Hi kilo 6,
The film you mentioned, was THE CONQUEROR,
filmed in the Escalante Desert near St. George, Utah.
about 140 miles from the atomic testing site in Nevada.
The crew spent six weeks there, in heat hovering around 120 degrees, working in radioactive sand, that may have been lethal.
'We were in the direct path of the fallout, of the nuclear testing range'
stuntman Gil Perkins said.
'A tremendous number of people have contracted cancer and died'
Certainly the deaths from cancer among the cast and crew,
ran alarmingly high:
John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Dick Powell,
Pedro Armendariz and Thomas Gomez.
Agnes Moorehead, the Chief of special effects,
and at least thirty-four others!
It is true that many of them were heavy smokers, Duke particularly.
and others who were there, Pilar and Gil Perkins for example-lived long lives,
but most of them were non-smokers!
