There are situations in which death has struck a group of people insidiously and without any immediate causal link. It is often only with the benefit of several years of hindsight that a true assessment of the situation can be made.
One case of fatal contamination without the main parties concerned being informed involved the American film legend, actor John Wayne. The tragedy occurred in 1954 on the set of the film The Conqueror, about the life of Genghis Kahn, played by John Wayne. This blockbuster, supervised by Howard Hughes, was set in Saint-Georges, Utah, because of the landscape and environment it offered.
But Saint George is some 160 kilometers from the Yucca Flat military zone, where the U.S. Army had conducted nuclear tests a year earlier. Howard Hughes had asked the Atomic Energy Commission if the site was safe, and if the fallout from the tests would not affect the health of the film crews.
The commission reassured the producer, but during the three days of filming, the crews on location were subjected to radiation 400 times higher than the norm. Between 1954 and 1981, 91 of the 220 crew members on location developed some form of cancer, and 41 died, including John Wayne.
Not included were the relatives who came to visit during filming, such as John Wayne’s sons, who also developed cancer as adults. A preventive measure had been taken by John Wayne by bringing along a Geiger counter, but the readings were so high that the actor thought the counter wasn’t working.
As the years went by, the list grew longer, and the film Genghis Khan was the one that killed the most celebrities Family members who came to visit during filming were not counted, as were John Wayne’s sons, who also developed cancer as adults. A preventive measure had been taken by John Wayne by bringing along a Geiger counter, but the readings were so high that the actor thought the counter wasn’t working.
The list goes on and on, and Hollywood will lose a significant number of actors, actresses, directors, assistants, directors, sound engineers, and other film professionals. It’s cinema’s greatest shipwreck, the fault of misinformation and the will of certain unconscious people who preferred to let Americans die, rather than tell the truth and save lives.
John Wayne and Susan Hayward
The film’s director Dick Powell died of lymphoma in 1963; actress Agnès Moorehead, also known for the series My Beloved Witch, died of cancer in 1974; Susan Hayward, who played Genghis Kahn’s wife, died of a brain tumor in 1975; John Wayne was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1964 and died of stomach cancer in 1979.
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