John Wayne. He was president of Glendale High class of 1925. He found work at local film studios when he lost his football scholarship to the University of Southern California as a result of a bodysurfing accident. Initially working for the Fox Film Corporation, he appeared mostly in small bit parts.

John Wayne aka 'The Duke' was an American film actor, director and producer. He was born on May 26, 1907 in Winterset, Iowa but he grew up in Southern California. Wayne played his first starring role in the 1930 film, The Big Trail.

John Wayne, 72, Dies of Cancer. John Wayne, who fought cancer off and on for 15 years, died late yesterday afternoon at UCLA Medical Center. Doctors were unable to make him strong enough to start the chemotherapy and experimental treatment “The Duke ” had consented to. He was 72.

During the making of The Shootist (1976), Don Siegel’s rich, elegiac western about an ageing gunfighter dying of “a cancer”, its star John Wayne became too ill to film. The actor had had a lung removed twelve years earlier and was now struggling with the stomach cancer that would eventually lead to his death in 1979.

[Collected on the Internet, 1999] By the way when they did an autopsy on John Wayne (Mr. Macho himself) 40 pounds of impacted fecal matter was removed from his death inducing cancerous colon. That’s because Humans are not evolved for Animal eating. Animal fats lodge in the folds and pockets of our intestines.

John Wayne was 72 years old when he died and had been ravaged by cancer for a long time. There was little doubt that he’d succumbed to natural causes, so he didn’t receive an autopsy . Unfortunately, this story could be applied to Elvis Presley, who died at the young age of 42.

Actor John Wayne was one of the most popular film actors of the 20th century, and was a staple of John Ford's films. Learn more at Biography.com

The answer is: probably not. His chain-smoking of up to four packs of cigarettes a day was a likelier cause of death, according to his widow, Pilar.