The ‘Big Trail’ that made John Wayne

In 1930 director Raoul Walsh returned to Kanab to begin shooting Fox Film’s $2-million produc­tion, The Big Trail. Scenes were filmed throughout the West, including Zion N.P., the Arizona Strip and the Grand Canyon’s North Rim.

Publicity still for “The Big Trail” (1930), John Wayne & Marguerite Churchill. Public domain.

Gary Cooper and Tom Mix were Walsh’s first choices for the lead, but Mix had left Fox and Paramount refused to loan Coo­per. Walsh noticed an athletic twenty-three-year-old college student and part-time prop man unloading furniture at the stu­dio. John Ford had used the kid in bit parts and liked him. Walsh auditioned him and liked his rugged good looks for the role.

However, both he and the producers disliked his name, Marion “Duke” Mor­rison. Walsh had been reading about Revo­lutionary War Gen­eral “Mad Anthony” Wayne and gave Mor­rison a short, simple stage name. Duke the prop man was reborn as John Wayne, star­ring as frontiersman Breck Coleman.

When released in November 1930, The Big Trail earned in­stant recognition from Photoplay magazine among the best pic­tures of the month. Readers voted on me­dallions created by Tiffany & Co., which were highly praised in the industry. Wayne was also honored for one of the month’s best performances along with Marguerite Churchill and Tully Marshall. Photoplay was to movies what Billboard later became to music.

Tyrone Power Sr., a veteran of the si­lent era, had the only speaking part of his ca­reer as ruthless wagon boss Red Flack. Power never succeeded in talkies and died a year later at sixty-two. His famous son carried on his name and legacy.

Charles Stevens played Lopez, sidekick to Flack, appearing in several “Little Hol­lywood” films includ­ing The Plainsman, Union Pacific, and Kit Carson.

Ward Bond, a former USC football team­mate and close friend of Wayne, played Sid Bascom, a pioneer with few lines but much screen time. Bond appeared in two dozen films with Wayne and more than two hundred total. From 1957–1960, he starred in 134 episodes of Wagon Train, many filmed near Kanab.

Bond earned his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 and died later that year. Wayne delivered the eulogy and inher­ited the shotgun he’d once accidentally fired at Bond. In 2001 Bond was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame in Okla­homa City.