SNOW CANYON AND HOWARD HUGHES

HOWARD HUGHES 

Howard Hughes decided that the perfect location for his film 'The Conqueror' which was the life of Genghis Khan would be the Snow Canyon in Utah. This area was the replica of the Gobi desert.

Genghis Khan (John Wayne) reined in his horse, sprang from the saddle, landing lightly in the dust and looked around like a true conqueror. Genghis Khan (John Wayne) went to his saddlebag and took out a Geiger counter. It went berserk. John turned to his 'army' and said, "Sorry guys. We may have survived many battles and beaten the known world into submission but we are all gonna die of cancer any time soon."

John Wayne did carry a Geiger counter, although he played Genghis Khan. He had every reason to do so. The location was 137 miles downwind from the Nevada Nuclear Test Site (NTS) at Yucca Flats. Wayne and the cast and crew were knee-deep in radio-active dust from the beginning to the end of filming.

The Location was in the canyon land around St. George in Utah. The actors had to bear 120F heat and Susan Hayward was almost attacked by a black panther. To crown it all a flash flood just about missed them.

John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Agnes Morehead, Pedro Armendariz, John Hoyt and director Dick Powell all contracted cancer and died. Wayne and Hayward were heavy smokers and might be part of the cancer or maybe altogether. The People magazine made a survey and it was found out that from 220 cast and crew, more than half contracted cancer and died, it was 91. This number did not include the Native American who acted as extras. Many of them contracted cancer and went to their graves.

The ground of the filming was irradiated from the fallout from tests. These tests were done above ground from 1953 to 1962. In 1953 alone the military had tested 11 atomic bombs at Yucca Flats; the last was a massive 32 kilo-ton "Dirty Harry" atom bomb. The immense clouds of fallout floated downwind. A lot of the deadly dust drifted into Snow Canyon in which the film 'The Conqueror' was produced for 13 weeks.

To make matters worse, at the battle scenes electric fans were used to give it a dusty, windblown realism. These battle scenes were fought on a daily basis. They rolled in the dirt and were hit by dust clouds from the huge wind machines. Even the food was covered with dust.

The radio active particles -- strontium-90, caesium-137 has a life of about 30 years and radioactive iodine-129 has a life of 5.2 million years. The dust on the site was alive with nuclear toxins.

JOHN WAYNE

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Howard Hughes and his advisers contacted the Atomic Energy Commission and were advised that the area was free of contamination. The residents of St George were told the same after they complained about the health of their livestock. While farmers can be easier convinced; it is unbelievable that a man like Hughes could have been that gullible.

He was even that convinced of the 'truth' scientists were telling him; he transported 60 tons of sand from the area to Hollywood to complete filming.

At first, when the death of cancer started to count up it was claimed that other factors were contributing. Dr Robert Pendleton, professor of biology at the University of Utah, stated that with numbers like that it is almost an epidemic.

Unfortunately, the connection between cancer and the fallout could not be proven conclusively at that time. However, in a group of this size a 30-odd cancer is expected. He thought that their exposure while filming 'The Conqueror' would hold up in the court of law.

The death of Mexican actor Pedro Armendariz was especially sad. He played one of Genghis Khan's brothers. He was informed during his last film 'From Russia with Love' where he was James Bond's ally Karim Bey. A month after filming he shot himself in his hospital bed.

After 30 years the truth about the radiation threat was established. Half of the residents of St George had cancer and the livestock was contaminated. The residents were encouraged to sit outside and watch the mushroom cloud. The connection from nuclear fallout and cancer was not established. The danger of exposure to atomic dust particles was under-researched.

It is thought that Hughes knew the risks. He founded a medical and scientific research institution in 1925 and was more than concerned with his health as well as others, well above average.

There were two facts that showed he knew. He opposed every nuclear test. He also bought every existing print in 1957 for $12million and withdrew 'The Conqueror'. It remained unseen for 17 years. It confirmed that he was guilty of causing all these death by choosing the location. It is true that movie was heavily criticized by the public which caused Hughes embarrassment. However, he was deeply troubled about the many deaths.

It was said that Hughes watched the film alone every day in his Las Vegas mansion. Some people think he tried to figure out why that film was such a failure, other think he was doing penance.

Even the sons of John Wayne were effected because they visited him at the Utah location. Patrick had a benign tumour removed and Michael suffered from skin cancer but recovered. It was influential to set up the John Wayne Cancer Institute. Michael died after an operation in April 2003.

John Wayne fought the disease for 10 years and died in 1979. His last film was 'The Shootist' about an aging gunfighter dying of cancer.

GRETA GARBO

GRETA GARBO  1925

Greta Garbo (1905-1990) born in Stockholm, Sweden. Her real name was Greta Lovisa Gustafsson and she was the youngest of three. Her alluring look made her famous and she became a Hollywood legend in the 1920.

When she was 14 years of age her father died and she had to go out to work.

Garbo worked in a few low paid jobs in Stockholm. The saying is that when she was 16, Garbo had to turn down her first offer staring in a feature film. The reason, she wasn't allowed time off from the department where she was selling hats.

Her first film appearance was in 1922 in a film called Peter the Tramp and she played a bathing beauty.

Then she enrolled for two years at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. She met a director Mauritz Stiller who taught her how to act in front of the camera. In 1924 Garbo appeared in the film 'The story of Goesta Berlings'.

