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Clint Eastwood or John Wayne


Smoken D

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One time Emerson Fittipaldi got pulled over for speeding. Mario Andretti was riding with him. I guess he was doing way over the limit. Anyway the cop asks him "Who do you think you are, Mario Andretti?" He replies, No, I'm Emerson Fittipaldi...Mario is in the passenger seat.

 

When someones says cowboy movies, I think John Wayne.......when they say bada##, I think Clint Eastwood.

That I can agree with.

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Nobody doubts John Wayne's patriotism or his contribution to the war effort during WWII!! MANY were denied participation in and entry into the military due to injury or physical impairment. To denigrate or belittle them or their contributions is as un-American as racism or disrespecting our flag or troops!!

 

Perhaps some of us should re-examine our standards for what is patriotism and remember that this thread began with NO thought or mention of military service OR EVEN patriotism for that matter. There was no call for any axe grinding.......

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while his colleagues went to war he was at home and furthered his career playing a war hero in the movies while the true heroes like Stewart and others served

 

This one kind of confuses me. It is a matter of record that John Wayne sought to get into Annapolis and failed. When WWII broke out, Wayne was 34 years old, with four kids and was exempted from the draft. He would have also needed a medical waiver to enlist, due to a shoulder injury. My understanding is those were somewhat uncommon until later in the war, and kept one out of combat arms units. Even then, the National Archives have his application to join the OSS. dated from 1943.

 

Not to take anything away from Jimmy Stewart, who was only a year or so younger than Wayne. Other than being underweight, Stewart was physically able to be drafted into the military. After being rejected due to his weight, he sought to put on weight until he was accepted. Stewart also had two other advantages over Wayne, a commercial pilot's license and a college degree.

 

Plenty served in combat. Plenty more served on the home front. To denigrate the latter is an insult to those who couldn't do the former, or had jobs and reasons for not.

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while his colleagues went to war he was at home and furthered his career playing a war hero in the movies while the true heroes like Stewart and others served

There is documented proof that John Wayne tried to get into the military and was blocked by his old buddy John Ford and others, from doing so.

 

Soooo, Getting back on point, which was suggested that we do earlier, sounds like the best tact to take in this conversation:

 

If I had to choose between the two, I pick John Wayne.

 

I do not like making that choice because I see Wayne and Eastwood as two separate talents. This was also suggested earlier by others. I don't believe that we can actually make a decision based on a comparison between the two men and their movies.

 

Something that I would have liked to have seen is a movie with both John Wayne and Clint Eastwood in it, maybe as adversarial allies who, in the end, gain enormousrespect for one another.

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I think we may be losing sight of the original post.

As usual.

Right, but the original post basically calls for a false comparison (no offense to the pard). Two totally different actors in most ways, both of whom made some really good, really different Western movies.

 

Apart from many personal differences, they represented different eras and outlooks. I suppose that since they "overlapped", that gives rise to these sorts of comparison questions.

 

I was born in 1948, but while I grew up watching the great TV Westerns, I never saw a John Wayne Western until I joined SASS in 2004. So I had no sentimentality toward Wayne, and I always have a hard time understanding the Wayne sentimentality that is out there.. But I finally got into Westerns big time back then, and my own personal judgment was that John Wayne was much better, and his movies were much better, than I had expected.

 

Nobody ultimately had such a great identification with the Western than John Wayne, with the only possible exception in my opinion being Randolph Scott. But while Scott made some of the truly great Westerns, and I have become a big appreciator of his movies, he never came near the larger-than-life quality of John Wayne.

 

You can't really compare Wayne with Stewart, or Eastwood, or several others. You can compare him in many ways with Scott: he was always the solid, upright, laconic hero. He had a charisma that Scott lacked. But, apart from The Quiet Man, and maybe a couple of other examples, John Wayne was not a great romantic actor. Randolph Scott was pretty good in that department: he always got the girl, and often as not, he stole her from somebody else! Wayne was always kind of being disappointed in love in his movies.....

