Famous Historic Figures’ Public Image vs the Reality of their Lives

33. A Super-Patriot’s Lifelong Guilt Complex

John Wayne developed a guilt complex for refusing to sign up to fight during WWII. It was key to the public image he sought to project thereafter. It also played no small part in his starring in numerous testosterone-drenched war movies throughout the rest of his career, playing manly heroic characters on screen, whom he wished he had been like in real life.

Four years after getting booed offstage by wounded Marines for being a phony, Wayne played a grizzled combat Marine sergeant in The Sands of Iwo Jima. He nailed it, and got the best actor Oscar nomination for the effort. As Wayne’s third wife put it: “He would become a ‘superpatriot’ for the rest of his life, trying to atone for staying at home“.

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