Fatal Method Acting: Difference between revisions

{{examples|Examples:}}

 

* 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)|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.

* Frazier Thomas, well known for kids' show ''Garfield Goose'', and for the weekly film series ''Family Classics'', had a heart attack at the WGN studio in Chicago in 1985 and died a few days after.

 

* Mark Sandman, the lead singer and bassist of the cult alternative rock band Morphine died in 1999 of a heart attack in the middle of a sold out show in Rome, Italy.

* Folk singer [[Tiny Tim]] collapsed during a live performance of "Tip Toe Through The Tulips" in 1996. He lost consciousness and died shortly afterward.

* Not actually performing, but still technically on the job: pianist Vince Guaraldi (creator of the legendary jazz scores in the early ''[[Peanuts]]'' animated specials) suffered a fatal heart attack in 1976 while resting in-between concert sets.

 

* Theater critic and writer Alexander Woollcott died in 1943 of a heart attack while participating in a live radio current events talk show.

* Veteran New York DJ Jack Spector had a fatal heart attack during a live show in 1994 (the station staff noticed a long stretch of dead air after a song and found him unconscious on the floor).

 

* John McSherry, a veteran umpire for Major League Baseball, had a fatal heart attack only a few pitches into the opening game of the 1996 baseball season. He collapsed shortly after signaling for the second base umpire to cover him at home base. Despite his long career as a Major League umpire, his death is perhaps best known for it resulting in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McSherry#Death one of many] of then-Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott's series of insensitive comments.

* British [[Professional Wrestling]] disappeared from television networks and nearly vanished altogether after a wrestler named King Kong Kirk suffered a fatal heart attack in the ring.

* Loyola Marymount University basketball star Hank Gathers collapsed and died of heart failure during a West Coast Conference tournament game in 1990. Gathers had collapsed during a game earlier in the season and was diagnosed with an abnormal heartbeat. He didn't respond well to medication and LMU's notorious fast-paced offense (which averaged 122 points a game) probably didn't help matters. In a [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming]], the 11th-seeded Lions went on to the NCAA Tournament where they advanced to the Elite 8 before losing to eventual champs UNLV.

 

* Actor/comedian Dick Shawn died of a heart attack onstage. It took time for anyone to realize he was dead, as the audience thought it was part of his act,<ref> One of the routines of the show in question featured Shawn as a politician spouting such cliches as "If elected, I will not lay down on the job"; the audience assumed that his collapse (which did not, as is sometimes claimed, happen immediately after this line) was a callback to this routine.</ref> and Shawn told the stage crews at his shows that he was liable to do anything, including falling flat on his face, and they were not to react under any circumstances.

* Beloved British comedian [[Morecambe and Wise|Eric Morecambe]] also had a heart attack during a stage performance in 1984, and died the following day. In that stage show, ironically enough, he joked about the death of Tommy Cooper (whose death recounted above happened a month prior) and how he'd "hate to die like that".

== Accidental ==

 

* Long running television actor [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vic_Morrow Vic Morrow] and two child actors named My-Ca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen (both working illegally, without proper work permits and at 2AM, far later than the times allowed for child actors), were killed when a stunt helicopter crashed near them during the filming of the ''[[Twilight Zone]]'' movie. This led to nearly a decade's worth of lawsuits, changes in the law about child actors doing stunts, and fewer helicopter scenes in movies thereafter until CGI made it possible to put them in digitally.

* Brandon Lee was fatally injured on the set of ''[[The Crow]]'' in an accident involving dummy bullets. Unlike the Vic Morrow example, director Alex Proyas destroyed the footage immediately.

* 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.

* TV actor Jon-Erik Hexum accidentally killed himself with a [[Not So Fake Prop Weapon|blank cartridge]] on the set of the CBS series ''Cover-Up'' by firing it into the side of his head. The muzzle pressure generated by the blank proved sufficient to blow a plug of his own skull completely through his brain in much the the same way some nail guns use blank cartridges to drive nails into concrete and steel.

 

* Radio traffic reporter Jane Dornacker of WNBC in [[New York City]] died on October 22, 1986, when [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e6sfiylUGY her helicopter crashed] right in the middle of her traffic report.

** It's likely that she yelled for her pilot to hit the water because six months earlier she had been in a similar helicopter crash while doing a traffic report. That helicopter crashed into the Hackensack River in New Jersey. Both she and her pilot survived and were able to swim to shore. However, in the second crash the helicopter clipped a chain-link fence and flipped over, trapping Dornacker and her pilot underwater in the Hudson River. (Her pilot was seriously injured, but survived.)

* Radio traffic reporter Bruce Wayne (Bruce F. Talford) of KFI in [[Los Angeles]] died on June 4, 1986, shortly after the KFI traffic plane took off from the Fullerton Airport.

 

* During the Metropolitan Opera's premiere of Leo Janacek's ''The Makropulos Affair'', tenor Richard Versalle suffered a heart attack and fell from a fifteen-foot ladder on-stage, moments after singing the line, "Too bad you can only live so long."

* [[Harry Houdini]] allowed a visitor to punch him in the stomach to demonstrate the strength of his abs; he was exceptionally strong and flexible, part of what made him so successful as a stage magician. He had been suffering from appendicitis already and the blows to his stomach likely ruptured his inflamed appendix. He collapsed on stage several days later from the peritonitis that led to his death shortly after.

** Several other Wallendas had died during a performance before Karl's accident. In 1962, a performance of their famed pyramid stunt resulted in an accident which killed three family members and caused life-long injuries to two more. Karl's sister-in-law died from an in-performance fall in Nebraska the next year. Karl's son-in-law died in a rigging-related accident in 1972.

