Found this on the web site "Big Hollywood", interesting. Take that Matt Damon
Blue
No, it’s not any of those celebrities we’re told are stars. DiCaprio and George Clooney didn’t even make the top 10. Neither did Ashton Kutcher, Sean Penn, Brad Pitt, Seth Rogen, Matt Damon, Will Farrell, or Tom Cruise.
Every year for about 15 years now, Harris Interactive has conducted a nationwide poll and asked a very simple question: “Who is your favorite movie star?” And every year since the taking of the poll one particular individual has placed in the top ten — 13 of those years in the top 3.
This year, 2,388 U.S. adults were surveyed and this star rose three places to tie Will Smith for third. Only Denzel Washington and Clint Eastwood rank as more popular.
One last hint before the reveal: This star is the only actor in the history of the poll to rank posthumously:
John Wayne
Here’s the 2009 rundown:
Denzel Washington
Clint Eastwood
John Wayne
Will Smith
Harrison Ford
Julia Roberts
Tom Hanks
Johnny Depp
Angelina Jolie
Morgan Freeman
In 2007, Time Magazine’s Richard Corliss (a film writer I respect) got it kinda wrong when Wayne ranked #3 back in 2007:
Nothing radical there, except that Pitt, Jolie and, oh, Tom Cruise were among the missing. …
Forget the youthquake. What America really loves is… old. Whatever Wayne represents - the Old Testament God, a Mount Rushmore face with a permanent scowl, the craggy soul of Frontier or Sunbelt America[.] …
Will Hollywood take any lessons from this poll - say, to make movies with, and for, older people. Nah. The moguls have read the small print in the Harris poll, and noted that it was weighted for many variables, but not to mirror the average age of moviegoers.
Maybe Hollywood has taken a lesson, or at least might now that two guys over 55, Liam Neeson and Clint Eastwood are headlining two of the biggest smashes of 2009, “Taken” and “Gran Torino.”
Corliss seems to dismiss Wayne as representing God, the Old Testament, etc… You know, all that cornball stuff the rubes go for. The truth is, and this kills his critics to no end, what John Wayne represents is a canon of marvelous films, a half-dozen of which are outright masterpieces, followed by a dozen classics and a slew of wildly entertaining crowd pleasers that have already lived on in reruns and home video long past “Syriana” and… What films were nominated last year?
Wayne was the most popular and enduring star while alive and remains so today because he also represents honesty, justice, truth, liberty, America, fighting for what you believe in, integrity, chivalry, and most importantly in this awful era of the metrosexual, Wayne represents good ole’ give-a-punch/take-a-punch/have-a-drink-and-laugh-about-it-later masculinity.
And while those who didn’t make the list this year, those oh-so nuanced, so-called stars who boy-face their way across the screen emoting Chomsky-loving, Zinn-worshipping recipes for war, poverty, famine, slavery and genocide, let’s remember that the Duke kept it simple and direct with a code best summed up in his final film, “The Shootist” (1976):
I won’t be wronged. I won’t be insulted. I won’t be laid a-hand on. I don’t do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.
That, my friends, is what you call a recipe for World Peace.
And don’t let anyone ever let you forget that John Wayne happened to be one of the finest actors to ever grace the big screen.
by John Nolte
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