# John Wayne's cancer

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-waynes-cancer/255423>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [July 16, 2004, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-waynes-cancer/255423 "2004-07-16T15:03:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Awerdenty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ebca7d/32.png) [@Awerdenty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Awerdenty)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-waynes-cancer/255423/1 "2004-07-16T15:03:48Z")

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The fact that the Duke smoked four packs of cigarettes a day for forty years just MIGHT have had more to do with his lung cancer than the movie set of the Conqueror. Likewise for the others: no attempt was ever made to determine other risk factors involved, like smoking. Also the fact that Wayne’s deadly cancer occurred more than 30 years after the filming would seem to indicate some other source.

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**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-waynes-cancer/255423/2 "2004-07-16T15:08:30Z")

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Hello **Awerdenty** , it is considered good form to provide a [link](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_016.html) to the column.

Welcome aboard.

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**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\
**Post date:** [July 16, 2004, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-waynes-cancer/255423/3 "2004-07-16T19:20:14Z")

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If 91 people got cancer where 30 should have, not to mention half the residents of St. George getting cancer, there’s a link.

While it is true that any one case (_e.g.,_ Wayne) cannot with certainty be ascribed to one cause rather than another, it is painfully clear that most of them got cancer as a result of the filming.

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**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\
**Post date:** [July 20, 2004, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-waynes-cancer/255423/4 "2004-07-20T19:57:18Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> Howard Hughes was said to have felt “guilty as hell” about the whole affair, although as far as I can tell it never occurred to anyone to sue him. For various reasons he withdrew _The Conqueror_ from circulation, and for years thereafter the only person who saw it was Hughes himself, who screened it night after night during his paranoid last years.

Guilt over this movie may explain a lot about Hughes’s later eccentricities.

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**Author:** ![bughunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@bughunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bughunter)\
**Post date:** [July 20, 2004, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-waynes-cancer/255423/5 "2004-07-20T20:51:13Z")

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Umm… I have nothing to add here except an expression of admiration for Sluggo’s placement of the “flowers” on Ms. Hayward’s dress in the illustration accompanying this column.

Bullseye, Sluggo… bullseye! 😃