41% of John Wayne's Film Crew Got Cancer — They'd Shot It Downwind from Nuclear Tests | Back in the

41% of The Conqueror's cast got cancer — they filmed it downwind from nuclear test sites.

On June 11, 1979, John Wayne died of stomach cancer — he had made 'The Conqueror' 23 years earlier near nuclear test sites.

Howard Hughes was so guilt-stricken that he spent $12 million buying every print of the film to keep it off television.

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📅 June 11, 1979
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📖 Full story below. 👇

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THE FULL STORY

In 1954, RKO producer Howard Hughes sent John Wayne and a cast of 220 people to Snow Canyon, Utah to film 'The Conqueror.' The location was 137 miles downwind of Yucca Flat, Nevada — where the US military had conducted 11 atomic bomb tests in 1953. Of those 220 people, 91 eventually developed cancer. 46 of them died from it.

The Nevada nuclear tests had deposited radioactive fallout across the Utah desert. The US government had classified the fallout data and told local ranchers and townspeople there was no danger. The film crew worked in the contaminated soil for weeks. Children played in it. The cast used it in scenes where actors fought on the ground.

When interior reshoots were needed in Hollywood, the production company trucked in 60 tons of dirt from the Snow Canyon location. The radioactive soil was stored in the studio's sound stages for months. The cast worked in it again. No one tested it. No one warned them. The AEC had classified the contamination levels as a military secret.

John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead, director Dick Powell, and Pedro Armendariz all developed cancer. Armendariz shot himself in 1963 when he learned his cancer was terminal. Wayne was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1964, survived it, then developed stomach cancer. He died on June 11, 1979. Wayne was also a lifelong heavy smoker, which complicates attribution.

Howard Hughes, by then a recluse in Las Vegas, reportedly watched 'The Conqueror' repeatedly in his darkened rooms and was consumed by guilt. In 1974, he purchased all known prints of the film for approximately $12 million to prevent it from airing on television. He never spoke publicly about the cancer cluster. The film remained mostly suppressed until after his death.

The cancer rate among The Conqueror's cast and crew — 91 of 220, or 41% — is significantly higher than average. Epidemiologists debate the cause, since Wayne's smoking is a confounding variable. The US government's classified fallout data has since been partially released. The downwind communities of Utah filed lawsuits for decades. Most were denied. The contamination was real. The accountability was not.

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