Being an actor isn’t all Hollywood glitz and glam. In fact, sometimes
it can be downright dangerous. Take these 10 Hollywood stars, for
example. They all have one morbid thing in common: they died while on
the set of the show or movie they were filming. Though there are plenty
of other famous actors, like Heath Ledger, who died before finishing a
project, not all of them died while on set. Some of these deaths were
the result of natural causes, while others met a more gruesome end.
Here’s a look at 10 actors whose lives ended before they finished
filming their projects.
1. Jon-Erik Hexum
An unintentional gunshot wound to the head on the set of the CBS adventure series
Cover Up killed Hexum in 1984, writes
Access Atlanta.
He played Mac Harper, the Green Beret-turned-model in the TV show that
delved into international mystery and fashion photography. According to
Entertainment Weekly,
Hexum had been napping on October 12, 1984, during delays in filming.
When he learned there would be more delays, he jokingly picked up a .44
Magnum pistol loaded with blanks, said ”Can you believe this crap?” and
pulled the trigger. The blast’s impact fractured his skull, which drove a
bone fragment the size of a quarter into his brain causing massive
bleeding. He was rushed to the hospital where surgery was performed,
however, he remained comatose and was then pronounced brain dead on
October 18, writes
Entertainment Weekly.
, a show about a fashion photographer and veteran
special forces soldier who went on missions around the world, continued
production with a new actor, but never made it past the first season.
2. Vic Morrow
During the filming of
Twilight Zone: The Movie, Morrow was killed on set in July 1982, along with two child actors, Myca Dinh Le and Renee Chen, says
How Stuff Works. The
Twilight Zone script
called for the use of both a helicopter and pyrotechnics, a deadly
combination in this case. During a scene in which Morrow was being
attacked by American Soldiers in Vietnam, the pyrotechnics exploded,
severing the helicopter’s tail, which caused it to crash, decapitating
Morrow and killing the two child actors as well, per
Ranker.
Later, it came out that the children who died were going to be paid
illegally under the table. Allegedly, the director was trying to avoid
California’s laws against kids working at night, as well as working
around the potentially dangerous combination of a helicopter and
pyrotechnics, per
How Stuff Works.
In fact, director John Landis and four others were later charged with
two counts of involuntary manslaughter due to the illegal hiring of the
children. According to
Ranker, the jury decided Landis wasn’t expecting the scene to be dangerous and found the defendants not guilty.
Twilight Zone: The Movie continued on, and the movie was released in June 1983, performing poorly at the box office.
3. John Ritter
He collapsed while on the set of
8 Simple Rules for Dating my Teenage Daughter
on September 11, 2003. Ritter had become ill while working on the ABS
series and ended up collapsing on set. He was rushed to the hospital
where he underwent surgery for a tear in his aorta, a rare medical
condition that can hit without warning, writes
Fox News. Ritter died that evening, per
Fox News. The show was retitled
8 Simple Rules and continued for another season with David Spade and James Garner as replacements, writes
Access Atlanta. Ritter was well-known for his many works in television and on film, particularly for his role as Jack Tripper in
Three’s Company, according to
Madame Noire.
4. Tyrone Power
While filming
Solomon and Sheba, Tyrone Power suffered a
massive heart attack on set during a fencing scene. He died on the way
to the hospital on March 15, 1958, according to
Ranker. Power first rose to popularity in 1936 with
Lloyds of London, according to
About.
Solomon and Sheba was
a series about King David’s younger son, Solomon, who he names his heir
ahead of his older son, Prince Adonijah, just before his death. During
Solomon’s reign over Israel, the Queen of Sheba arrives in Jerusalem.
Solomon falls in love with her, but she is in cahoots with the Pharaoh
of Egypt; their goal is to divide the 12 tribes of Israel, according to
IMDb. Eventually, Sheba falls in love with Solomon and chooses to side with him against the Pharaoh.
