Sergio Leone Web Board

the duke had a certian walk. why did he walk this way ?

pants too tight...heard story about a pair of pants with 32 waist or hips....

at's funny, I heard a story about  his boots being two sizes TOO small :)

both answers sound good to me

in an interview an  with kate hepburn about her first impression upon meeting the duke on the set. she says here was this man with this huge body, but tiny feet.
if you notice the duke did had small feet. my guess is the duke created a totally unique way of swaggering.

Did the DUKE steal his walk from the king of stuntmen Yakima Canutt? A rumor I heard many years ago.............

yea, i'm checking into it.  thanks for the enlightenment  ;D

  I thought John Ford taught him how to walk like that.  On the documentary on the Alamo DVD, there's some good interviews how director/producer Wayne wanted everyone to walk like him.

  If its not the Ford thing, I remember reading the Duke had a broken leg before he hit it big.  Could that be it?

Yeah, I've got the tin whistle trilogy box set on DVD.

Apparently Wayne's walk & hand on hips stand were influenced by the Michaelangelo statue 'David', of which he was a great fan.

http://www.lorenzini.com/jlorenzi/david.html

On the Bravo Channel (Inside the Actor's Studio) they were interviewing Burt Reynolds, I was flipping by and he was telling the end of some story about how John Wayne got his walk, all I caught was something about walking like an Native American putting toe to heel, toe to heel, etc., I'll see if they repeat it

Did you know the sets in most of the films John Wayne starred in were built smaller then normal? why you ask? So the Duke could look bigger.

Not kidding.

interesting fact but I love most of the Duke's films  :)

  I know he broke his leg early in his career, maybe that had something to do with the Duke's unique walk?

Another good question is how did Fonda get his princely walk?

But John Wayne was 1.93 m tall, what were they trying? Make him look like he was 2.05?

Anyway, they do these things often nowadays. The stars/actors tend to be small.

I've seen on TCM a program in which Robert Osborne sits down with Lauren Bacall and interviews her for about an hour.  She talks about her career, Bogart, blacklisting and so on.  I think it's more than a few years old.  They broadcast it every now and again.  I've seen it a couple of times. She got to talking about The Shootist and John Wayne.  She actually talked about him a lot.  She said although she very much disagreed with his politics, she got along with him very well.  The way she talked about him and described the experience of working with him, it was apparent there was a mutual respect and fondness.  She told Osborne the thing about Wayne was that he was a big man, but he had small feet for his size.  According to her, that was why he had a peculiar step.  Not sure if there's anything to that, but I remembered it from that interview.   

the duke's boot size was only a 7. truckin round all that mass w/ tiny size 7 feet and bingo, that's how he got the walk  O0