The Film That Haunted John Wayne’s Final Years
John Wayne’s legacy was shaped by resilience, but a single film shoot near nuclear test sites may have cast a shadow over his later life and health.
For decades, the public saw John Wayne as the embodiment of rugged endurance, a leading man who seemed almost untouchable. Rarely did his characters meet their end on screen, and his off-screen persona was just as formidable. When he overcame cancer in the early 1960s—having a lung removed and returning to work soon after—Wayne’s reputation for toughness only grew. He was known for his fondness for cigarettes and whisky, and for commanding both respect and a touch of fear among colleagues. Yet, even he could not outpace fate forever.
His last major role, in The Shootist, was perhaps his most moving. Wayne played an ageing gunman facing the realities of a changing world. The character’s struggle with terminal illness mirrored Wayne’s own battle, lending the performance a poignant edge. The celebrated actor, who had won an Academy Award and become a Hollywood legend, died in 1979 from stomach cancer at 72. Some have traced the origins of his illness back to a single production.
The Shadow of The Conqueror
At first, the idea seems far-fetched. But the statistics surrounding the 1956 epic The Conqueror are difficult to ignore. The film, widely regarded as a low point in Wayne’s career, was filmed in the vicinity of nuclear testing grounds. At the time, few anticipated any consequences. Yet by 1980, more than 40% of those involved had developed cancer, and nearly 50 crew members had died from the disease.
It is impossible to lay the blame solely at the feet of this one project, especially given the time that passed before Wayne’s diagnosis. Still, it is not unreasonable to wonder how things might have unfolded had Howard Hughes, the film’s producer, acted differently. Hughes, known for his eccentricities and ambitions in the film industry, had a hand in many productions, though he only directed two himself.
Howard Hughes and a Fateful Delay
Hughes had previously financed The Flying Leathernecks, starring Wayne, and the two had a loose arrangement to collaborate again. However, years passed without a new project materialising, creating mounting pressure.
“His delay was really getting me into deep fucking water,”
Wayne once told Michael Munn. With Warner Bros threatening legal action over an unfulfilled contract, Wayne’s frustration grew.
“I was fucking mad, and I wrote to Howard and told him that it was his studio’s responsibility to have scripts ready for me on the dates he had promised,”
he explained.
Eventually, a visit to RKO’s offices provided an unexpected solution. Wayne spotted a treatment for The Conqueror and, after a quick glance, decided it might be worth pursuing. Learning that Dick Powell would direct sealed the deal.
“I kind of took him by surprise, and he said, ‘Are you serious?’”
Wayne recalled.
“I said, ‘Sure, why not?’ So he said, ‘OK’, and we shook hands on it.”
This would be the only film Wayne made with Hughes as producer, though Jet Pilot later carried a ‘Presented by Howard Hughes’ credit. Ironically, it was this project that may have had the most lasting impact on Wayne’s life.