How Elvis Presley “honoured” John Wayne
John Wayne and Elvis Presley had a lot in common. Both were, and still are, absolute legends of American pop culture. Both totally capture the classic Americana spirit with their style and attitude, honouring the ideas of freedom and liberty in their work. Both were also from small towns, making it big in the entertainment world as symbols of the true American dream. So when Presley finally met the Western flick icon, he honoured his legacy in a moving act.
Even though Presley and Wayne never worked together, they came close. In 1969, Elvis Presley was the original choice for the role of La Boeuf in the film True Grit. However, he was eventually written off from the project when his team demanded top billing on the posts, ahead of the film’s leading stars, John Wayne and Kim Darby. So, instead, Glen Campbell took on the role.
However, had the two have been cast to star alongside one another, there is no doubt that they would have bonded like brothers. With Wayne hailing from Iowa and Presley from Tupelo in Mississippi, both had achieved their dreams in a major way, coming from small suburban towns to become two of America’s biggest names. They both also held onto the beliefs connected to their humble origins; both were conservative, religious and deeply patriotic.
In particular, both had cared a lot about serving and honouring their country. In 1985, Presley, despite being at the peak of his career, was drafted into national service and went off to West Germany to serve. Thousands of fans wrote to the president begging him to bring the singer home or, at the very least, to leave his famous locks alone and not shave his head into the classic GI fashion. But Presley served his time and held that experience as a real badge of honour to his traditional American values.
It’s an attitude that Wayne also carried, even though the actor didn’t go off and serve. Instead, during World War One, he stayed in Hollywood but promoted the war effort through pointedly patriotic movies. From then on, he would choose projects that specifically honoured veterans past and present, dedicating a lot of his career to tales of heroism.
Presley, who was a kid at the time of the war, genuinely saw Wayne as a real-life hero. So when he finally met the actor, he honoured him in that way.
“He loved John Wayne”, Presley’s step-brother and a member of his ‘Memphis Mafia’ bodyguard team, David Stanley, said. When Wayne shook Stanley’s hand and introduced himself, he’d only managed to shyly stutter back, “I know who you are, sir.” But Presley managed to get a few more words out, although he was reportedly just as starstruck.
Stanley recalled, “Elvis walked up to him, shook his hand and said, ‘I want to personally thank you for winning World War II.’” He explained, “Now, the only reason he said that was because John did all those army movies. So Elvis, like any other 10-year-old when the war was on… he just saw the John Wayne movies, and he associated John Wayne with victory.”
Meeting one of America’s biggest stars and watching him dissolve back into his childhood self surely endeared Wayne to him as he shook Presley’s hand as the star honoured him like a war hero.
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