John Wayne Trivia
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98 free John Wayne trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
39 free John Wayne trivia questions with answers. John Wayne made 179 films and television productions, so a decent quiz has to do more than ask which ones were westerns. These 98 questions start with the basics — the name he was born with, the Iowa town, the dog that gave him his nickname — and move through the films that built the legend. There are rounds on Stagecoach and the valley it introduced to cinema, The Searchers and the line that became a Buddy Holly song, True Grit and the gauze eyepatch he could see through, The Quiet Man's Irish locations, and The Alamo, the film he directed, produced, starred in and very nearly went broke over. Every answer was checked against a primary reference before publication, so the dates, awards and production details are accurate rather than folklore. Difficulty runs from questions any Sunday-afternoon viewer will get to a few that only a serious western fan will land.
30 of 98 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What was John Wayne's name at birth?
Marion Robert Morrison
Marion Robert Morrison was his name at birth in 1907; Wayne later said his parents gave 'Robert' to his younger brother and changed his middle name to Michael, though no record of a legal change has been found.
Q 02In which state was John Wayne born in 1907?
Iowa
Iowa: Wayne was born in Winterset, but the family left for California when he was a boy, and after his father failed at farming they settled in Glendale, a short drive from the Hollywood studios.
Q 03Where did John Wayne's nickname 'Duke' come from?
It was his dog's name
It was his dog's name: a local fireman called the boy 'Little Duke' because he went everywhere with Duke, his big Airedale, and he liked the nickname better than his given name.
Q 04Which sport did he play at university before an injury ended it?
Football
He was on a scholarship at the University of Southern California. A broken collarbone cost him the scholarship and pushed him into film work.
Q 05How tall was John Wayne?
6 feet 4.5 inches
That height is a large part of the screen presence. Directors often framed him from below to add even more.
Q 06Which 1939 John Ford western made John Wayne a mainstream star?
Stagecoach
Stagecoach: studio after studio turned John Ford down for insisting on a B-western actor, and the producer who finally paid wanted Gary Cooper; Ford held out for Wayne and gave Claire Trevor top billing.
Q 07Which character does John Wayne play in Stagecoach?
The Ringo Kid
The Ringo Kid has broken out of prison to avenge his father and brother; the marshal arrests him on the road, then stampedes the horses at the end so that he can ride away free.
Q 08Which location did that 1939 western introduce to the western?
Monument Valley
It straddles the Arizona-Utah border. The director returned to it again and again for the next twenty-five years.
Q 09Which filmmaker claimed to have watched Stagecoach more than 40 times before directing a first feature?
Orson Welles
Orson Welles ran the film after dinner every night for about a month before shooting Citizen Kane, and said he had learned what he knew in the projection room, from John Ford.
Q 10Which actor won an Academy Award for playing the drunken Doc Boone in that 1939 film?
Thomas Mitchell
He also appeared in Gone with the Wind and It's a Wonderful Life. The award was for Best Supporting Actor.
Q 11Which 1948 film has John Wayne driving a cattle herd along the Chisholm Trail?
Red River
Red River: Wayne's rancher turns so tyrannical on the drive that his adopted son, played by Montgomery Clift, rebels and takes the herd away from him.
Q 12What is the name of John Wayne's character in The Searchers?
Ethan Edwards
Ethan Edwards mattered so much to Wayne that he named his youngest son, born in 1962, John Ethan after the character.
Q 13Which line from The Searchers inspired a Buddy Holly song?
That'll be the day
That'll be the day: Holly and his bandmates saw the film in Lubbock in June 1956, and Wayne's repeated catchphrase became the title of their first hit the following year.
Q 21How many Academy Award nominations did The Alamo receive?
Seven
It won a single award, for Best Sound. Wayne had mortgaged property to finance it.
Q 22Which 1968 Vietnam War film did John Wayne co-direct with Ray Kellogg?
The Green Berets
The Green Berets: Wayne made it to rally support for the war; critics derided it as heavy-handed propaganda, but it still did well at the box office.
Q 23Which 1976 film was John Wayne's final screen role?
The Shootist
The Shootist: Wayne's ageing gunfighter, told he has little time left, arranges one last shootout on his birthday rather than die in bed.
Q 14The Searchers is set in the flat Llano Estacado of Texas, but where was it shot?
Monument Valley
The mesas are unmistakable and geologically nothing like west Texas. Ford used the same location for a dozen films.
Q 15How did the American Film Institute rank The Searchers in 2008?
The greatest western ever made
The greatest western ever made: the institute's 2008 genre lists put The Searchers first among westerns, a year after it had jumped from 96th to 12th on the list of the best American films.
Q 16For which 1969 western did John Wayne win his only acting Oscar?
True Grit
True Grit: his hard-drinking, one-eyed marshal won Wayne the Best Actor award at 62, and he liked the part enough to play it again six years later in a sequel.
Q 17Which country singer co-starred with John Wayne in True Grit as the Texas Ranger La Boeuf?
Glen Campbell
Glen Campbell also sang the film's title song, and performed it at the 1970 Oscars, where it was nominated for Best Song.
Q 18Who starred opposite John Wayne in the 1975 sequel Rooster Cogburn?
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn plays a preacher's spinster daughter who insists on riding with the marshal after outlaws kill her father, a plot reviewers likened to her African Queen role.
Q 19What did John Wayne do on the 1960 epic The Alamo, besides starring?
Produced and directed it
Produced and directed it: Wayne had quit Republic Pictures when its boss balked at the budget, then spent years raising the money, some of it his own, to make the film himself.
Q 20Where was the set for John Wayne's The Alamo built?
Near Brackettville, Texas
Near Brackettville, Texas: the replica mission went up on rancher 'Happy' Shahan's land for the film, and he kept it afterwards as Alamo Village, a film set and tourist attraction that drew visitors until 2010.
Q 24Which honour was John Wayne awarded posthumously in 1980?
The Presidential Medal of Freedom
The Presidential Medal of Freedom came a year after his death; Congress had already voted him its own gold medal on his 72nd birthday, weeks before he died.
Q 25Which 1962 Howard Hawks adventure sent John Wayne to Tanganyika to catch wild animals for zoos?
Hatari!
Hatari!: Henry Mancini wrote 'Baby Elephant Walk' for an improvised scene in which three baby elephants are led to a waterhole to bathe.
Q 26What did John Wayne die of in 1979?
Stomach cancer
Stomach cancer was diagnosed in January 1979 and killed him that June, fifteen years after he had survived an earlier cancer; his family later gave his name to a cancer foundation.
Q 27In which country were the outdoor scenes of The Quiet Man shot?
Ireland
Ireland: the studio thought the story too slight, and only paid for the trip after Ford and Wayne had made it a western, Rio Grande, first.
Q 28What is the name of the fictional village in The Quiet Man?
Inisfree
Inisfree was filmed in and around the real village of Cong, where fans of the film still come and Pat Cohan's Bar, seen in it, now trades as 'the famous Quiet Man Bar'.
Q 29Which award did John Ford win for The Quiet Man, his fourth?
Best Director
Best Director: Ford's fourth win is still the category's record (as of 2025), and he was not there to collect it, so John Wayne accepted the statuette for him.
Q 30Which actress starred opposite John Wayne in The Quiet Man?
Maureen O'Hara
Maureen O'Hara made five films with Wayne, from Rio Grande to Big Jake, and in 1979 she testified to Congress in support of the gold medal struck for him.