Actor John Wayne and two of his sons allegedly got cancer while on the set of his film The Conqueror. He died as a result of stomach cancer at the age of 72 on June 11, 1979. However, “nuclear fallout” on The Conqueror had a huge impact on the Wayne family, as well as other folks in the area.

John Wayne plays Temujin in ‘The Conqueror’
The Conqueror follows Temujin (Wayne), who is a mighty Mongol warrior. He would later be called Genghis Khan. Temujin falls in love with Bortai (Susan Hayward), the daughter of the Tatar’s leader. He kidnaps her and as a result, brings war upon the lands. This story explores the adventure of Genghis Khan.
The critical reception of The Conqueror remains highly negative. The film earned $9 million on a $6 million budget, but critics and audiences continue to slam the movie. There aren’t enough critic scores to account for a final score on Rotten Tomatoes, but the adventure film is currently sitting at 11% with audiences. The film is a laughing stock, primarily due to Wayne’s casting.

John Wayne and his sons, Patrick and Michael, allegedly got cancer from ‘nuclear fallout’ on the set of ‘The Conqueror’

The Guardian explores the devastating story of Wayne on the set of The Conqueror. The film was shot in the Utah desert in 1954. The government detonated atomic bombs at their test site, but that location was more than 100 miles away. The officials said that their filming area would be “completely safe.”
Wayne had a Geiger counter, which is an instrument that has the ability to detect radiation. Images from the set display him holding the black metal box along with his two teenage sons, Patrick and Michael. However, the area certainly wasn’t safe, as the Geiger counter had indicated.
The box crackled so loudly, Wayne initially thought that it was broken. He moved it to another area of the desert along other rocks, where it continued to make the same sounds. However, Wayne simply went along with his duties on the set.
Hollywood remembers The Conqueror by this story, which allegedly killed Wayne, Hayward, director Dick Powell, among many others on the set. Wayne’s sons battled and survived their cancer scares.
The Conqueror went on to be called an “RKO Radioactive Picture.”
The ‘downwinders’ said ‘my government lied to me’

The Guardian interviewed Rebecca Barlow, a nurse practitioner at the Radiation Exposure Screening and Education Program (RESEP) half a century later. She works in the surrounding area.
“More than 60% of this year’s patients are new,” Barlow said. “Mostly breast and thyroid, also some leukaemia, colon, lung.”
The fallout impacted tens of thousands of people, who are now called “downwinders.” Outspoken advocate Michelle Thomas openly spoke about how it affected the community.
“It’s gone into our DNA,” Thomas said. “I’ve lost count of the friends I’ve buried. I’m not patriotic. My government lied to me.”

John Wayne had a very specific idea when it comes to the movie industry. However, he saw how film executives changed what they were looking for over the course of his career. Wayne didn’t like the idea of having a movie rating system, such as the Motion Picture Association (MPA). He had a very specific message for the organization’s head.

John Wayne personifies the Western movie genre
Wayne first entered the movie business thanks to director Raoul Walsh. However, he credited John Ford with truly amplifying his name and providing him with the opportunity to have the legendary career that he had. Wayne bet on his performance in The Big Trail, which ultimately failed at the box office. However, he would later persevere.
Movie titles such as True Grit, The Shootist, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance continue to immortalize Wayne as the personification of the Western film genre. However, he believed in specific archetypes of heroes and villains, which fit perfectly into his performance style. As a result, he had a strong understanding of what fans wanted.

