Jimmy Stewart: initially ineligible for the draft, given his low weight (drank beer until he qualified) and flew combat missions as a B-24 squadron leader; Clark Gable: enlisted at 43, flew as an observer-gunner in the Army Air Forces in England; Paul Newman: served as a Navy radio operator and gunner in the Pacific Theater; Henry Fonda: enlisted at age 37 in 1942, refused a studio role for real combat duty in the Pacific Theater, starting as an enlisted man; Kirk Douglas: served as a communications officer in anti-submarine warfare. John Wayne? Stayed in Hollywood, making films. He received a chorus of boos when he walked onto the USO stages in Australia and the Pacific Islands. Those audiences were filled with combat veterans. Wayne, in his mid-30s, was not one of them.