John Wayne is not only the only actor to place posthumously on this annual Harris Poll that asks Americans who their favorite actor is, the Duke is also the only actor — living or dead — to find a slot on this poll every year since the survey began in 1994:

In 2011 he was the voice of Rango, he was Captain Jack Sparrow (again) and he was also a journalist. And, again this year, Johnny Depp has the distinction of being America’s Favorite Actor. Next on the list are two actors who haven’t actually acted in a movie this past year. Tied for number two are Denzel Washington, who was in the second spot last year, and Clint Eastwood who was number 9 on the list last year.These are some of the results of The Harris Poll® of 2,237 adults surveyed online between December 5 and 12, 2011 by Harris Interactive®.

Rounding out the top five favorite actors is Larry Crowne or rather Tom Hanks in the number 4 spot, up from a tie for number 6 last year, and at number 5 the only actor to have been on this list since it began in 1994, the Duke himself, John Wayne down from the number 3 spot last year.

After being part of a three-way tie for number 6 last year, George Clooney now holds that position by himself. Up from number 10 to number 7 is Sandra Bullock who is the only woman in the top ten and dropping from number 4 to number 8 is Harrison Ford. There are two new additions to the list this year. At number 9, returning to the top ten after a two year absence is Will Smith and debuting at number 10 is funny man Adam Sandler.

Here’s this year’s breakdown:

1. Johnny Depp
2. The Mighty Denzel Washington, The Mighty Clint Eastwood (tie)
4. Tom Hanks
5. The Mighty John Wayne
6. George Clooney
7. Sandra Bullock
8. The Once-Mighty Harrison Ford
9. Will Smith
10. Adam Sandler

What does almost every name on this list have in common? Manly men and a womanly woman.

More please, Hollywood.

And out of every classic movie star from the Golden Age: Bogart, Cagney, Cooper, Gable, Tracy, Davis, Crawford… Why John Wayne? It’s very simple; he’s one of the greatest actors to ever walk across the silver screen, he’s the greatest movie star Hollywood ever produced, he starred in at least a half-dozen outright masterpieces, a dozen classics, and too many crowd-pleasers to count.

The only close second in this arena is Eastwood, who will surely join Wayne on this list long after his death.

It really is that simple. America loves John Wayne and America loves John Wayne movies.

Richard Corliss in 2007:

Forget the youthquake. What America really loves is… old. Whatever Wayne represents – the Old Testament God, a Mount Rushmore face with a permanent scowl, the craggy soul of Frontier or Sunbelt America[.] …

Will Hollywood take any lessons from this poll – say, to make movies with, and for, older people. Nah. The moguls have read the small print in the Harris poll, and noted that it was weighted for many variables, but not to mirror the average age of moviegoers.

That’s exactly what Hollywood did and does, which is why we get Ryan Reynolds and Michelle Williams — boys and girls playing men and women. There’s a whole audience out there hungry for movies and movie stars. But we want intelligent movies, mature films that ennoble the human spirit, not corrupt it. Unfortunately, those are the most difficult stories to tell, and too many of those in charge of the miracle of motion pictures lack the talent and humanity to deliver that kind of entertainment. So they cater to their own mentality, the immature. All hail Seth Rogen.

Thank God for home video. John Wayne lives.

Me in 2009:

Wayne was the most popular and enduring star while alive and remains so today because he also represents honesty, justice, truth, liberty, America, fighting for what you believe in, integrity, chivalry, and most importantly in this awful era of the metrosexual, Wayne represents good ole’ give-a-punch/take-a-punch/have-a-drink-and-laugh-about-it-later masculinity.

John Wayne in his final film, “The Shootist”:

I won’t be wronged. I won’t be insulted. I won’t be laid a-hand on. I don’t do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.

Yep.

