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Straight Dope Classic from Cecil's storehouse of human knowledge26-Oct-1984
Dear Cecil:
My girlfriend says that half of the film crew and eight of the cast of the movie The
Conqueror starring John Wayne died of cancer after an A-bomb test in Nevada. It can't
be the truth--that many people--can it? Please, Cecil, give us the Straight Dope. --John
L., Santa Monica, California
Cecil replies:
I'm horrified to have to report this, John, but your girlfriend's claim is only slightly
exaggerated. Of the 220 persons who worked on The Conqueror on location in Utah
in 1955, 91 had contracted cancer as of the early 1980s and 46 died of it, including stars
John Wayne, Susan Hayward, and Agnes Moorehead, and director Dick Powell. Experts say
under ordinary circumstances only 30 people out of a group of that size should have gotten
cancer. The cause? No one can say for sure, but many attribute the cancers to radioactive
fallout from U.S. atom bomb tests in nearby Nevada. The whole ghastly story is told in The
Hollywood Hall of Shame by Harry and Michael Medved. But let's start at the
beginning.
The Conqueror, a putative love story involving Genghis Khan's lust for the
beautiful princess Bortai (Hayward), was a classic Hollywood big budget fiasco, one of
many financed by would-be movie mogul Howard Hughes. Originally director Powell wanted to
get Marlon Brando for the lead, but John Wayne, then at the height of his popularity,
happened to see the script one day and decided he and Genghis were meant for each other.
Unfortunately, the script was written in a cornball style that was made even more
ludicrous by the Duke's wooden line readings. In the following sample, Wayne/Genghis has
just been urged by his sidekick Jamuga not to attack the caravan carrying Princess Bortai:
"There are moments fer wisdom, Juh-mooga, then I listen to you--and there are moments
fer action--then I listen to my blood. I feel this Tartar wuh-man is fer me, and my blood
says, 'TAKE HER!'" In the words of one writer, it was the world's "most
improbable piece of casting unless Mickey Rooney were to play Jesus in The King of
Kings."
The movie was shot in the canyonlands around the Utah town of St. George. Filming was
chaotic. The actors suffered in 120 degree heat, a black panther attempted to take a bite
out of Susan Hayward, and a flash flood at one point just missed wiping out everybody. But
the worst didn't become apparent until long afterward. In 1953, the military had tested 11
atomic bombs at Yucca Flats, Nevada, which resulted in immense clouds of fallout floating
downwind. Much of the deadly dust funneled into Snow Canyon, Utah, where a lot of The
Conqueror was shot. The actors and crew were exposed to the stuff for 13 weeks, no
doubt inhaling a fair amount of it in the process, and Hughes later shipped 60 tons of hot
dirt back to Hollywood to use on a set for retakes, thus making things even worse.
Many people involved in the production knew about the radiation (there's a picture of
Wayne himself operating a Geiger counter during the filming), but no one took the threat
seriously at the time. Thirty years later, however, half the residents of St. George had
contracted cancer, and veterans of the production began to realize they were in trouble.
Actor Pedro Armendariz developed cancer of the kidney only four years after the movie was
completed, and later shot himself when he learned his condition was terminal.
Howard Hughes was said to have felt "guilty as hell" about the whole affair,
although as far as I can tell it never occurred to anyone to sue him. For various reasons
he withdrew The Conqueror from circulation, and for years thereafter the only
person who saw it was Hughes himself, who screened it night after night during his
paranoid last years.
--CECIL ADAMS
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