Fatal Method Acting: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

A performer dies suddenly while on the job.

 

See also [[Snuff Film]] for the mostly fictional cases where this is done ''deliberately''. Compare [[Not-So-Fake Prop Weapon]], which involves (so-far) entirely fictional examples of actors being murdered through the replacement of a harmless prop with a real deadly weapon.

 

==Medical==

* Happened when British comedian [[Tommy Cooper]] had a heart attack on live TV in 1984. He was declared dead on arrival at hospital shortly afterward, although going by the video recording on Youtube it (thankfully) seems like he died pretty much within seconds. Since part of Cooper's stage routine involved frequent minor technical mishaps, the audience continued to laugh even as Cooper collapsed, assuming it was just another gag.

* Yet another heart attack victim: Redd Foxx on the set of ''The Royle Family''. His best known role was on ''Sanford and Son'', which had a [[Running Gag]] about his character faking heart attacks; ''and'' the working title for the show he was filming had been "Chest Pains". Holy [[Funny Aneurysm Moment]], [[Batman (TV series)|Batman]]! Due to his role as Fred Sanford, the rest of the cast [[All Part of the Show|thought he was just faking it]] until it was too late.

* Angela Basset's stunt double fell to her death on the set of the 1995 film ''Vampire in Brooklyn''.

* H.B. Halicki was crushed by a telephone pole felled by a broken cable during the filming of the unfinished ''[[Gone in Sixty Seconds]] 2''.

 

 

* [[Crocodile Hunter|Steve Irwin]] was filming his own documentary, ''Ocean's Deadliest,'' when he was fatally stabbed in the chest by a stingray spine while snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef. Kids, take animals seriously.

** Even worse is that it was a freak accident. If the stingray hadn't gotten him in the chest, he could have ridden it out after a few days of excruciating but non-lethal pain.

* Les Harvey, guitarist for Scottish rock band Stone the Crows, was electrocuted live on stage in 1972.

** An accident very like this one -possibly based on it, possibly a coincidence- featured in an educational film for young children about the dangers of electricity in the mid-90s.

* Bill Duffield, the lighting director for [[Kate Bush]]'s 1979 Tour of Life, died when he fell through the rigging and onto the stage shortly before the tour's first performance in Poole, England. His death deeply affected Bush and is often rumored to be one of the reasons she [[Reclusive Artist|never toured again]] after the Tour of Life finished.

* Ty Longley, guitarist for the band Great White was on stage in West Warwick, Rhode Island when pyrotechnics used by the band's crew created a spray of sparks that ignited the foam soundproofing material in the ceiling around the stage. 100 people died in [[wikipedia:The Station nightclub fire|the resulting fire]], including Longley.

== Suicide ==

 

* A number of suicides have been recorded on TV, either set up deliberately or because a news crew happened to be passing at the time. However the only case of a professional performer doing so seems to have been Christine "Chris" Chubbuck, a talk show host for the Sarasota channel WXLT-TV, who shot herself dead during a live show, ''Suncoast Digest'', on July 15, 1974.

 

 

 

* Barely averted in the [[Red Dwarf]] episode ''Backwards'', where Craig Charles nearly drowned during a stunt where he had to walk backwards into a lake.

** Possibly referenced in ''Last Human'', in which we learn that Lister has a lifelong fear of drowning.

 

=== [[Sports]] ===

* on July 25, 2009, [[Formula One]] driver Felipe Massa was hit in the face with a 40 kilogram spring while traveling at high speed. His injuries were life threatening, but he made a full recovery and returned to racing the next season.

 

 

== Fictional Cases ==

* In Masakazu Katsura's early manga ''Present from Lemon'', male lead Lemon's father (''enka'' singer Momojirou Sakaguchi) died of a heart attack on stage when Lemon was a child.

* In an episode of ''[[Slayers]]'', Lina and Co are performing a play when they are attacked by Zangulus and Vrumugun, who adlib lines to make it seem like their attack is part of the play. Lina adlibs some lines that justify them fighting back, starting a battle that blows up the stage, kills Vrumugun (again) and several mooks, and gets them presented an award for best original production (Since nobody had seen the play before, the only people to realize that they had deviated from the script were people working for the theater troupe).

 

=== [[Literature]] ===

* In the Naoya Shiga short story ''Han's Crime'', the judge is tasked with determining whether or not circus knife thrower Han intentionally murdered his wife during a performance.

* In ''[[Remote Man]]'', Jay Laana was killed in a botched stunt on an action movie. The shot of his body falling out of the car made it into the movie.

 

 

* In ''[[Touched By an Angel]]'' episode "Restoration", a silent movie director’s pregnant wife (and the lead actress) dies in a stunt while the camera is rolling. The way the shot took, the wonders of [[Manipulative Editing]] allow him to turn the film’s happy ending into a [[Downer Ending]].

* On the ''[[CSI: Miami]]'' episode "Show Stopper", an [[Expy]] of [[Lady Gaga]] and [[Hannah Montana]] is incinerated onstage during a concert, and later dies from her injuries.<ref>It later turns out that the performer onstage was merely a doppelganger; the real singer had been confined to a bedroom in a Miami flat.</ref>

 

=== [[Theater]] ===

 

 

=== [[Western Animation]] ===

* In ''[[The Boondocks]]'', rapper Gangstalicious is shot on stage. Unfortunately, he was performing his hit single "I Got Shot" at the time, and it was [[All Part of the Show|forty-five minutes before anyone realized something was wrong]].

{{quote|"Good luck!"

"It's bad luck to say ''that'' too!" *A chunk of the theater sign falls on him* }}

 

{{reflist}}