The entertainment industry's other dark side.

[Short Knife Johnson]

Interesting article on what may have brought about the demise of The Duke.

http://www.sonicbomb.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=87&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

I'm not really a John Wayne fan (there I said it - flame away) but I find things like this fascinating.  There are many stories of the dark underbelly of the film and T.V. industry where what is knon as "sick locations" or "sick buildings" have contributed to the illness and death of many actors and crew.  Another example I was told of is that several other members of the "Family Ties" television series crew members have been stricken with Parkinson's besides Micheal J. Fox.  Often times these are tragic oversights, but sometimes these are preventable cases that the directors and/or producers overlook for one reason or another.  Either it is a money issue or for the good of the production.

Comments?

[Forty Rod]

Why didn't the entire populations of Saint George, Kanab, Hurricane, and other small towns in the area all die of cancer? They were there before, during, and after this time period, many for many years before and after.

More shaky evidence, conspiracy theory stuff without any concrete evidence one way or the other.

[Old Doc]

That speculation about The Conquerors Nevada location and subsequent cancer development in Wayne and others has been around for years. Hard to prove one way or the other.

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[The Elderly Kid]

Not as splashy as radiation poisoning, but the film industry used to be a lot more dangerous than it is now. The heavy makeup used in the early days was often quite toxic. "The Wizard of Oz" was plagued with makeup-related casualties. Buddy Ebsen, the original Tin Man, went to the hospital, poisoned by the aluminum makeup the role required (Jack Hailey proved less allergic to it). Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West, suffered a burn on her hand early in filming and the copper-based green makeup she wore gave her blood poisoning and almost killed her. Elizabeth Taylor as a child star lost her luminous complexion to the toxic makeup worn under hot kleig lights and in her grownup roles had to wear yet more makeup (happily healthier by the '50s) and be filmed in soft-focus to minimize the damage. An aunt of mine saw Liz in Rome when she was filming "Cleopatra" and was shocked to see how coarse her complexion had become (luckily, Richard Burton's was even rougher). And the less said about Hollywood horses the better. In silent days, sometimes hundreds were killed in making a single film: tripped with wires, pushed over cliffs, drowned, dead horses were just seen as a minor expense. Stunt men had it pretty rough, too, but at least they got paid for it.