About
John Wayne’s Family Legacy
Decades after his death, John Wayne’s legacy lives on exactly as he wished it, through his family, his advocacy for others fighting and surviving cancer, and his example.
“Well, it’s not how you’re buried, it’s how you’re remembered.”
John Wayne
For millions of fans and admirers in America and across the world, John Wayne is “The Duke”—the embodiment of the nation’s highest ideals. To his seven children, he’s Dad. A loving father, he raised a family whose differences in age and maternal parentage did not matter in their upbringing—the Wayne siblings stand as one family to this day. Instilled with the character and values that John Wayne championed without apology, Michael, Toni, Patrick, Melinda, Aissa, Ethan, and Marisa knew that the truest way to further their father’s legacy was to honor his last wish to help others facing cancer.
In 1985, the Wayne siblings established the John Wayne Cancer Foundation to lead the fight against cancer with the qualities synonymous with their father—courage, strength, and grit.
Under family leadership since its formation, JWCF continues to fund novel and innovative programs to improve cancer patient outcomes while saving lives through research, education, awareness, and support. Block the Blaze, providing youth education around skin cancer prevention and protection, and the John Wayne Grit Series, are among the organization’s flagship programs.
Today, as testament to his reach, the permanent exhibit John Wayne: An American Experience is visited by different generations eager to celebrate the myth but learn about the man who was bigger than life but stubbornly down to earth. Warm, gracious, and authentic, John Wayne was a native Midwesterner to the end, never without the signed cards he carried so that he could stop and acknowledge every person who wanted his signature.
John Wayne continues to impact American life, from the people he touches through the JWCF, to the millions who touch down at the John Wayne Airport, to still others who purchase products that touch on who he was in real life through John Wayne Stock & Supply—clothing inspired by film costumes he wore, fine spirits based on his tastes, coffee crafted in honor of the ceramic mugs he had customized for every film crew he worked with, and the kids’ collection America, Why I Love Her, named after his spoken word album. His enduring legacy is our inheritance.