5. Redd Foxx
While filming on the set of
The Royal Family (co-starring
Della Reese), Foxx died of a massive heart attack in 1991. In an ironic
twist, he had become famous for grabbing his chest and calling out to
his dead television wife, Elizabeth, while he pretended to have a heart
attack on the ‘70s show
Sanford and Son, per
Madame Noire. Foxx was 68 years old at the time of his death.
6. Brandon Lee
Lee, the son of martial arts legend Bruce Lee, was killed on March 31, 1993 in a stunt accident on the set of
The Crow. “Lee’s character was supposed to get shot in a scene, but the handgun used contained a fragment of a real bullet,” writes
Ranker.
During the filming of a scene, Lee was walking through a doorway
carrying a grocery bag as another actor fired blanks at him from 15 feet
away, per
The Los Angeles Times.
At that moment, Lee activated a toggle switch underneath the grocery
bag and set off the small charge, called a squib, which is a device
commonly used on movie sets to simulate gunfire effects. Lee was hit in
the abdomen by a projectile, and he died later that day at the age of
28.
Director Alex Proyas used a double and some special effects in order to complete the movie, according to
The Hollywood Reporter.
The Crow tells
the story of a rock musician, Eric Draven, who is granted life and
power by a mysterious crow. Draven uses his abilities to hunt and kill
the men that murdered him and his fiancée.
7. Martha Mansfield
While filming
The Warrens of Virginia, the silent film star
was sitting in a car taking a break in between takes. In what can only
be described as a freak accident, a passerby lit a cigarette,
accidentally flicking the match into the automobile. The match landed on
Martha Mansfield’s costume, which was a giant and highly flammable
Civil War-era dress that went up in flames, per
Death and Taxes. Mansfield died in the hospital the next day (November 30, 1923) from severe burns.
8. Steve Irwin
Known as an Australian adventurer and animal advocate, the “Crocodile
Hunter” was stung and killed by a stingray on September 4, 2006, while
filming
Ocean’s Deadliest, an underwater documentary. According to
The Los Angeles Times,
Irwin and his cameraman, Justin Lyons, were in chest-deep water near
Queensland, Australia. The pair came across an 8-foot-wide stingray;
after filming the stingray for a while, it ended up attacking Irwin. “It
started stabbing wildly with its tail,” Lyons told
The Los Angeles Times,
“hundreds of strikes within a few seconds.” Despite the crew’s efforts
to save him, Irwin died before they could get him help. In Lyons’
interview with
The Los Angeles Times, he said Irwin’s last words were “I’m dying.”
9. Paul Mantz
Mantz was a legendary aviator who lost his spot at the U.S. Army
Flight School after buzzing over a train filled with high ranking
officers in an effort to show off his skills. Later, he landed a role in
Air Mail, where he flew a biplane through a hangar that wasn’t
much bigger than his aircraft. Mantz then appeared in several other
films, such as
For Whom the Bell Tolls,
Twelve O’Clock High, and
The Wings of Eagles. The daredevil died on July 8, 1965 while performing a stunt for
The Flight of the Phoenix – a movie he came out of retirement to film, according to
How Stuff Works.
Mantz was flying over a desert in Arizona when his plane struck a hill
and broke into pieces, immediately killing the aviator. Most of the film
had already been shot, so filmmakers substituted another plane for some
remaining close-ups.
The Flight of the Phoenix was released later that year.
10. Roy Kinnear
While in Toldeo, Spain, filming the movie
The Return of the Musketeers,
Kinnear fell from a horse. The 54-year-old British actor sustained a
broken pelvis and was taken to a hospital in Madrid. The following day,
September 20, 1988, Kinnear died from a heart attack, writes
Oddee. Kinnear “played the role of Planchet, the servant of the Musketeer d’Artagnan, a role he created in the Richard Lester hit,
The Three Musketeers, in 1974,” according to
The New York Times. The director, Richard Lester, was deeply affected by Kinnear’s death and shortly after quit his own film career, per
Oddee.
