10 Movies That Ruined Perfect Casts With One Bad Choice
5. The Conqueror – John Wayne
Death-defying aircraft expeditions and storing his own urine in jars aren’t the only bizarre things eccentric entrepreneur Howard Hughes did during his lifetime. Up there with the oddest of his antics was his ill-fated, self-financed 1956 production of The Conqueror, starring John Wayne – an actor of Irish and Scottish stock born in Iowa (one of the USA’s whitest states) and best known for playing all-American cowboys and lawmen in Western films – as Genghis Khan. Yes, that’s right – infamous 13th century Mongol emperor Genghis Khan.
Despite a solid cast and the highly bankable Wayne in a starring role, The Duke’s performance – think slanted eyes and Fu Manchu-style moustache – proved far too distracting with the film flopping critically and commercially and its star’s portrayal ranked up there with the worst of Hollywood’s ‘yellowface’ misadventures, alongside Mickey Rooney’s Mr. Yunioshi.
Howard Hughes was so ashamed by the film that he spent a whopping $12 million buying up every print of the film to keep it out of circulation, but it was a career killer in more ways than one. Filmed downwind from a nuclear weapons testing site, over 91 members of its cast and crew ended up being diagnosed with cancer which earned The Conqueror the dubious honour of not only being one of the worst films of all time, but also the deadliest.