Did this shocking movie kill John Wayne?
Whether you think that John Wayne is an American hero or a problematic figure, there’s no doubt that the actor was one of the most influential of the 20th century, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Marlon Brando, James Stewart and James Dean. Working closely with John Ford, Wayne is responsible for many of the finest western movies of all time, creating over 150 films in total before his untimely death in 1979 at the age of 72.
The filmography of the star is littered with iconic flicks, from his very first collaboration with Ford in the form of the 1959 western Stagecoach to his final swansong in 1976 in the form of The Shootist, a fateful genre flick about a gunfighter looking to find peace in his final days of existence. Yet, having also worked with the likes of Howard Hawks, Michael Curtiz and even George Lucas, lending his voice to a tiny role in Star Wars, there is one crucial movie that fans are too quick to forget.
We’re not exactly surprised that people don’t remember Wayne’s turn as Genghis Khan in the 1953 movie The Conqueror, which was released in the same year as the actor’s masterpiece The Searchers, but the film would have an extraordinary effect on the star’s life. Whilst the film was forgettable, it was the production itself that holds significance, thought to have ended the star’s life early decades later.
The notorious fact about the movie is related to where the production took place, being filmed in the deserts of Utah, just under ten years after the United States Army conducted nuclear bomb testing on the very same site. Whilst this didn’t have any immediate effects on the cast and crew, in the following decades, 91 of those involved in the film would die of cancer, including the director, Dick Powell, and lead stars Susan Hayward and John Hoyt.
Not aware of the dangers of the site, what’s even more staggering is the fact that 60 tons of the radioactive dirt from the production site was shipped to Hollywood so that extra scenes could be shot on a soundstage, unknowingly endangering hundreds of other potential victims.
Another potential victim of the disaster was Wayne himself, contracting lung cancer later in life (which was partly due to his dangerous smoking habits) before beating the condition and fatally getting stomach cancer. Although it was never definitively proved, the sheer number of deaths linked to the production of the 1953 movie is difficult to ignore.
As Dr. Robert Pendleton, professor of biology at the University of Utah, reported back in 1980: “With these numbers, this case could qualify as an epidemic. The connection between fallout radiation and cancer in individual cases has been practically impossible to prove conclusively. 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.”
Take a glimpse at John Wayne in the role of Genghis Khan in The Conqueror below.
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