No one needed to tell John Wayne to cowboy up. It was the role he was born to play. Of the many characters he portrayed in a career that spanned 50 years and an astounding 175 films, arguably none are more beloved as those he rode to stardom in some of the most iconic classic Westerns of all-time.

Hart and Tom Mix during the silent era to William “Hopalong Cassidy” Boyd and Roy Rogers during the B-western era of the `30s, `40s and '50s. A-listers such as Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda and Alan Ladd also got on the western bandwagon, starring in classics such as “High Noon,” “My Darling Clementine” and “Shane.”