BY LEE PFEIFFER
It's a debate that has been raging for decades. Did government experiments with atomic bombs in the desert of Utah contribute to the deaths of John Wayne and many other cast and crew members of the 1954 film "The Conqueror"? First some background: the film was produced by Howard Hughes before he became a legendary recluse. It was a big budget production that co-starred Wayne and Susan Hayward and was directed by actor Dick Powell. The film is largely remembered today as a rare instance of Wayne's generally sound instincts betraying him. Somehow Hughes convinced the Duke to play Genghis Khan. The result was as awful as you would imagine and the movie went down as one of the worst casting decisions in Hollywood history, with even Wayne disparaging his appearance in the movie. It may come as a surprise to readers, however, that Wayne and Hughes had the last laugh, at least at the boxoffice. Despite poor reviews, Wayne's popularity was such that "The Conqueror" became a substantial boxoffice hit. That's the end of the good news. Many years after its release, it was noted that a seemingly high proportion of people involved with the movie had died of cancer, most notably Wayne himself in 1979. Rumors began to circulate that the U.S. government's experiments with atomic blasts in the precise area where the film was shot must have contributed to these deaths. The theory was that cast and crew members became contaminated with remaining radioactive fallout. At the time the U.S. was still rather naive about nuclear radiation despite the dropping of two atom bombs on Japan in 1945. The government was exploding A-bombs above ground in desert regions. Years later, this was deemed to be unsafe under any circumstances and future tests were conducted below ground. The Guardian web site has reignited the debate over whether radiation played a part in the deaths of Wayne and his colleagues. This has been examined many times before and the results are always inconclusive. However, conspiracy theories abound, as they always do when high profile people are involved. JFK conspiracy theorists routinely cite a supposedly unnatural number of deaths within a relatively short period of time in regard to various individuals who had some connection to that infamous date in history. But sometimes coincidences do occur and can be a contributing factor. Those who knew Wayne point out that he was an avid smoker and had a lung removed in 1965. His widow Pilar once told this writer that the pressure of starring in and directing his 1960 epic "The Alamo" saw him chain smoking five packs of cigarettes a day, a factor that, in and of itself, would be the most likely contributor to his death from cancer. In any event, this will be a topic long debated. Click here to read and form your own conclusions.
