93 Years Ago, John Wayne Kicked Off His Western Career with a Unique Partner!

Just like Lucky Luke has Jolly Jumper, John Wayne had a recognizable cinematic horse that appeared with him from movie to movie!

John Wayne and His “Jolly Jumper”

The tale of the “cowboy and his horse” started in 1932, when Wayne took on the lead role in the B-series western Ride Him, Cowboy. The movie features a stranger who arrives in a small town and, after saving a horse, agrees to take on a fearsome outlaw terrorizing the locals.

The film marketed Wayne alongside his pristine white horse named Duke:

This was followed by five more westerns, all shot between 1932 and 1933. To name them all: The Big Stampede, Haunted Gold, The Telegraph Trail, Somewhere in Sonora, and The Man from Monterey (which leaned more towards the Zorro genre than a typical western). Sometimes, the horse was almost as prominent in the credits as the actor, like in the poster for Telegraph Trail:

This white stallion named Duke (at a time when Wayne himself was not yet known by that nickname) was included in these westerns for a good reason. Most of these six films were actually remakes of silent movies that starred cowboy actor Ken Maynard, whose horse Tarzan was iconic.

Crafted Remakes

Maynard and Tarzan starred in 74 films shot between 1924 and 1940 and were still active when John Wayne and Duke came along. The company producing Wayne’s films did not hesitate to reuse action scenes from Maynard’s films and recycle them in Wayne’s movies, and the stories, as well as the music, were largely the same.

Despite these significant cost savings, Wayne eventually left Leon Schlesinger Studios (distributed by Warner) to work with Lone Star (distributed by Monogram) and abandoned “Duke” and the concept of having a recognizable horse in each film. He even tried his hand at singing on screen (which quickly presented a problem) and only moved beyond small productions through John Ford and his first major role in Stagecoach.