The Duke was plagued by health problems which came to a head in 1964. He lost his left lung and two ribs to cancer in September of that year. Although rumors spread that he had developed the disease while filming in Utah, where the U.S. government had been testing nuclear bombs, he denied that this was true. Admittedly, he smoked from three to five packs of cigarettes a day from the early 1930s until the operation in 1964.

His agent and advisors wanted to cover up the hospitalization and illness, due to the fact that the backers and insurers of the motion picture industry were hesitant to have ailing actors performing. It was “bad business” to back someone with a potentially fatal disease. But about 3

This entry was posted on Friday, October 17th, 2008 at 5:39 pm and is filed under entertainment2. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.