On This Day…..

The Atomic Blast that Killed John Wayne?……

May 19, 1953……

An atomic bomb is tested in Nevada. Due to a miscalculation and change in wind-direction, a large amount of radioactive fallout fell on St. George, Utah, where two years later the movie The Conqueror was filmed. By 1980, of the 220 members of the cast and crew, 91 of them had developed some form of cancer and 46 had died of the disease. The deaths included John Wayne (1979), Pedro Armendariz (1963), Dick Powell (1963), Ted de Corsia (1973), Agnes Moorehead (1974), and Susan Hayward (1975).