt and Orson Welles have failed to win an Academy award for a specific performance, or let alone been even nominated.

Well, as my 97 year old mother says, "You can't eat plaques." And the Duke said, "Better yet, you can't drink them."