Fish’s main point is that in the new True Grit, purposely there is no relationship between physical heroism and virtue. To the professor physical heroism is displayed by almost everyone in the new film, “‘good’ and ‘bad,’ and the universe seems at best indifferent, if not hostile.” He sees young Mattie Ross as far more heroic for her acceptance of the world as random and brutal, Jeff Bridges Cogburn’s heroism is merely an after thought. The professor didn’t in the least misunderstand my desire to instead see the kind of heroics John Wayne displayed in the original film when he takes on the outlaw gang single-handedly with his “Fill your hands, you son-of-a-bitch!” charge to glory.

Justifiable violent responses to real life threats are often not random. America has always had common men heroes and well trained professionals who can reach down deep into themselves and find the kind of inner courage needed to risk life and limb to save the life of another or stand up to the evil and power hungry. The elitist left who for the time being control most of the public debate on popular culture would have us believe that all is relative. Despite the current “no tolerance” foolishness in American schools, sometimes you have to hit back, and hard, or else the bully will take far more then just your lunch. You’re own personal dignity is indeed something worth fighting for.

A lying scumbag like Michael Moore might ridiculously offer up that al Qaeda terrorists are as brave or braver then our own and is awarded and feted for his cowardly idiocy. Physical bravery in the service of recognizable evil, whether it be Hitler’s SS or the Taliban and al Qaeda, irrevocably negates that supposed bravery, one that is also further negated by extremist brainwashing. Flying jets into civilian occupied buildings, suicide bombings – especially those directed at civilians and throwing acid into the faces of Muslim school girls isn’t brave, it is every bit as evil and perverted as Hitler’s death camps and Saddam’s torture chambers.

Professor Fish points out that in the new True Grit, there is no score card for the after life, “…in which damnation and/or salvation are distributed, as far as we can see, randomly and even capriciously.” Really…? God may be forgiving, but Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, Manson, and others most certainly have a special place in hell that is personally reserved for them.

Which leads me back to John Wayne: Why do the liberal elitists and academics deny a healthy society’s need for the kind of physical courage John Wayne best represents in our popular culture?  Most heroes in today’s films wear tights and sport some sort of super-human power in fantasy fare with no relation to the real world. Yet, just last year Wayne still ranked third in the annual Harris poll of most popular American movie stars, where he has been in the top ten every year since the poll’s creation in 1994.

John Wayne films like Stagecoach, They Were Expendable, The Sands of Iwo Jima, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, The Quiet Man through Rio Bravo, The Shootist and yes, True Grit showed true to life heroics that represented America in a particular time and place. The men Wayne played weren’t super human, but possessed hard earned skills and a well defined moral compass. As Wayne’s character in his last film The Shootist tells a teenage Ronnie Howard, “I won’t be wronged, I won’t be insulted and I won’t be laid a hand on. I do not do these things to others and demand the same of them.” Sounds like a damn good way to conduct yourself to me.

Far better then the elitist left, Middle America recognizes the values that Wayne’s celluloid bravery represents. The seriously wounded and bitter Vietnam Marine Corps vet Ron Kovik damned John Wayne’s Sergeant Stryker in Born on the Fourth of July. Yet, far more seriously wounded American heroes from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, some suffering the loss of multiple limbs or first degree burns over ninety percent of their bodies, often react first with concern for their fellow soldiers and then a stoic “I guess I just had a bad day at the office.” Where do such amazing Americans come from today? Most often, though not exclusively, they come from traditional backgrounds and the South and rural West where John Wayne’s films are still shown to appreciative children and grand children.

Two years ago I was standing behind the chutes at a college rodeo in Cody, Wyoming with one of the rodeo committee members when we overheard two young bull riders talking about John Wayne’s excellent 1972 film The Cowboys, which had just played again on cable. It’s a film that in no small part is famous for Wayne actually being killed on screen, after beating the hell out of a murderous rustler leader while defending his very young trail hands.

“Two bad they had to kill the Duke off like that,” the one nineteen-year-old rodeo hand offered up. To which his fellow bull rider replied, “Maybe, but you know he did the right thing. He reminded me of my dad and grandpa, that’s how they would handle that kind of deal.” You won’t hear that kind of sentiment in Brentwood or on the upper West Side, but behind the bucking chutes at a rodeo in Wyoming waiting to get down on a 1500-pound bull, it’s about as normal as a really great slice of apple pie at the local diner.

