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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
A John Wayne flop has been linked to high cancer rates. A new documentary aims to tell the community's story.
2024-07-01
[HILL] The 1956 movie "The Conqueror" is infamous among cinephiles, both for its casting of John Wayne as the Mongolian warlord Genghis Khan and for a suspicious number of deaths that followed its filming downwind of a nuclear test site. Nearly 70 years later, the makers of the documentary "The Conqueror: Hollywood Fallout" hope to tell the story of the affected "downwinder" community in St. George, Utah, near where the film shot as their federal compensation for radiation exposure is on the line.

At the time "The Conqueror" filmed in the Utah desert just outside the town, St. George was 137 miles downwind from the Nevada Test Site, where the federal government conducted more than 900 nuclear tests.

The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) for years insisted to locals there was no danger, and when ranchers’ sheep began mysteriously dying, the federal government blamed it on the ranchers’ negligence.

But after the movie was shot, observers noted the high rate of cancer among people involved with the filming: 91 of 220 crew members developed the illness, and 46 died. Director Dick Powell and stars Wayne, Susan Hayward and Agnes Moorehead all eventually died of cancer as well, while Pedro Armendáriz Sr., an accomplished Mexican actor and the only nonwhite member of the film’s main cast, died by suicide when his cancer became terminal.

Local Paiute Native Americans were used as extras for crowd and battle scenes, but no records were kept of cancer rates among them.
Posted by:Besoeker

#11  Speaking of St. George, Hurricane, Utah was like a time machine transition to a simpler, happier time in rural America 29+ years ago.
Posted by: NoMoreBS   2024-07-01 13:33  

#10  /\ Ref 7: Towns around the Hanford, WA site called themselves the "Downwinders" and not in a good way.

Richland, WA "The Atomic City."
Posted by: Besoeker   2024-07-01 09:14  

#9  Never been a study of all the downwind contamination from the 50-60s open air testing through the heartland.

All this not to be confused with all the annual deaths from skin cancer caused the by largest local continuous thermonuclear radiation from the Sun.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2024-07-01 08:58  

#8  I first found about this in Richard Miller's "Under the Cloud" back in the early 90's...good book, btw.
Posted by: Ulailet+Thud3602   2024-07-01 08:51  

#7  Towns around the Hanford, WA site called themselves the "Downwinders" and not in a good way.
Posted by: Mercutio   2024-07-01 08:45  

#6  Oh, it's a beautiful spot if you're a desert rat.
@45 min drive from Las Vegas. I lived north of there a number of years in Cedar City UT, making oxidizer for the Space Shuttle.
Posted by: Skidmark   2024-07-01 08:27  

#5  /\ Does not appear to have negatively impacted home prices.
Posted by: Besoeker   2024-07-01 08:20  

#4  St. George sits at the top of the Virgin River canyon on the Colorado Plateau which rises approx 2000 ft from the Nevada desert.

The river channel serves as a chimney for the hot desert air which rises to the high desert plateau passing thru Hurricane UT, gateway to Zion and the Great Basin national parks.

"In the early 1950s, St. George received the brunt of the fallout of above-ground nuclear testing at the Yucca Flats/Nevada Test Site northwest of Las Vegas. Winds routinely carried the fallout of these tests directly through the St. George and southern Utah area."
Posted by: Skidmark   2024-07-01 08:10  

#3  
Check out "Cold War Warriors" and the Savannah River Plant (Aiken SC.) or the Hartford (Site W) plant in remote Washington State. The Cancer / Death rates at these, were Mega x's higher than the UTAH incident.

At the Savannah River plant alone, there were 30++ very serious incidents and highly elevated levels of cancer among workers and area residents. I personally have seen many a SRP worker (my Uncle included) in a Paper Suits. He died of Leukemia in the early 70's, and his wife of the same a few years later.

Note: Parts of nearby Ga experienced its share of related events also.
Posted by: NN2N1   2024-07-01 07:31  

#2  Too bad the Mediterranean Diet wasn't in vogue then.
Posted by: DooDahMan   2024-07-01 07:05  

#1  ....This has been known - or at least suspected - for decades. And of course, the Duke's multi-pack a day cigarette habit couldn't have had anything to do with it.

Mike
Posted by: MikeKozlowski    2024-07-01 06:41  

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