TRUE GRIT, INDEED, AS THE STAR OVERCOMES CANCER
The star of the 1952 classic The Quiet Man did things the old-fashioned way. “That’s me taking swimming lessons from my father,” Ethan jokes about a photo of himself at age 3 being playfully “tossed” into a river on the set of Katie Elder in 1965, a year after the towering 6-foot-4 star beat lung cancer. Wayne succumbed to stomach cancer in 1979 at age 72. Today, Ethan is the director of the John Wayne Cancer Foundation, which kicks off a new campaign this month inviting supporters to don a bandana and show support with the hashtag #ShowYourGrit on social media.