I didn't hear her say movie legend or parents, are you sure you are quoting her?
My sentence was a recreation of the sentence FROM the article, with a different clause after the “when it was actually”. I don’t think she used the words “movie legend”, that was the author’s way of describing John Wayne to his readers.
He was assuming that she mistakenly thought John Wayne Gacy was John Wayne, when it is more likely she mistakenly said John Wayne lived in Waterloo when it was his parents.
I’m sure growing up in Waterloo they made a big deal out of John Wayne’s parents living there. People love to mention tenuous connections to fame.
I would find it hard to imagine she would mistake John Wayne for the serial killer John Gacy. And since there is a much more realistic explanation for her error, I choose to believe the simpler, more obvious explanation, until someone proves otherwise.