The Peculiar Truth about the Movie that Caused Cancer

• Howard Hughes wanted an epic movie blockbuster and set out to produce a film about Genghis Khan. It was titled The Conqueror. Dick Powell was hired to direct.

• Actors considered for the lead role included Marlon Brando and Yul Brynner. However, to play the Mongol legend they selected All-American cowboy figure John Wayne. There was nothing remotely Asian about him.

• On the first day of rehearsal, he showed up drunk. The dialogue was stilted and unnatural. Wayne hated it. He supposedly stayed drunk throughout the entire production.

• John Wayne wasn’t the only odd casting choice. Susan Hayward was a major Hollywood actress known for her red hair. Yet she was cast as an Asian, too. No attempt was made to alter her appearance. She wouldn’t permit it.

• Pedro Armendariz was cast as Khan’s aide, but his Latino accent kept slipping out.

• Agnes Moorehead played Khan’s mother despite being only seven years older than John Wayne.

• Also in the film were Lee Van Cleef and Joseph Conrad. They also portrayed Mongols. Badly.

• Exterior filming took place in rural St. George, Utah. It was 100-150 miles downwind of Nevada nuclear test sites.

• The government detonated hundreds of atomic bombs in that area during the 1950s. The fallout from the enormous mushroom clouds sent radioactive particles on the eastbound winds.

• The Conqueror included a great deal of horseback riding that constantly kicked up sand and dust. Actors and crew were often coated in it.

• When the production moved from the exteriors of Utah to the RKO sound stages in LA, Howard Hughes insisted that the desert sand be transported, too, to provide realism.

• No one realized the dirt was radioactive.

• 1956: The Conqueror hit theaters. John Wayne hated it. Critics hated it. Audiences saw it anyway, but not in great numbers. Howard Hughes financially broke even. Not a hit, not a flop.

• Back in Utah, farm animals became deformed and died in droves. Dairy cows produced milk that sickened children. Some died. Cancer became too common in St. George. The government assured citizens the fallout was not the cause.

• 1962: Dick Powell contracted cancer of the lymph nodes. He was the first member of the film production to die.

• Pedro Armendariz appeared in From Russia With Love while battling terminal cancer. He took his own life.

• John Wayne’s cancer developed in 1964. One of his lungs was surgically removed. He survived but later died from stomach cancer in 1979.

• Susan Hayward battled brain cancer until 1974. She made her last public appearance at the Oscars and died weeks later.

• Agnes Moorhead developed uterine cancer. She died at age 67.

• Forty percent of the cast and crew got cancer. Many of them regretted ever appearing in The Conqueror.

• Howard Hughes became a recluse in Las Vegas. He bought every copy of the film and took it out of circulation. No one ever determined why, although some speculate he suffered a guilty conscience.

• Howard Hughes never made another motion picture.