Jeanne Gerson, an actress in the film, developed breast cancer and sued the government, according to Turner Classic Movies, for giving the okay to film there. Unfortunately, that declaration would turn out to be questionable. The cast and crew of The Conqueror arrived to the town only after getting the all-clear from the federal government that it would be safe to film there, according to Collider. The doctors have all said it is from radiation.' It just seems like that area, that group of us, have all of us contracted cancer. My brother, just a little bit older than her, passed away with stomach cancer.

She continued, 'My sister passed away with cancer of the liver at 34. George, Utah, was a little over a 100 miles from a nuclear testing site, according to Utah Public Radio, which says 'large amounts of debris were drawn up into the atmosphere which contained radioactive substances.' No bombs were tested at the nearby site during filming in 1954, but they had been 11 years prior.

More than 20 years after the film was released, children of Wayne, Hayward and Powell would come to an awful realization that working on the film probably caused the cancer that killed their parents - and many other cast and crew members.Īn 1980 article from People found that out of the 220 cast and crew members there were 91 who later contracted cancer, with 46 of them (including Wayne, Hayward and Powell) having died from the disease.įrom 1951 to 1958, St. Though the film, which was directed by Dick Powell, wasn't a huge success it is still remembered, albeit for a much darker reason. Shot in the summer of 1954 in Saint George, Utah, the 1956 romance film The Conqueror starred John Wayne and Susan Hayward.

World conqueror 4 1980