After that Stiller and Garbo went to Hollywood and were signed up by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925. She appeared in 27 films. The most memorable ones are 'The Torrent' in 1926, 'Love' in 1927, 'Anna Christie' in 1930 her first talkie, 'Queen Christina' in 1933, 'Anna Karenina' in 1935 and 'Camille' in 1936.

GRETA GARBO WITH HER MOTHER IN 1939

After Garbo became more and more famous, it put a strain on her and Stiller. Stiller was sacked and went back to Stockholm. He died three years later.

After very bad critics for the film in 'Two-faced Woman' in 1941 Garbo decided to retire and she was only 36 yeas old. From thereon she lived as a reclusive and refused any interviews.

Garbo tried to keep away from fame but was voted 'The Best Silent Actress of the Century' in 1950.

Greta Garbo died at the age of 84 in 15 April 1990 and she was cremated. After a long legal battle her ashes were sent to Stockholm and buried there. She was very wealthy because of wise investments along Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and left her $20 million to her nice Gray Reisfield.

GRETA GARBO'S GRAVE

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TRUE STORY -- 'THE MAN THAT NEVER WAS'

EWEN MONTAGU

The true story of 'The man that never was' is all about the intriguing world of espionage. It is a new book written by Ben Macintyre called  'Operation Mincemeat'

The story as such is about a young Major William Martin of the Royal Marines who served in the Second World War. He had great courage and taking on mission in hostile territories and dying in the attempt.

Since he was of a middle rank he could be trusted with the most sensitive information about strategies of the Allies in the war. These entailed letters of the planned invasion in Italy and written by Lieutenant-General Sir Archibald Nye, vice-chief of the Imperial General Staff to General Sir Harold Alexander, commander of the 18th Army Group in Algeria and Tunisia.

Young Bill, as Major William Martin was known, was in love and engaged to his pretty sweetheart Pam. He carried her love letters right to his end.

However, he was a young officer in London and enjoyed himself in theatres and nightclubs. In his precious days of leave and he was reckless with money and therefore overdrew his account. Lloyds' bank wrote him a letter accordingly. Another letter from his father Mr John C Morris who gave a stern advice to curb his spending. These two letters were also found on him

A story which was of a young man with a promising future and was cut short in his prime. Hollywood made a film called, 'The Man Who Never Was'.

The whole story was entirely made up by two men back at the Admiralty in London. It was a daring operation designed to deceive the enemy over the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Southern Europe.

Churchill decided to invade Europe via Italy after they defeated the Nazis in Africa. Obviously Sicily was perfect but the German were not that stupid and not realizing that was the next point of attack. Therefore they invented 'Operation Mincemeat' and William Martin to convince the enemy that the Allies would invade Sardinia and Greece.

A young flight lieutenant in the RAF Charles Cholmondely and second to MI5 and Lieutenant-Commander Ewen Montagu a brilliant barrister recruited in wartime to the head of Section 17M. This British intelligence section was so secret it was barely known within the service. However, they control the agents, double agents, espionage and counter-espionage.

Cholmondely had the idea to plant this vital information of the Allied invasion on a dead body. It would be found and handed over to the Germans. Montagu had contacts with a coroner called Bentley Purchase. He informed Montague that a 34 year old Welshman had died of rat poison and he would keep him in cold storage until Montague was ready.

Cholmondely and Montague created a life story with a fake identity which spies called it a legend. That dead man become a Marine since they were under the authority of the admiralty and be given the rank of acting major - senior enough to be trusted with such high information and junior enough to pass unnoticed among many dozens of other majors. The name Martin was chosen because it was quite common and the Germans managed to get a Navy list but only from A to L.

Martin became a Roman Catholic, born in Cardiff, a family, social habits (a smoker, theatres and dancer) and financial history. The letters from Lloyds were written by Ernest Whitley Jones, manager of Lloyds, at Montagu's request. An attractive MI5 secretary was his fiancée Pam and her boss Hester Leggett wrote Pam's passionate letters.

Cholmondely worn Major Martin's uniform for three months to make it look worn. They also got a replacement ID card to make him look reckless and an expired Combined Operations HQ pass. The sensitive documents Major Martin carried were named 'Operation Husky and the invasion of Greece from Egypt and Libya and two assault beaches. The documents were placed in a briefcase and chained to Major Martin's wrist.

They invented a further point that Major Martin died in an aircrash and they put the body with everything in a steel canister filled with dry ice. It was loaded onto a submarine at Holy Head, Scotland; HMS Seraph sailed to Spain on April 19.

The submarine arrived in Huelva, Spain and surfaced at 4.30am. They put a lifejacket on Martin and put him into the sea. Huelva was known that the Spaniards were friendly with a German intelligence officer. The body was found five hours later and the British military attaché in Spain was informed three days later.

The Germans seen the documents and believed every word of it. They reinforced Sardinia and Corsica instead Sicily.

The man behind Major Martin was Glyndwr Michael born on 4 January 1909 in Abergoed in South Wales to unmarried and illiterate Parents. His father was a miner and went mad and died when Glyndwr was 15. His mother died in 1940. He was homeless, penniless and was found in an empty warehouse in London's King's Cross on January 26, 1943. Nobody knows whether he swallowed the rat poison because he ate the food which was put down or he committed suicide.

The amazing turn of his destiny was that he was buried in Huelva on May 4, 1943 with full military honour

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