From 1928’s Noah’s Ark to 1976’s The Shootist, we compiled every film in which a character portrayed by Hollywood legend John Wayne met their end . Nicknamed “Duke,” John Wayne is one of Hollywood’s enduring icons. With a filmography that spanned five decades, he is preeminent known for his work in Westerns and epics such as The Searchers, Stagecoach, and The Alamo.
John Wayne even won an Oscar for Best Actor for his portrayal of Rooster Cogburn in the original True Grit.While many of the characters that John Wayne played were often the white-hat hero who saved the day and rode off into the sunset, there were a handful of films in his extensive acting career in which his character did not survive to the end credits.
While there are nine films in which John Wayne’s character is confirmed to have died on screen, there are five films in which his character dies in the background, off-screen, or his fate is left ambiguous.
In Noah’s Ark (1928), he is an uncredited stuntman that dies during the flood sequence. In the movie Hangman’s House (1928), he plays two characters, one of which is possibly seen being executed by hanging. In The Deceiver (1931), John Wayne plays the dead body of a character that was played by a different actor while he was alive. In Sea Chase (1955), his character’s fate is left ambiguous. Finally, The Man Who Shot Liberty Vance (1962) begins at his character’s funeral and then launches into a flashback, but his death is never shown.
Central Airport centers around pilot Jim Blaine, who, after crashing a commercial plane during a flight, becomes a stuntman and falls in love. After his love interest marries his brother, he leaves and becomes a mercenary pilot for communist rebels in China and Chile before eventually returning to save his brother from a plane wreck in the Gulf of Mexico.
In an uncredited role, John Wayne plays a pilot who drowns while trying to save a drunk passenger from drowning during one of the play crash scenes.
In West of the Divide, Ted Hayden is in search of his missing brother and trying to learn the truth about who murdered his father. When Ted Hayden discovers that he bears a striking resemblance to attempted deceased murder Gat Ganns, he seizes the opportunity to assume his identity in an to get the answers he seeks.
In this film, John Wayne plays the roles of both Ted Hayden and Gat Ganns to make their resemble uncanny. As Gat Ganns, John Wayne dies by drinking from a poisoned waterhole.
Directed by the legendary Cecil B. DeMille, Reap the Wild Wind is set in 1840 and follows ship salvagers who take in the captain of a wrecked ship, played by John Wayne, which leads to a complex series of shifting allegiances, love triangles, betrayals , and ultimately tragedy.
Towards the end of the film, John Wayne’s character, Jack, and another lead character named Steve, go diving in the wreckage of a ship to see if there was a stowaway on board when the ship sank. However, they are attacked by a giant squid, and Jack dies in the struggle against the beast.Released during World War II, The Fighting Seabees tells the fictionalized account of the Navy’s decision to form Construction Battalions or CBs, which were then nicknamed Seabees, so that US forces could advance the war effort in the Pacific even during the threat of attack from Japan.
