There have been dozens of books written about John Wayne, perhaps the manliest of Hollywood’s leading men. Few have discussed his place in the cinema as an “auteur.” Marc Eliot claims to fill that void with AMERICAN TITAN. Eliot, who specializes in celebrity biography (Jimmy Stewart, Jack Nicholson, Steve McQueen, Cary Grant, et al.), portrays his latest subject as a man of principles, even if those principles might have hurt him in the eyes of others.

For all his on-screen heroism, Wayne chose not to enlist in the service during World War II as did many of his contemporaries. (He half-heartedly tried to get into military intelligence but was rejected.) This dichotomy did not go unnoticed by his critics, who claimed his gung-ho patriotism was just a cover for his squeamishness when it came to putting his money where his mouth was.

"[O]ne of the underscoring themes Eliot offers so well is a behind-the-scenes look at the difficulties in bringing a film project to the theater. Had he concentrated on that, AMERICAN TITAN might have really stood out from the crowd in Wayne literature."

Was this the reason Wayne took such an avid stance against communism, speaking out against directors, writers and actors whose political stances were anathema to his sensibilities as America’s spokesman? And was the fact that he was seldom considered for industry awards, despite appearing in some of the most iconic and honored movies of all time (The Searchers, Red River and Stagecoach, to name just a few) a punishment for his rightward leanings? Wayne finally won an Oscar in 1970 for his role as Rooster Cogburn in True Grit, but many felt this was a sympathy vote because of his grave illness late in life.

Eliot saves the majority of discourse for Wayne’s bigger films, regardless of their critical success. One almost wishes this book was another 200 or so pages so the author could go into more depth on some of them. As it is, he reports primarily on a handful of movies that gave Wayne either his biggest notoriety or his biggest headaches. The iconic actor pushed hard for two major works in particular: The Alamo and The Green Berets. While neither of them were tremendous box office beauties, they did show the seriousness with which Wayne took his craft --- not just as an actor, but also as a producer, director and overall businessman. In fact, one of the underscoring themes Eliot offers so well is a behind-the-scenes look at the difficulties in bringing a film project to the theater. Had he concentrated on that, AMERICAN TITAN might have really stood out from the crowd in Wayne literature.

But Eliot somewhat immodestly claims in an Author’s Note that “most of those works that precede [his other celebrity biographies] suffer from a haphazard approach to the artist’s work, and a voyeuristic view of the sensational details of his or her life.” So what was Eliot thinking when he wrote “sensational details” about Wayne’s torrid affairs with co-stars and others that had a hand in breaking up his three marriages? Do as I say, not as I do, seems to be the message.