Acting legend John Wayne has been honoured with a statue at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma. A larger-than-life bronze statue of the Academy Award-winning star - measuring eight feet and eight inches (2.68 metres) in height - was unveiled on Saturday (28Jul07) with two of Wayne's grandchildren, Anita LaCaba Swift and Nick Kuhle, present at the ceremony. Swift says, "It's always an amazing thing for our family whenever we get to be out among his fans because he's almost been dead for 30 years, but there are 3-year-old children who come up to me and tell me how much they love him." Kuhle adds, ""It's just incredible. It was great to have an icon like that as your grandfather." The tribute is to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the year of Wayne's birth. He died in 1979 of stomach cancer.Wayne became an American movie icon during the 1940s and 1950s most famous for starring in Westerns and World War II movies.He died in 1979 from stomach cancer. This was not the stars first bout of the disease. In 1964 he was diagnosed with lung cancer and underwent surgery to remove the entire left lung and four ribs.
Five years later he was cancer free.
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