About Hwy 51
Marion Morrison was born in Iowa in 1907, came West with his family in 1914, and pretty soon was being called “Duke” by everyone who knew him, after some local firefighters in Glendale, California, where the family eventually settled, thought it would be fun to give the boy the same nickname as his constant companion, a proud Airedale dog named Duke. Living with his parents, Clyde “Doc” Morrison, a pharmacist, and Mary “Molly” Brown, and alongside his brother Robert, Duke was academically and athletically quite successful at Glendale High School. His exploits there led to a football scholarship at the University of Southern California (USC), where he attended until a bodysurfing injury ended his football dreams, and led him to look for work at local movie studios to support himself once the Great Depression was in full swing.