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50 free John Wayne trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 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 50 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 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What was John Wayne's name at birth?
Marion Robert Morrison
He kept the surname off screen for the rest of his life. The stage name was chosen for him by a studio.
Q 02In which state was he born, in 1907?
Iowa
The house on South Second Street in Winterset is now a museum. The family moved west while he was still a boy.
Q 03Where did the nickname 'Duke' come from?
It was his dog's name
A fireman on his route to school called him Little Duke because the Airedale terrier was always with him. The nickname outlasted the dog by seventy years.
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 05Which injury ended his college sporting career?
A broken collarbone
He lost his scholarship as a result. Prop work at the studios followed.
Q 06How 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 07Which 1939 John Ford western made him a mainstream star?
Stagecoach
John Ford directed it. It was a huge critical and financial success.
Q 08What character does he play in it?
The Ringo Kid
Claire Trevor took top billing above him. He was 32 and had spent a decade in low-budget westerns.
Q 09Which 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 10Which filmmaker claimed to have watched that 1939 western over 40 times before his own debut?
Orson Welles
He called it a perfect textbook of filmmaking. The debut in question was Citizen Kane.
Q 11Which 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 12Which 1948 film has him driving a cattle herd along the Chisholm Trail?
Red River
Howard Hawks directed it and Montgomery Clift co-starred. Ford is said to have remarked that he never knew the big lug could act.
Q 13What is the name of his character in The Searchers?
Ethan Edwards
The performance is widely regarded as his finest and most complex. It is also the film in which he first calls someone 'Pilgrim'.
Q 21What did Wayne do on the 1960 epic The Alamo, besides starring?
Produced and directed it
He played Davy Crockett in it as well. The film nearly ruined him financially.
Q 22Where was the set for The Alamo built?
Near Brackettville, Texas
It stood on a ranch and later became a tourist attraction called Alamo Village. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards.
Q 23How 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 14Which line from The Searchers inspired a Buddy Holly song?
That'll be the day
Holly saw the film in Lubbock, Texas. The song became his first hit.
Q 15The 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 16How did the American Film Institute rank The Searchers in 2008?
The greatest western ever made
It also placed 12th on the institute's 2007 list of the greatest American films of any kind. Its reputation grew steadily for fifty years.
Q 17For which 1969 western did John Wayne win his only acting Oscar?
True Grit
He played a cantankerous one-eyed marshal. He was 62 when he won.
Q 18What was the eyepatch in it actually made of?
Gauze he could see through
Henry Hathaway talked him into wearing it at all. Wayne joked at the Oscars that he should have put it on 35 years earlier.
Q 19Which country singer co-starred in it as the Texas Ranger La Boeuf?
Glen Campbell
Kim Darby played Mattie Ross. It was one of very few acting roles the singer took.
Q 20Who starred opposite Wayne in the 1975 sequel Rooster Cogburn?
Katharine Hepburn
She played an elderly spinster. It was one of very few times the two legends worked together.
Q 24Which 1968 Vietnam War film did Wayne co-direct with Ray Kellogg?
The Green Berets
It was the only major American film to support the war while it was still being fought. Critics savaged it; audiences turned up anyway.
Q 25Which 1976 film was his final screen role?
The Shootist
He played an ageing gunfighter dying of cancer, three years before dying of it himself. Lauren Bacall, Ron Howard and James Stewart co-starred.
Q 26Which honour was he awarded posthumously in 1980?
The Presidential Medal of Freedom
He had died the previous summer. The award followed a Congressional Gold Medal campaign.
Q 27In how many film and television productions did John Wayne appear?
179
That is across nearly fifty years of work. Many of the earliest were cheap westerns shot in under a week.
Q 28What did John Wayne die of in 1979?
Stomach cancer
He had survived lung cancer in the 1960s. His last film had him play a gunfighter with the same diagnosis.
Q 29In which country were the outdoor scenes of The Quiet Man shot?
Ireland
It is often considered his finest and most complex performance. The nickname became the most imitated thing he ever said.
Q 30What is the name of the fictional village in The Quiet Man?
Inisfree
The name is borrowed from a Yeats poem. The film won two Academy Awards.