Back in 1963, John Wayne was capturing Circus World (often called The Magnificent Showman in UK) with Claudia Cardinale and Rita Hayworth.

Duke starred as Wild West circus star Matt Masters within the film that acquired combined opinions and would finally be a monetary disappointment.

Fans will bear in mind there’s a climatic circus fireplace scene within the film, but it surely ended up being a real-life flaming catastrophe that burned by way of 40 sequel ft of the Aranjuez set.

In reality, it was such an in depth name that Wayne was virtually killed in the course of the accident.

John Wayne’s property shared on Instagram this week: “Today marks the 59th Anniversary of the release of Circus World (1964). When circus proprietor Matt Masters, played by John Wayne, decides to take his show on a European tour, it is beset by problems, while he searches for Lili, the mother of his adopted daughter, who disappeared years before. Did you know? John Wayne sailed his yacht the Wild Goose to Europe in order to make this film.

“Whilst filming a scene where the main tent catches fire, John Wayne was almost killed when the set collapsed. As he was ‘fighting’ the fire, Duke was to be cued by the assistant director when to leave before the set was to collapse in flames.

“Either Duke didn’t hear the cue, or the a.d. mistimed it (it was never determined which), but the flaming set began to collapse before Duke got out. He escaped with just a few seconds to spare before the entire set would have fallen down on top of him.”

Wayne was affected by lung most cancers throughout filming, which he didn’t know on the time.

Duke already had a persistent cough and after the near-fatal fireplace, he started spitting up blood however continued to chain smoke cigarettes, unaware of the true trigger.

Then in 1964 he was identified and had his whole left lung and two ribs eliminated, that means he secretly needed to depend on an oxygen masks on future movie units that have been at a excessive altitude.