The 1956 movie " The Conqueror , " starring John Wayne asGenghis Khan(yes , John Wayne as Genghis Khan ) and the auburn - hirsute Susan Hayward as his Mongolian paramour , is generally regarded as one of the regretful moving picture ever made . But the most dire affair about the film is n’t its bizarre molding , stilted dialogue or wooden playacting . It ’s the fact that it was filmed downwind of a nuclear testing site and members of the shape and work party later build up cancer in what seemed to be alarming numbers .
Thenuclear testingin doubt took station at the Nevada National Security Site from 1951 to 1963 . " Operation Upshot - Knothole " in 1953 involve the explosion of 11atomic bomb , almost all of which were larger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima . Two of them , code - named " Simon " and " Harry , " stimulate massive radiation fallout . The side effect from the Nevada National Security Site tended to drift directly over St. George , Utah , 137 miles ( 220 km ) aside . Because of the prevailing winds , much of it would center in the Snow Canyon area . The undermentioned year , " The Conqueror " shoot in Snow Canyon for 13 calendar week .
There is grounds that the film ’s manufacturer , Howard Hughes , and its director , Bill Powell , knew about theradiationdangers . Hughes reportedly received reassurance from the Atomic Energy Commission that the area was secure . John Wayne supposedly brought a Geiger counter to the circle . Temperatures on set often rose to 120 degrees Fahrenheit ( 49 Celsius ) and so much scandal and dust were kick up during motion-picture photography ( some of it purposefully , with fans ) that the actors had to be hosed down at the end of the daytime . To top things off , Hughes then trucked 60 loads of the radioactive dirt back to Los Angeles for use in reshoots .
A few yr afterward , cast and crew start developing cancer at ostensibly unusual rates . Powell , Wayne , Hayward and costar Agnes Moorhead all died of cancer within 25 years of the movie ’s expiration . Another doer , Pedro Armendáriz , pull self-annihilation when he discover his Crab was concluding . By 1980 , 90 members of the 220 - individual crew had developed genus Cancer and 46 of them had died . At the time , the director of radiological wellness at the University of Utah said this causa was about three times the common pace [ source : Jackovich ] . Although data point from 2014 says that charge per unit is n’t too far off the mark – 43 percent of human race will develop Crab and 23 pct will die from it – we do n’t know how many more mass associated with the moving-picture show have developedcanceror yield to it since 1980 [ author : American Cancer Society ] . There are also no statistic on the hundreds of aboriginal American extras who work on the film .
Howard Hughes was spared Crab but , perhaps out of guilt , mouth out against atomic power in later years . In 1957 , he spend $ 12 million to buy all existing print of " The Conqueror " preventing it from being find again for 17 years .
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