If you asked the man himself during his lifetime, John Wayne would have said he had some rigid rules when it came to moviemaking. As he told the BBC (via The Express ), anything "mean or petty" was prohibited when it came to the characters he played, even if he did allow his on-screen persona to convey a "rough" or "cruel" aspect from time to time. He also had a rule about his characters shooting a man from behind and even refused to break it for 1976's "The Shootist." But as this last example shows, John Wayne's rules weren't always that hard and fast. That is to say that the Duke had already broken what was seemingly one of his biggest rules in John Sturges' 1974 crime actioner "McQ."

That was far from the first time he'd transgressed a seemingly inflexible personal principle, either

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