How did "John Wayne" stay out of the Armed Services?

Question

I got all these adds for junk being marketed because it is his 100th. birthday, so I looked up his history because I liked some of his movies.
I found out that he never went into any branch of the Service even though the studio he was working with wanted him to just like the other actors they had.

He had no physical disability or religious objections. Older men with wives (which he had) and dependent children (which he did not have) were volunteering and being drafted.

Much better actors went in, why did ho not? I was really surprised by what I found, or more accurately did not find. Did he have some sort of important friend? Even the Presidents sons went into combat. Was he a closet gay? Was he a major security risk? Anybody know?

No, wasn't thinking of Audi Murphy. He really got screwed-over by the army after the war.
Did you know another yet to-be actor was the most decorated soldier in Korea?

The account that John Ford and his nephew Sid Smith of the L.A. times gave of their friend puts the lie to the football injury myth.

Interesting how much history can change. I don't think I'd heard of his movies being the result of guilt before. Interesting. I know his later movies were made because he'd had all his money ripped off.

Answer 1

As the majority of male leads left Hollywood to serve overseas, John Wayne saw his just-beginning stardom at risk. Despite enormous pressure from his inner circle of friends, he put off enlisting. Wayne was exempted from service due to his age (34 at the time of Pearl Harbor) and family status, classified as 3-A (family deferment). Wayne's secretary recalled making inquiries of military officials on behalf of his interest in enlisting, "but he never really followed up on them." He repeatedly wrote to John Ford, asking to be placed in Ford's military unit, but continually postponed it until "after he finished one more film." Certainly Republic Studios had no interest in losing Wayne, especially after the loss of Gene Autry to the army. Correspondence between Wayne and Herbert J. Yates (the head of Republic) indicates that Yates threatened Wayne with a lawsuit if he walked away from his contract, though the likelihood of a studio suing its biggest star for going to war was minute. The threat was real, but whether Wayne took it seriously or not, he did not test it. Selective Service Records indicate he did not attempt to prevent his reclassification as 1-A (draft eligible), but apparently Republic Pictures intervened directly, requesting his further deferment. In May, 1944, Wayne was reclassified as 1-A (draft eligible), but the studio obtained another 2-A deferment (for "support of national health, safety, or interest"). He remained 2-A until the war's end. John Wayne clearly did not "dodge" the draft, in the sense of illegal or dishonest action, but he nonetheless never took direct positive action toward enlistment. Wayne was in the South Pacific theatre of the war for three months in 1943-'44, touring U.S. bases and hospitals as well as doing some "undercover" work for OSS commander William J. "Wild Bill" Donovan, who thought Wayne's celebrity might be good cover for an assessment of the causes for poor relations between General Douglas MacArthur and Donovan's OSS Pacific network. Wayne filed a report and Donovan gave him a plaque and commendation for serving with the OSS, but Wayne dismissed it as meaningless.

The foregoing facts clearly influenced the direction of Wayne's later life. By all accounts, Wayne's failure to serve in the military during World War II was the most painful experience of his life. Clearly, there were some other stars who, for various reasons, did not enlist. But Wayne, by virtue of becoming a celluloid war hero in several patriotic war films, became the focus of particular disdain from both himself and certain portions of the public, particularly in later years. The rampant patriotism with which he was so identified in the decades to come sprang, it appears, not from hypocrisy but from guilt. Wayne's third wife, Pilar, wrote, "He would become a 'superpatriot' for the rest of his life trying to atone for staying home."

Answer 2

Good question.

The documentary "John Ford Goes to War" mentioned that Ford was torqued that Wayne refused to serve.

My dad was 38 years old with 5 dependent kids when he was drafted in 1942. That didn't keep him out. Wayne's estate seems to have done a good revision on what happened, but I don't know how he managed to avoid serving. It could well be that it was son he could make movies, but that would have been after '43. Ronald Reagan was in the Navy making films for the Government in Seattle and then Hollywood. Ford, who Wayne worked for was in the Navy. Many actors were in the Navy or Army. Glenn Miller was in the Army. Maybe it was just luck of the draw, but I do know John Ford was really upset about it. They were friends again after the war.

Answer 3

It was probably because his propaganda movies did more for national morale and helped the war effort a lot more than he would have just by serving.

If you're thinking of Audie Murphy as an example of a star who served, he was a war hero first, movie star later.

Answer 4

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Answer 5

He did have a football injury which made him quit playing football for USC and around that time he found acting to his liking. It's been told around town that his injury allowed him not to serve.

The Wikipedia entry say different, that partly due to his age being 34, and being a family man he had a deferment. And the Republic Studios supposedly pushed Wayne to maintain his deferment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wayne

So, bottom line it was about money and fame.

Answer 6

An old football injury at USC, among other things, kept him out of the war:

“When war broke out, John Wayne tried to enlist but was rejected because of an old football injury to his shoulder, his age (34), and his status as a married father of four. He flew to Washington to plead that he be allowed to join the Navy but was turned down. So he poured himself into the war effort by making inspirational war films - among them The Fighting Seabees, Back to Bataan and They Were Expendable. To those back home and others around the world he became a symbol of the determined American fighting man.”

SOURCE: http://www.jwplace.com/biography.html