The Queen's Film Theatre will celebrate the centenary of John Wayne's birth by screening five of his best films next month.
Wayne, whose great, great grandfather lived in a tumbledown cottage between Randalstown and Moneynick in Co Antrim, was born in Winterset, Iowa, in 1907.
Just before his death from stomach cancer in June 1979 Wayne was arranging for his son Michael to make the trip to Northern Ireland in a bid to locate the site of the old homestead that had long since been been pulled down. The trip was called off after the Duke's passing.
Michael was planning to revive the Co Antrim visit when he died of cancer in 2003 at 68. He was close to his father, produced a few of his films and was anxious to trace his Irish connection.
Wayne's most loyal Ulster fan is television celeb Eamon Holmes who has every single film The Duke ever starred in and who is likely to be at the QFT for at least one of the Big John nights.
Wayne ? real name Marion Robert Morrison ? was only 72 when he lost his last battle with cancer after surviving a bout in the '60s when he had a lung and four ribs removed.
He was married three times and had a fling with Marlene Dietrich in spite of the whiter than white image of himself which his studio conveyed to the media.
The Searchers (1956) directed by John Ford, will be screened on Friday and Saturday, October 26 and 27 and has Wayne's rancher pursuing the Indian who abducted his niece and the girl herself whom he regards as tainted. It co-stars Jeffrey Hunter.
Ford also directed She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1950) which will be seen on Sunday, October 28 with the Duke's captain about to retire from the US Cavalry soon after Custer's last stand. His old buddy Victor McLaglen who appeared in The Quiet Man, is here too. Fort Apache (1948) another Ford epic on Monday, October 29 is set in a cavalry outpost and explores how men cope far from home faced night and day by a wicked enemy ? with Wayne's officer and Henry Fonda's soldier leading the action.
The Shootist (1976), which reaches the QFT on Tuesday October 30, has Don Siegel as director as Wayne co-stars with Lauren Bacall. It is really a tribute to the legendary Duke and western movies too and includes a spectacular shoot-out in a typical saloon on the wild frontier.
Stage Coach (1939) is the oldest film on view and was one of John Ford's first meetings with Wayne. It is looked on as the first real western film and is still a classic of the genre today.
By Eddie McIlwaine, Belfast Telegraph