Recently in the Los Angeles Times, Kim Darby, who played Mattie in the original film, told a wonderful story about a major star photo shoot on the Paramount lot soon after the filming True Grit ended.  The shoot included, Clint Eastwood, Barbara Streisand, and John Wayne. “I was sitting on the curb a ways away watching,” she said.  “The Duke stepped out of the picture and he said, ‘Hey, kid.’ He put out his arms and lifted me up and brought me over and put me in the center of the picture. How wonderful is that?” Wayne was the biggest movie star in the world at the time and Darby was still yet unknown. While Wayne was the ultimate representation of courage on movie screens, off screen he was also the most generous and giving of super stars, as well.

A nation and culture that denies physical courage in their own legends, fiction, and popular culture also denies the same bravery in real life, very much to its own peril, if not its own destruction. Go rent one of Wayne’s really good films, maybe even the original True Grit, and show it to your kids. His virtues on and off the screen need to be kept alive.

Every year for about 15 years now, Harris Interactive has conducted a nationwide poll and asked a very simple question: “Who is your favorite movie star?” And every year since the taking of the poll one particular individual has placed in the top ten — 13 of those years in the top 3.

This year, 2,388 U.S. adults were surveyed and this star rose three places to tie Will Smith for third. Only Denzel Washington and Clint Eastwood rank as more popular.

One last hint before the reveal: This star is the only actor in the history of the poll to rank posthumously:

John Wayne

Here’s the 2009 rundown:

Denzel Washington
Clint Eastwood
John Wayne
Will Smith
Harrison Ford
Julia Roberts
Tom Hanks
Johnny Depp
Angelina Jolie
Morgan Freeman

In 2007, Time Magazine’s Richard Corliss (a film writer I respect) got it kinda wrong when Wayne ranked #3 back in 2007:

Nothing radical there, except that Pitt, Jolie and, oh, Tom Cruise were among the missing. …

Forget the youthquake. What America really loves is… old. Whatever Wayne represents – the Old Testament God, a Mount Rushmore face with a permanent scowl, the craggy soul of Frontier or Sunbelt America[.] …

Will Hollywood take any lessons from this poll – say, to make movies with, and for, older people. Nah. The moguls have read the small print in the Harris poll, and noted that it was weighted for many variables, but not to mirror the average age of moviegoers.

Maybe Hollywood has taken a lesson, or at least might now that two guys over 55, Liam Neeson and Clint Eastwood are headlining two of the biggest smashes of 2009, “Taken” and “Gran Torino.”

Corliss seems to dismiss Wayne as representing God, the Old Testament, etc… You know, all that cornball stuff the rubes go for. The truth is, and this kills his critics to no end, what John Wayne represents is a canon of marvelous films, a half-dozen of which are outright masterpieces, followed by a dozen classics and a slew of wildly entertaining crowd pleasers that have already lived on in reruns and home video long past “Syriana” and… What films were nominated last year?

Wayne was the most popular and enduring star while alive and remains so today because he also represents honesty, justice, truth, liberty, America, fighting for what you believe in, integrity, chivalry, and most importantly in this awful era of the metrosexual, Wayne represents good ole’ give-a-punch/take-a-punch/have-a-drink-and-laugh-about-it-later masculinity.

And while those who didn’t make the list this year, those oh-so nuanced, so-called stars who boy-face their way across the screen emoting Chomsky-loving, Zinn-worshipping recipes for war, poverty, famine, slavery and genocide, let’s remember that the Duke kept it simple and direct with a code best summed up in his final film, “The Shootist” (1976):

I won’t be wronged. I won’t be insulted. I won’t be laid a-hand on. I don’t do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.

That, my friends, is what you call a recipe for World Peace.

And don’t let anyone ever let you forget that John Wayne happened to be one of the finest actors to ever grace the big screen.