Actors often keep their opinions guarded when discussing their past work, especially when it comes to projects they’d rather forget. After all, Hollywood is a business built on relationships, and no one wants to burn bridges. However, a select few actors reach a level of stardom where they can speak their minds without fear of repercussions. John Wayne was one of those rare stars, and when he disliked a movie he’d been in, he made sure everyone knew it. That said, his idea of what was embarrassing didn’t always align with public opinion.
Before cementing his status as ‘The Duke,’ Wayne’s early career in the 1930s saw him shuffled through various roles as studios tried to find the right fit. He starred in Girls Demand Excitement, a college basketball romance that nearly convinced him to quit acting altogether, and churned out countless forgettable B-movies. However, the roles he personally found most humiliating were his brief stints as a singing cowboy—a particularly painful experience given that he couldn’t carry a tune.
Wayne appeared in three musical Westerns: Riders of Destiny, The New Frontier, and Lawless Range. In his early 20s at the time, he saw these films as potential stepping stones, but he was deeply uncomfortable with the fact that his singing voice was dubbed and his guitar playing faked. “Strumming a guitar I couldn’t play and miming to a voice that wasn’t mine made me feel like a damn fool,” Wayne later admitted.
His frustration only grew when he made public appearances and fans expected him to sing. “The kids always wanted me to perform The Desert Song,” he recounted in a Playboy interview. “But I couldn’t bring along the guy who played guitar or the guy who actually did the singing. So eventually, I told the studio head, ‘Enough. I can’t do this anymore.’”
To his credit, Wayne’s embarrassment over his lack of musical ability showed a level of integrity—especially given that miming was standard practice at the time. But while his aversion to inauthenticity was admirable, there was one film he was right to regret entirely: The Conqueror (1956).
The mere mention of Wayne playing Genghis Khan is enough to elicit disbelief. The idea of him portraying the Mongol warlord seems like a joke, yet in the 1950s, casting a white actor in a heavily made-up “exotic” role wasn’t seen as problematic. While Wayne didn’t have the foresight to turn the part down, he later admitted it was a colossal mistake. Reflecting on the role, he acknowledged that he had learned an important lesson: “Don’t make an ass of yourself trying to play characters you have no business portraying.”
Wayne’s filmography is dotted with other entries that could be classified as embarrassing. One standout example is Ride Him, Cowboy (1932), a Western in which he plays a cowboy who defends a horse accused of murder—yes, an actual trial for a horse. To make matters worse, the film was largely cobbled together from stock footage of a 1926 silent movie, The Unknown Cavalier, making it not only absurd in premise but also a blatant recycling job.
Another questionable choice was Rooster Cogburn (1975), the long-awaited sequel to True Grit (1969). While Wayne’s performance alongside Katharine Hepburn was praised, the film itself was a clear example of Hollywood cashing in on a hit franchise. Critic Vincent Canby of The New York Times described it as “a high-class example of the low Hollywood art of recycling.” Given today’s cinematic landscape of endless sequels and reboots, one could argue that Wayne was inadvertently part of a trend that still dominates Hollywood.
While Wayne’s legacy is defined by his commanding presence and iconic roles, his filmography proves that even the biggest stars have their share of missteps. At least he had the honesty to acknowledge when he’d made one.
