He may well be a divisive character today, but during his heyday as one of the most potent performers in the history of Hollywood, there were very few movies that John Wayne starred in where he didn’t knock it out of the park, or at least he wasn’t told he did. Wayne was perhaps the first true American superhero and for that reason alone, he was able to carry a picture over the line and into the cinemas.
That’s not to say he didn’t provide the world with some stinking efforts. Wayne’s resume is so long that a few clangers were bound to be in there. Wayne was quite honest about them, too. He once lambasted the sheer volume of “horse operas” that he found himself in and was often quick to point out his more boring performances. But one movie stuck out as a picture he simply wasn;t suited for.
Winning an Oscar at the end of his career in 1970, Wayne was adored by countless fans worldwide, mainly for his collaborations with the likes of John Ford, Don Siegel and Howard Hawks. Becoming a western icon in more ways than one, Wayne is notable for his position as one of the leading figures in the birth of Hollywood as we know it today.
Still, not everybody adored the man nicknamed ‘The Duke’, with plenty of industry actors and filmmakers disliking his brash approach to contemporary attitudes. Surprisingly, the great John Lennon was one such icon, once stating back in 1980, “I don’t appreciate the worship of dead Sid Vicious or of dead James Dean or dead John Wayne…What do they teach you? Nothing. Death.”
Yet, Wayne cared little about the opinion of the minority, knowing that he was adored as an American icon by large swathes of the public. It helped that he backed himself as a performer, too, calling three movies his favourite from his career: 1939’s Stagecoach, 1962’s Hatari! And 1952’s The Quiet Man, with each one being a far cry from the role he admitted he wasn’t suitable for.
Released in 1956 and directed by Dick Powell, The Conqueror starred Wayne as Genghis Khan, the former Khagan of the Mongol Empire, in a story that tested the history books. Khan was, indeed, not a white man from America, with Wayne’s casting being laughable even at the time and grossly offensive by today’s standards.
Wayne is no stranger to being considered wildly offensive by today’s social norms. Across his canon and, most importantly, his interviews, the actor displayed a whole range of unwelcome and ultimately racist viewpoints that feel entirely egregious today. One might expect this transgression to have been barely a blip on Wayne’s radar.
Still, it seems the actor knew quite how silly his casting was. Speaking about the moral of the movie, Wayne once stated: “Don’t make an ass of yourself trying to play parts you are not suited for”.
However, the film was far more than a career mistake, with the production having genuinely dire consequences for those who worked on it. You see, the movie was filmed in the deserts of Utah, mere years after the army had conducted nuclear bomb testing on the same site. The effects of such long-lasting radiation weren’t felt right away by the cast and crew, but in the years that followed, a staggering 91 people who worked on the film each tragically died of cancer.
To make matters worse, the production endangered an untold number of people when it transported 60 tons of the radioactive dirt from the production site to Hollywood, where further scenes could be shot on a soundstage.
Many people have pointed to this picture as the cause of Wayne’s death, and, for that reason alone, it might be considered the darkest spot in Wayne’s career. It has since been seen as a choice the actor simply shouldn’t have made.