John Wayne hated the idea of a movie rating system

Roger Ebert interviewed Wayne in 1969 and talked about the legendary actor’s perception of the movie rating system. He certainly didn’t approve of many film industry changes, including allowing for more mature films to enter the spotlight.
“But I’m telling you, goddam it, everything’s mixed up now,” Wayne said. “I got a letter from that fellow who runs the Motion Picture Association. Jack Valenti. He wanted my opinion on the new rating system. I didn’t even answer because – well, my answer would be there shouldn’t be any need for such a thing in our industry.”
Wayne continued: “The idea of the movies is to provide the most inexpensive and accessible entertainment in the world. Well, we’ve gradually talked ourselves out of being the most economical. And now the thing that will finally stop the movies from being an American habit is that parents have to guard their children against pornography. It’s like when strippers took over burlesque.”
Wayne wasn’t afraid to speak out against what he thought was wrong with the movie industry. He specifically talked about what “real motion picture people” should uphold.
“All the real motion picture people have always made family pictures,” Wayne said. “But the downbeats and the so-called intelligentsia got in when the government stupidly split up the production companies and the theaters. The old giants–Mayer, Thalberg, even Harry Cohn, despite the fact that personally, I couldn’t stand him – were good for this industry.”
The actor thinks movies are only getting ‘dirtier’ to make money

Wayne made it known that he didn’t appreciate the movie money-making strategies of more modern times. He saw the value in making family entertainment for audiences around the country, rather than making a quick buck in appealing to viewer curiosity.
“Now the goddamned stock manipulators have taken over,” Wayne said to Roger Ebert. “They don’t know a goddamned thing about making movies. They make something dirty, and it makes money, and they say, ‘Jesus, let’s make one a little dirtier, maybe it’ll make more money.’ And now even the bankers are getting their noses into it.”

True Grit, based on Charles Portis’ 1968 novel of the same name, brought Wayne a much longed-for Oscar in 1969. As soon as he had read the book, the actor actively lobbied for the lead role of grizzled, eye-patched US Marshall Rooster Cogburn.

Despite his legendary status, Wayne wasn’t able to control the casting, unable to secure the role of Mattie for his daughter Aissa. However, his own preeminence had also meant that Elvis dropped out of the secondary role of La Boeuf after he was refused top billing above Wayne. Another actor would cause him the greatest grief once filming started.

Duvall was 38 at the time, already established as a strong character actor, but not yet the leading man and headliner that he would become. He was also known for having a fiery temper. In his early days in New York, he was boarding house roommates with fellow impoverished young stage actors Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman. All three were united by a love of elaborate practical jokes but Duvall and Hackman were also known for their short fuses, which led to explosive bar fights.
Hoffman has described how he hated him – and then shouting “F**k you” at them as he left the stage after the curtain call.

Duvall’s temper did not apparently mellow through the decades, with Michael Caine saying it was “quite violent” when they were filming Secondh and Lions in 2003. Duvall was also a Method actor, and his intense approach and irritation with anything that did not match up to it caused problems with Wayne and True Grit director Henry Hathaway. This spilled over into loud and aggressive confrontations on set. Duvall recalled in 2015, “The director and I didn’t get along — I don’t get along with a lot of directors,” and another time, “Henry Hathaway… we won’t talk about him.”
Hathaway also had a very strong personality and was aggressively dictatorial on set, which Duvall did not respond well to: “He’d say, ‘When I say, ‘Action!’ tense up, Goddam you.” It’s hard to work under that as a young actor.”Wayne’s increasing irritation with the disruptions to his cherished project led to him also fighting with Duvall and finally threatening to punch him out if the other actor didn’t stop arguing with the director.

While Duvall never got over his dislike of Hathaway, he has often spoken highly of his fellow actor. Wayne was actually never happy with his performance in True Grit, believing he had done far better work in movies like Stagecoach.
Even on the night, he won his Oscar, the Westerns veteran took fellow nominee Richard Burton aside and told him he should have won for Anne of a Thousand Days. When Barbra Streisand, who won the previous year for Funny Girl, handed him the golden statuette, she later revealed he had whispered in her ear “Beginners luck.” Duvall said: “Wayne’t as bad as some supposedly serious actors I’ ve seen who trained at the Actors Studio and all that… Wayne was interesting to be around. He was pleasant and outgoing.”