John Wayne had the crowd in stitches at Dean Martin’s roast. On this day in 1976, ... Wayne took part in the celebrity roast of Martin, whose segment is available on YouTube.

Ed Asner said John Wayne put him through a ‘roast test’ on the first day of filming. Even earlier in Wayne’s career, before El Dorado, he always had an unmistakable presence on the set.

It's been nearly half a century since he died in 1979, and yet no actor has wholly embodied the role of cinematic cowboy quite like John Wayne. Getting his start in B-movies in the 1930s, Wayne ...