The Conqueror

The Conqueror was a 1956 motion picture produced by Howard Hughes and starring John Wayne in a portrayal of the life of the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan. Other performers included Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead and Pedro Armendáriz. The picture was directed by actor/director Dick Powell.

Related Topics:
1956 - Howard Hughes - John Wayne - Mongol - Genghis Khan - Susan Hayward - Agnes Moorehead - Pedro Armendáriz - Actor - Director - Dick Powell

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The picture was a critical and commercial failure (often ranked as one of the worst films of the 1950s), which is remarkable given the stature of the cast. Wayne, who was at the height of his career, had lobbied for the role after seeing the script and was widely believed to have been grossly miscast.

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The movie was mostly shot on location in St. George, Utah, downwind of the U.S. Government's Nevada Test Range, the site of extensive above-ground nuclear tests during the 1950s. The cast and crew spent many difficult weeks on the site, from which Hughes later shipped 60 tons of dirt back to Hollywood for reshoots. The cast and crew knew about the nuclear tests (there are pictures of Wayne holding a geiger counter during production) but the link between exposure to radioactive fallout and cancer was less understood then.

Related Topics:
Shot on location - St. George, Utah - Nevada - Nuclear - Geiger counter - Fallout - Cancer

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All of the performers named above died of cancer. Powell died only a few years after the picture's completion. Hayward, Wayne, and Moorehead all died in the mid 1970s. Pedro Armendáriz was diagnosed with kidney cancer four years later and committed suicide after he learned the cancer was terminal. Skeptics point to other factors such as tobacco use (Wayne was a heavy smoker) and the fact that radiation-caused cancer does not have such a long incubation period. The cast and crew totaled 220. Of that number, 91 had developed some form of cancer by 1981 and 46 had died of cancer by then. However, striking as this seems, it is unclear if the incidence of cancer among them was truly higher than might be statistically expected for any group of people working in that profession during the 1950s.

Related Topics:
1970s - Pedro Armendáriz - Suicide - Tobacco - 1981

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Reportedly, Howard Hughes felt guilty about his decisions regarding the film's production and kept the film from view until 1974 when it was first broadcast on TV. The Conqueror, along with Ice Station Zebra, is said to be one of the films Hughes watched endlessly during his last years.

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