9 Worst Accidents That Keep Happening On The Sets Of Hollywood Movies

4. Cancer And The Conqueror

1956€™s The Conqueror, an epic about Genghis Khan starring a horribly miscast John Wayne, was a critical failure, regularly cited as one of the worst films ever made. Producer Howard Hughes felt so strongly that no one should have it inflicted upon them that he purchased all of the prints of the film for 12 million dollars and refused to let anyone but himself see it. Part of that€™s because it€™s utterly rubbish - but the other, major source of guilt and shame Hughes felt comes from the decision to film on location near St. George, Utah€ a couple of hundred kilometres from the Nevada site of the US government€™s nuclear tests a few years earlier. Actor Pedro Armendáriz was the first: he was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 1960, and committed suicide in 1963 when he learned that it was terminal. Director Dick Powell died of cancer the same year. Lead actresses Susan Hayward and Agnes Moorhead both died of cancer a few years later, as did the film€™s star, Wayne himself. But those were only the most high profile casualties: by 1981, 91 of the 220-strong cast and crew had contracted some form of cancer, and over half that number had died. Not only that, but relatives of the stars who€™d visited the set also suffered cancer scares. Wayne and Hayward€™s sons Patrick and Tim both had benign tumours removed, and Wayne€™s son Michael developed skin cancer. It€™s said that the increasingly isolated and delusional Hughes would watch The Conqueror over and over and over again in his last years, punishing himself over and over for the decisions he made as producer of the film. The film is pretty bad, yes€ but its legacy is worse.