Back to JournalIn honor of Father’s Day comes the sixth photo story of John Wayne in a role he played best: Dad.
ETHAN WAYNE
Ethan is John Wayne’s youngest son with wife Pilar, whom he met on a movie set while she was making a film in Peru. The two later married in Kona, Hawaii while Duke was filming WW II drama The Sea Chase (1955). Ethan, who’s now the president of John Wayne Enterprises and director of the John Wayne Cancer Foundation—a family-formed non-profit founded in 1985 to continue John Wayne’s courageous battle with cancer, during which he committed himself to helping others fight the disease and became a benevolent life force for the cause—grew up, like his siblings, on film sets and spent time with his dad in places such as Mexico and Colorado, and sailing for the likes of British Columbia and Alaska on board his father’s boat the Wild Goose. And, as Ethan recalls, “I remember just following my father everywhere. I just wanted to be with him all the time.”
John Wayne and Ethan shopping in Mexico.
Ethan and his dad play fighting at their home in Newport Beach, circa 1965.
Ethan with his dad on the road.
John Wayne, Ethan and Bert Minshall (left), captain of the Wild Goose.
“I’ve always followed my father’s advice: He told me first, to always keep my word, and second, to never insult anybody unintentionally. If I insult you, you can be Goddamn sure I intend to. And, third, he told me not to go around looking for trouble.”
Ethan and his dad in Monument Valley.
John Wayne wears his signature Red River D belt buckle with Ethan aboard the Wild Goose in the Pacific Northwest.
John Wayne and Ethan on the set of El Dorado. Photograph by John R. Hamilton
“…he kept things simple and relatable. He was open, accommodating. He’d look you in the eye and tell you yes or no, but he would never hold you up. … He was kind, positive, and fair. And those are lessons I got from him—we all got from him. That’s the John Wayne I want the world to know.”
