Idiom Origins - Man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do - History of Man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do

Man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do

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Origin of: Man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do

Man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do

Often wrongly attributed to John Wayne in the movie Stagecoach (1939), or Hondo (1953) or to Alan Ladd in the movie Shane (1953). Neither actor these words in the three movies mentioned. The fact that they both said something similar is no excuse for the error. The closest first citation is in John Steinbeck’s novel Grapes of Wrath (1939), “a man got to do what he got to do.”