For decades after its release, people only remembered the 1956 Howard Hughes-produced epic The Conqueror for a couple of negative reasons. To many, it was the movie that inexplicably starred John Wayne as Mongolian warlord Genghis Khan. To others, it was merely one of the worst films ever made.
But by the time 1980 rolled around, it would go down in history for something much darker.
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You see, The Conqueror was shot near Saint George, Utah, which was 137 miles downwind from the Nevada Proving Ground, where many nuclear bombs had been detonated. Although the government had assured locals that these tests posed no threat to their health, an alarming number of folks who worked on the movie developed life-threatening illnesses later. In November 1980, People reported that 91 of the 220 cast and crew members of The Conqueror had been diagnosed with cancer up until that point.
John Wayne Made a Movie in 1956. Decades Later, 91 People Who Worked on It Had Developed Cancer.
Worse still, 46 of them had already died from the disease, including Wayne, co-stars Susan Hayward and Agnes Moorehead, and director Dick Powell. Pedro Armendáriz, who played Jamuga in the film, survived kidney cancer, but committed suicide in 1963 following a second cancer diagnosis. And while some have attributed Wayne’s cancer to chain smoking, it should be noted that Moorehead, at least, was a nonsmoker. Younger relatives of the cast who visited the set ended up having brushes with cancer as well.
“With these numbers, this case could qualify as an epidemic,” said Robert C. Pendleton, the director of radiological health at the University of Utah. “The connection between fallout radiation and cancer in individual cases has been practically impossible to prove conclusively,” he continued. “But in a group this size you’d expect only 30-some cancers to develop. With 91, I think the tie-in to their exposure on the set of The Conqueror would hold up even in a court of law.”
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