Edited by Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619
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while his colleagues went to war he was at home and furthered his career playing a war hero in the movies while the true heroes like Stewart and others served

There is documented proof that John Wayne tried to get into the military during WWII and was blocked by his old "buddy" John Ford and others, from doing so.

 

Soooo, Getting back on point, which was suggested that we do earlier, it sounds like the best tact and direction that we take in this conversation is to stick to the original question.

 

Therefore, (if I was unclear earlier) if I must choose between the two, I pick John Wayne.

 

But, I do not like making that choice because I see Wayne and Eastwood as two separate talents, whose stars rose in essentially two different time frames. This was also suggested earlier by others. I don't believe that we can actually make a decision based on a comparison between the two men, their talents and their movies.

 

Something that I would have liked to have seen, however, is a movie with both John Wayne and Clint Eastwood in it, maybe as adversarial allies who, in the end, gain enormousrespect for one another.

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For the topic of the OP:

I like both very much, but I will always be biased for John Wayne.

 

 

 

As for the derailed topic:

It was my understanding that JW enlisted in the Naval Academy but was rejected due shoulder injuries from college football.

 

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It's fun doing a question like this and see the results. The last few sentence's I wrote was, "They are both legends that will live forever. Both have a very special place. Could you choose?" Some cowboys crack me up :lol: Great results, great stories from everyone. Bet we could continue forever on these two great guys.

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My vote goes to Clint Eastwood, as I grew up watching the spaghetti era movies. I'll probably be crucified for this (perfect timing though being christmas and all), but I have never considered John Wayne an actor. He's basically the same person in every movie. He's pretty much the Nicholas Cage of his time. That being said, if not for Wayne, we don't have Eastwood or Elliot or Selleck, nor cowboy action shooting, so I'll always be grateful for the contribution he made and pretty much creating what we know as Westerns today.

 

As for the service argument, I served my country and lost a few really good friends in doing so. No time ever in my life have I looked down upon anyone else that didn't join the military. It was a personal choice I made for me and in many ways a very costly one. No one should ever feel ashamed that they did not or could not join. There are many other ways to serve one's country.

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while his colleagues went to war he was at home and furthered his career playing a war hero in the movies while the true heroes like Stewart and others served

He was extremely important to the war effort. His movies kept morale up on the home front and were crucial in War Bond drives. I have no problem with him not serving. He did his bit.

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Probably Yakima Canutt or Richard Farnsworth to be quite honest.

 

 

 

If stranded on a desert Island, I can't think of any man I'd wish to be stuck with.

Edited by Dirty Dan Dawkins
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It seems to me that the op was based on two actors and their screen personas, not their personal achievements,foibles or personalities.

I may be wrong.

But let's say you never saw, read, or heard a thing about either man. Only saw them acting on the screen. Just within the context of the roles they played, which would you choose?

Now as they were from different eras both in filmaking and in history, it is difficult to make such a choice. I would assume that you would pick Wayne if you grew up watching his movies, and Eastwood if you were a spaghetti western fan. Different strokes.

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I liked Clint's scene with Dean Woermer's wife in High Plains Drifter. Not a role you'd see Wayne in.....

 

 

 

Yeah! But Sherry Lansing said the Duke was "comfortable"!! :o:lol::lol:

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I thought John Wayne got a medical deferment because of an old football injury.(??) http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2010/02/28/john-wayne-world-war-ii-and-the-draft/

 

That said I'll take Clint's movies anyway over Wayne's, I like 'em both but Clint's the man!!

 

Oh and yea Coffinmaker I agree, Ann Margaret :wub:

Edited by Rye Miles #13621
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I believe you mean Ann Margaret.

 

 

 

The movie was Rio Lobo. The character played by Sherry Lansing, who later became the CEO of Paramount Pictures and later president of 20th Century Fox, and Jennifer O'Neil both described John Wayne's charter, Cord McNally, as "comfortable".

 

His final line in the movie was "Don't say comfortable."

Edited by Blackwater 53393
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