John Wayne starred in a dizzying total of 169 films in his long career. According to his biographer Scott Eyman, what drove him to continue making movies almost until his death was not a passion for acting but a need for money. As the author explained in “John Wayne: The Life and the Legend” (via the Daily Express), Wayne made a series of bad business deals that left him financially insecure. For example, Wayne spent over a million dollars of his own money on the 1960 film “The Alamo,” complaining later that “everybody made money from it but me.”
As Wayne aged, he made changes to his appearance to keep working, according to Eyman. He wore a wig in every movie from 1949 on. He reportedly underwent multiple plastic surgeries, including a facelift, neck lift, and eyelid surgery to remove the “crow’s feet” around his eyes. And finally, as the actor became stooped with age, he preserved his 6-foot 4-inch height by adding 3-inch lifts to his shoes. The last movie John Wayne starred in was the 1976 film, “The Shootist,” in which he played an aging gunfighter with terminal cancer. Wayne himself died of cancer in 1979.
