John Wayne's Second-Youngest Daughter Grew Up To Be A Stunner
John Wayne had seven children, four girls and three boys, and many of them look a lot like the Western icon. However, his second-youngest daughter, Aissa Wayne, is the perfect mix of both him and her mom, artist Pilar Pallette (in other words, gorgeous).
There's a chance you've heard of Aissa before. While she ultimately didn't follow in her dad's footsteps (Aissa was a lawyer prior to her retirement), she did feature alongside him in some of his movies. She was in "The Alamo" and "McLintock!" as a child, and though she ended up not pursuing acting as a career, she's also been included in interviews about her late father and "Dreaming the Quiet Man," a doc about her father's longtime collaborator John Ford. If you have seen any of the above, we have no doubt you'll agree that Aissa is stunningly beautiful.
As you can see, at first glance, Aissa looks just like her mom. They share the same large, expressive eye shape, and their eyebrow shapes are similar as well. However, as far as coloring goes, Aissa has taken after her famous dad. Even with her mom's eye shape, she has her father's same blue irises (one admirer responding to a Bobbie Wygant interview shared to YouTube even said they were a dead giveaway of who her dad was), as well as his lighter hair color (though her blonde is lighter than his sandy hue). Aissa also has John's nose. Overall, this is one Old Hollywood child who manages to look just like both of her parents, and we're going to agree with the aforementioned YouTube fan, who, after mentioning the similarity in eye color, gushed, "Too bad she didn't decide on a film career — Hollywood missed a star."
Aissa Wayne didn't use her last name to break into Hollywood
Considering how closely Aissa Wayne resembles both of her parents, it is a little surprising she didn't pursue acting or even modeling as an adult, but in her interview with Bobbie Wygant, she explained that there were a few reasons for that. For starters, she recalled that she'd been offered a last-minute lead in "True Grit," only for Kim Darby to arrive on set. "I was so hurt my dad and I never talked about it again ... I felt like I didn't really have the support of my father, I felt like he maybe wanted me to do something else," she shared. Of course, that wasn't the only reason she opted not to pursue what had previously been a childhood dream, and she shared that she'd also been struck by how lonely her father was when he was filming a project and had to be away from his loved ones for months, which didn't exactly sell the idea.
As for whether she had any regrets about going into law, Aissa told Bobby Wygant that she had actually taken some acting classes when she was in college, and decided she wasn't cut out for it. "All these people were so much better than me. I thought, 'I don't think this is for me,'" she chuckled. While there definitely are celebs who have gotten jobs thanks to their famous parent, she certainly didn't believe she had any nepo baby benefits. Far from it, she pointed out, "It's so competitive, just because I'm John Wayne's daughter wouldn't really mean anything."
Well, Aissa was happy with her normal job pre-retirement, and we're happy for her. The fact that she inherited those movie star good looks is just a bonus!