Wayne's portrayal of the character Books in "The Shootist" was influenced by his own personal experience with cancer, but he was not dying of cancer at the time of filming.
As he deteriorated, Wayne was asked by Aissa whether he knew who she was. In his final words, he replied: "Of course, I know who you are. "You're my girl.
Production. After producer Mike Frankovich announced that he had purchased the movie rights to Glendon Swarthout's novel The Shootist, Wayne expressed a strong desire to play the title role, reportedly because of similarities to the character Jimmy Ringo in The Gunfighter, a role he had turned down 25 years previously.
Wayne had been a chain smoker of cigarettes since young adulthood and was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1964. He underwent successful surgery to remove his entire left lung and two ribs.
Was John Wayne Dying during filming of The Shootist?
While Wayne would suffer from poor health in many of his later movies as a result, he was not - as is commonly regarded - dying of cancer when he made The Shootist. While he would eventually pass from stomach cancer, this wasn't diagnosed until a few months before his death in 1979.
When Clint Eastwood - and the spaghetti subgenre with which he was best associated – came along, the ideals of unambiguous morality, American Exceptionalism, and Manifest Destiny were torn apart.
Who was JOHN WAYNE'S lifelong BUDDY AND BEST MAN, Ward Bond? A look into the great character actor and best friend of JOHN WAYNE, WARD BOND. How the friendship they shared was on a special level!
John Wayne and Clint Eastwood never shared the screen in a Western film due to an off-screen feud initiated by Wayne, who did not hold favorable opinions of Eastwood.
"You're right. It's time. I love you all." We always knew Michael Landon as the loving father on "Little House on the Prairie," and it seems in real life he was just as much a family man.
Before his death, Wayne requested his gravestone have the words "Feo, Fuerte y Formal" etched on it - a Spanish epitaph which means "ugly, strong, and dignified".
Following The Shootist, he planned to star in a new film with Ron Howard called Beau John, but health problems intervened. In January of 1979, he was diagnosed with stomach cancer, which led to his death in June of the same year.
Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in Winterset, Iowa. The local paper, Winterset Madisonian, reported on page 4 of the edition of May 30, 1907, that Wayne weighed 13 lbs. at birth.
Wayne's final onscreen appearance was 1976's The Shootist, where he played a terminally ill gunfighter. Wayne himself was in poor physical health making the film and would pass from cancer three years later, but it was actually A New Hope that featured Wayne's final, uncredited role.
In the book “John Wayne: The Life and Legend,” published in 2014, author Scott Eyman says Wayne had a three-year affair with Marlene Dietrich, but his romance with longtime friend Maureen O'Hara lasted even longer. Wayne and O'Hara starred in three films together, including 'The Quiet Man,” and became good friends.
Just before filming on Brannigan began, Wayne had struggled through a severe bout of pneumonia and had also been diagnosed with heart problems, making the production particularly difficult for him.
