Why was John Wayne nicknamed "The Duke"?
by 
wickedwillie
ANSWERS: 3
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'John Wayne entered the film business while working as a laborer on the Fox lot during summer vacations from U.S.C., which he attended on a football scholarship. He met and was befriended by John Ford, a young director who was beginning to make a name for himself in action films, comedies, and dramas. Wayne was cast in small roles in Ford's late-'20s films, occasionally under the name Duke Morrison.' The Duke: http://www.answers.com/topic/john-wayne?cat=entertainment
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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. His father, Clyde Leonard Morrison (1884–1937), was of Irish and Scots-Irish and English descent, and the son of American Civil War veteran Marion Mitchell Morrison (20 January 1845–05 December 1915). Marion Mitchell was born in Cherry Fork, Adams, Ohio as the son of Robert Morrison and Mary Mitchell. Wayne's mother, Mary Alberta Brown, was also of Irish descent. Wayne's family moved to Palmdale, California, and then to Glendale, California in 1911, where his father worked as a pharmacist in a drug store. A local fireman at the firehouse on his route to school in Glendale started calling him "Little Duke", because he never went anywhere without his huge Airedale Terrier dog, Duke. He preferred "Duke" to "Marion", and the name stuck for the rest of his life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne
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"Duke" was the name of his best friend's Great Dane. John Wayne liked the dog so much, he asked to be nicknamed after it.
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