* 26. Mai 1907 in Winterset, Iowa

† 11. Juni 1979 in Los Angeles

​was an American film actor, film producer and director. He was one of the most influential, successful and best-paid Hollywood actors of his time. Throughout his 50-year career, Wayne has appeared consistently as a leading man in western films and has had a decisive influence on the image of this film genre in the role of the rough-necked Westman, sheriff, marshal and US cavalry commander. Wayne won the Academy Award for Best Actor for The Marshal (1969). He starred in western classics such as "Ringo" (1939), "Red River" (1948), "The Black Falcon" (1956) and "Rio Bravo" (1959). John Wayne died of stomach cancer in 1979 after a fifteen-year history of illness. His left lung had already been removed in 1964. The circumstances surrounding the shooting of "The Conqueror" (1956) in the US state of Utah, which took place near the Nevada National Security Site nuclear weapons test site, are considered to be the cause of his cancer. Wayne himself saw the cause in the three to four packs of cigarettes he smoked each day. For 20 years, John Wayn's grave was unmarked for fear of grave robbers.