John Wayne’s Wife Doesn’t Think ‘The Conqueror’ Was the ‘Real Culprit’ of His Death

Legendary actor John Wayne continues to earn criticism for playing Genghis Khan in The Conqueror. Many of his fans believe that on-set conditions resulted in his death, but his wife, Pilar Wayne, doesn’t think the movie had anything to do with it. Rather, she blames his stress-relieving habit for causing his demise.

‘The Conqueror’ actor John Wayne died of cancer

Wayne starred in one of the worst roles of his career in The Conqueror. However, the on-set conditions continue to overshadow the film itself. They shot on-location in the Utah desert in 1954. The government detonated atomic bombs at their test site over 100 miles away, which they assured was far enough away.

However, many folks on The Conqueror set got cancer, including Wayne himself. They had a Geiger counter, which detects radiation. The device crackled loudly, but they went along filming the feature film. Wayne battled cancer for more than a decade, ultimately dying on June 11, 1979, at the age of 72 years old.

Pilar Wayne thinks ‘constant, incessant smoking’ killed John Wayne

Pilar and Alex Thorleifson’s book, John Wayne: My Life With the Duke, explored her suspicions that The Conqueror wasn’t responsible for his death. She came and went from the set and never got sick. Rather, she blamed Wayne’s “constant, incessant smoking” for his cancer and his death.

“The real culprit in the deaths of my husband, Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorhead, Pedro Armandariz, and Dick Powell was their constant, incessant smoking,” Pilar wrote. “They all had a two-pack-per-day (or more) habit. Duke never smoked fewer than three packs a day.”

Pilar continued: “Now we know that cigarette smoking kills–it damages the lungs, the heart, the circulatory system. I watched Duke battle the cancer it caused, watched him battle his addiction to smoking when he had to quit.”

Pilar had some words for Wayne’s fans that he wasn’t aware of when he was filming The Conqueror.

“I know Duke would join me in saying, ‘Don’t smoke–whatever you do, don’t smoke,'” Pilar wrote. “When Duke was filming The Conqueror, we were not aware of the dangers of smoking, and the more things went wrong, the more Duke smoked.”

‘The Conqueror’ is referred to as the actor’s worst movie

Wayne fans will never forget his performance in The Conqueror. The film holds an 11% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes for his showing of Khan, but also because of the poor writing and rampant misogyny. Additionally, it paints Khan as the hero of the story.

The actor earned a Golden Turkey Award for his performance, cementing the role as one of the worst of all time. However, many Wayne fans hate The Conqueror under the assumption that it ultimately resulted in the actor’s death. If Pilar’s perspective is true, then the movie didn’t truly have anything to do with him getting cancer. Nevertheless, that doesn’t change the poor quality of the movie itself.