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I had a definite temperature when I crashed out last night which turned out on further investigation to be, depending on which ear I probed, about 100° to 101°F. It was actually quite reassuring to have confirmation that the mild wretchedness I've been feeling the past couple of days is probably due to some lurgy, rather than general decrepitude
Still feeling slightly sub-par today but the temperature seems to be closer to normal so far
The most striking of this morning's purchase of dvds was "The Conqueror (1956)" with Duke Wayne, highly miscast, and a film most famous for killing a goodly percentage of those involved in its production.
The film is sometimes called "An RKO Radioactive Picture". It was filmed near an active nuclear test site in Utah, where eleven tests had reportedly been carried out in the year before the production landed there.
Not surprisingly, the set was contaminated by nuclear fallout, but producer Howard Hughes and the local population had been reassured by the Atomic Energy Commission that the area was completely safe.
Photographs exist of John Wayne holding a Geiger counter that reportedly made so much noise that he simply thought it was broken.
After location shooting, Hughes had tons of contaminated soil transported back to Hollywood in order to match interior shooting done there.
Over the next thirty years, 91 of the 220 cast and crew members had developed a form of cancer.
Forty-six had died, including John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Pedro Armendáriz (who shot himself soon after learning he had terminal cancer), Agnes Moorehead, John Hoyt and director Dick Powell. Lee Van Cleef had throat cancer, but died of a heart attack.
The count did not include several hundred local Native Americans who played extras, or relatives of the cast and crew who visited the set, including John Wayne's son Michael Wayne.
A "People" article quoted the reaction of a scientist from the Pentagon's Defense Nuclear Agency to the news, "Please, God, don't let us have killed John Wayne".
As of June 2011, the article is available in its archive online.
The most striking of this morning's purchase of dvds was "The Conqueror (1956)" with Duke Wayne, highly miscast, and a film most famous for killing a goodly percentage of those involved in its production.
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