Who’s 3rd? Audie Murphy? Rod Cameron? Rory Calhoun?
Actually, I think some of the old-time silent-era guys should rank pretty highly, as many of them had jobs as actual working cowboys in their youth, and/or became famed rodeo performers before entering films... Hoot Gibson, Jack Hoxie, Tom Mix, and such.
A big star in his time, Johnny Mack Brown is rarely heard of now.
Like Wayne, he was a football star but a much better player. He was named MVP of the 1925 Rose Bowl in which Alabama beat heavily favored Washington. I believe Alabama won their first national title that year.
Audie Murphy westerns are good. So are James Stewart, Richard Boone. We watched a Rory Calhoun the other night, it was good. There’s so many that could come in third.
Then there is a category all by itself I guess could be called serials: Roy Rogers, Hop-a-long Cassidy, Gene Autry, The Lone Ranger, The Cisco Kid among others.
Then the long running TV westerns. Gunsmoke (my favorite), Bonanza (great show if you can stomach Little Joe), Big Valley (I used to just drool over the young Linda Evans), etc.
John Wayne learned his famous walk, his swagger, and how to choreograph fight scenes from the greatest stuntman who ever lived and real life cowboy from Eastern Washington Yakima Canutt. Yak was a very good actor in his own right and was in plenty of silent westerns and doubled for Wayne many times,the most famous stunt being the scene in Stagecoach where Wayne (Canutt), is dragged under the horses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakima_Canutt
I’d put James Stewart second, myself.