8mm Forum: The Conqueror

This is topic The Conqueror - A Sad Tale in forum General Yak at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by Maurice Leakey (Member # 916) on June 16, 2014, 02:46 AM:

Many personnel were diagnosed with cancer which was allegedly the results of being exposed to dangerous radio active toxins on location in Utah while making "The Conqueror" in 1955.

Of the 220 persons who worked on the film, 91 had contracted cancer as of the early 1980s and 46 died of it.

The cause? No one can say for sure, but many attribute the cancers to radioactive fallout from US atom bomb tests in nearby Nevada where in 1953 the military had tested 11 atomic bombs at Yucca Flats, which had resulted in immense clouds of fallout floating downwind.

All the leads, and director, Dick Powell died of cancer.

Dick Powell aged 58 died of lymph glands cancer on 2 Jan 1963.
John Wayne aged 72 died of lung and stomach cancer on 11 Jun 1979.
Susan Hayward aged 57 died of breast cancer on 14 Mar 1975.
Agnes Moorehead aged 73 died of uterine cancer 30 Apl 1974.
John Hoyt aged 85 died of lung cancer on 15 Sep 1991.
Pedro Armendariz aged 51 shot himself on 18 Jun 1963 (promoted by his impending slow death from cancer.)

How ironic that the test site now offers monthly tours. Any takers?

Posted by David Ollerearnshaw (Member # 3296) on June 16, 2014, 04:16 AM:

"An RKO Radioactive Picture."

The scary thing is in the 80's I visited Death Valley, Zion Park and a couple of other areas not all that faraway from the place.

What is also very worrying I also visited Lassen Park 650 miles away where it snow radioactive after one test. (Not while I was there).

And of course what comes out of Hollywood but The Beast of Yucca Flats

Posted by Lee Mannering (Member # 728) on June 16, 2014, 05:11 AM:

I would also not ignore the fact that many of those wonderful names were also heavy cigarette smokers. [Frown]

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on June 17, 2014, 01:54 PM:

It is amazing, in retrospect, the cavalier attitude that the US Government had in the 1950's towards nuclear testing. Not only did radioactive waste snow down on the crew of The Conqueror but also on a number of towns in Utah. Of course everybody was assured that it was all perfectly safe. And then you look at the Hydrogen bomb tests in the Pacific, with a whole 3 mile wide island being vapourized and ash deposited hundreds of miles away on Japanese fisherman. And who can forget the Nevada test where they set off an A-bomb and immediately marched soldiers to ground zero! Of course the Russians were no slouches either - remember they set off the biggest bomb ever, 100 megatons, up there in the arctic, and threatened the west with a much bigger doomsday Cobalt bomb which, thank God, they never tested.
Very scary stuff, and God only knows how we survived it all.

Posted by David Michael Leugers (Member # 166) on June 17, 2014, 08:15 PM:

My uncle Jack died of leukemia back in the mid 1970's. So far as we can tell, he is the only member of my mom's family to die of cancer. His mom lived to 102 and his sister (my mom) is celebrating her 92nd birthday in a week. About ten years ago I was talking with my mom about my uncle Jack who I didn't
know real well as he lived in another state and only saw him a few times. She told me that he had stayed in the military after WWII and had participated in the testing of atom bombs in the desert... he was one of those soldiers who hunkered down in a trench and then after the blast passed got up and ran towards the rising mushroom cloud you can see in films. Insane. From 1635 until 2014 and he is the only one to die of cancer... a coincidence? Yeah right.

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