The stark reality of meager prospects is why, according to John Wayne, Marion Morrison of Glendale, California -- a student and football player at USC -- eagerly grabbed an opportunity to work in a relatively menial job as a prop man at Fox Studios in the mid-1920s. In the biography, Wayne wrote that he was still on scholarship with the USC football team, but nonetheless hurting for cash, when he got his first part-time job as a prop man, thanks to an assist from silent cowboy acting legend Tom Mix. At the time, Mix helped USC football players as part of a strategy for procuring football tickets.

Early Years

“It was a job and not much else at the time. A job was important enough. The big depression was still two years away, but my one personal depression was staring at me from the bottom of my empty soup bowl. I needed a job.”

- John Wayne, from his unfinished autobiography