John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in Winterset, Iowa, but his name was changed to Marion Michael Morrison when his parents decided to name their next son Robert. His family was Presbyterian; father Clyde Leonard Morrison was of Irish and Scottish descent and the son of an American Civil War veteran while mother Mary Alberta Brown was of Scots-Irish descent. Wayne's family homesteaded in Palmdale, California where Wayne rode his horse to school and then moved to Glendale, California in 1911; it was local firemen at the firehouse that was on his way to school in Glendale who started calling him "Little Duke" because he never went anywhere without his Airedale Terrier dog, Big Duke. [1]
Duke Morrison's early life was marked by poverty; his father, a pharmacist, was a man who did not manage money well. Duke was a good and popular student. Tall from an early age, he was a star football player for Glendale High School and was recruited by the University of Southern California.[2] As a teen, Wayne worked in an ice cream shop for an individual who shoed horses for local Hollywood studios.
Wayne applied to the U.S. Naval Academy, but was not accepted. He instead attended the University of Southern California majoring in pre-law, where he was a member of the Trojan Knights and joined the Sigma Chi Fraternity. Wayne also played on the USC football team under legendary coach Howard Jones. A surfing injury curtailed his athletic career; however, Wayne would later note he was too terrified of Jones' reaction to reveal the actual cause of his injury. He lost his athletic scholarship and with no funds was unable to continue at USC.[3]
While at the university, Wayne and Ward Bond began working at a film studio recommended by their USC Coach. Western star Tom Mix got him a summer job in the prop department in exchange for football tickets, and Wayne soon moved on to bit parts, establishing a long friendship with director John Ford. During this period, Wayne appeared (albeit without credit) with his USC teammates as one of the featured football players in Ford's film Salute. That same year (1929) he received his first screen credit, as Duke Morrison, in Words and Music. He would not receive billing again for several pictures, but his next billed role would be a starring one and it would be under the name for which he now famous -- John Wayne.
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