* There is a (possibly apocryphal) story of a production of ''[[Macbeth]]'' in which Duncan's murder was shown onstage. The prop daggers the title character used to stab him were somehow replaced with real daggers and the actor playing Duncan was stabbed to death. Whether this is a true story or just used to remind the cast and crew to be careful with stage weapons is difficult to say, but it certainly fits the particular [[The Scottish Trope|superstitions]] about the play.

 

* Another delayed example [[Older Than Steam|centuries earlier]]: French composer [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Lully Jean-Baptiste Lully] wounded himself in the foot with the metal-tipped staff he was using to conduct a performance, and died of infection months later, after [[Too Dumb to Live|refusing to have the gangrenous toe amputated]].

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

* 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Station_nightclub_fire the resulting fire], including Longley.

 

* There are many incidents of athletes dying during competition from either accidents or medical reasons. [[The Other Wiki]] lists these [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Deaths_in_sport here] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sportspeople_who_have_died_during_their_playing_career here] (although the latter list also includes athletes who died during their career, but not during competition). Among the more notable accidental deaths:

* Legendary [[NASCAR|stock car racer]] Dale Earnhardt died on February 18, 2001 on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500, one of the most televised races in NASCAR history.

== Murder ==

 

* Guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott, formerly of [[Pantera (Music)|Pantera]], and three others were shot onstage by a mentally unstable fan while Abbott was performing with his new band Damageplan. The shooter was shot and killed, also onstage, by an off-duty police officer who was only there to enjoy a concert.

** Worse than that, he was killed right in front of his brother, Vinnie Paul, the band's drummer.

== 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 15th 1974.

 

* Charles Haddon, singer for the British band Ou Est Le Swimming Pool killed himself by jumping off of a television mast immediately after the band's performance at the 2010 Pukkelpop Festival, apparently of guilt after he injured a spectator stagediving.

** Another musician died onstage the day before ''at the same festival''. Michael Been - the singer for the American alternative band The Call - died of a heart attack while working as sound technician for his son's band, indie rock group Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

== Near Misses ==

 

* ''Barely'' averted by, of all people, [[Michael J Fox|Michael J. Fox]] in ''[[Back to The Future]] III''. The safety line keeping the pressure off his neck during the "hanging scene" failed. He was actually strangling until the crew figured it out and saved his life.

* In the film ''Brainstorm'', Natalie Wood's character was supposed to have a heart attack in one scene. Ms. Wood had a real heart attack, and the crew didn't immediately realize it. She survived, but persistent rumor claims that the heart attack scene in the film used the real one simply because it was the best take... unlikely since real heart attacks are less dramatic than faked ones.

* Supposedly in the film adaptation of ''[[The Neverending Story]]'', during the Swamp of Sadness scene, Artax apparently actually got caught in the elevator and died, or the actor playing Atreyu had his leg caught in the elevator and he got sucked under. Thankfully he survived, but depending on what happened (hard to say), the actor who played Atreyu was apparently scarred for life.

 

* Barely averted in the [[Red Dwarf (TV)|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.

* Diminutive British comic performer Charlie Drake ended one live half-hour show by being thrown through a balsa wood door. The panels were held together with light glue so that they would give way on impact. Unfortunately a stagehand, not realising that the door was meant for a stunt, thought the panels looked too flimsy and nailed them in place. As a result, instead of springing to his feet offstage and returning to deliver his [[Catch Phrase]], Drake was knocked unconscious, and his fellow performers could be seen looking worried as the credits rolled.

 

* During a concert stunt [[Alice Cooper (Music)|Alice Cooper]] almost hanged himself while dangling by an onstage noose. He survived when a roadie cut him down. He also was nearly strangled by his pet snake which he wore around his neck, but that was during a practice (the snake's head had to be cut off to save him).

** Dannii Minogue also had a similar snake related incident.

* In 2008, at the first reunion concert for [[X Japan]], [[Yoshiki Hayashi]] collapsed on the drums during ''Art Of Life'' due to overwhelming pain from a neck condition (for which he would later obtain emergency surgery in 2009).

** During a 2010 [[X Japan]] performance, a pyro went off too close to Yoshiki and bassist [[Hiroshi Morie|Heath.]] Both were coated in smoke and soot, but were otherwise all right.

* At the [[WWE]] ''Elimination Chamber'' pay-per-view in 2010, [[The Undertaker]] was accidentally lit on fire during his entrance. [[The Determinator|He wrestled the match anyway,]] despite the skin on his exposed upper body peeling from the burns. Several stage hands gave him water bottles to douse himself with while he waited in the chamber pods for his turn in the match, and Michael Cole covered for Taker's post-fire sprint to the ring as a rage in the Deadman no one had seen before.

* 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).

** In another, a [[Tokusatsu]] rabid fan is tricked into commiting suicide in front of the [[Kamen Rider|Kamen]] [[Captain Ersatz|Yaiba]] club he belonged to, and in the middle of a cosplay party they had organized for fun. He was already not well in the head, and then he took a pistol and shot himself in the head thinking it was just a prop. {{spoiler|One of the leaders of the club was the culprit, since said rabid fan stole his younger brother's prized memorabilia... and caused the poor little boy to get hit by a truck while pursuing the thief.}}

 

* A comedienne in ''[[The Sandman]]'' dies onstage, via electrocution by mike.

 

* One gag in ''[[This Is Spinal Tap]]'' is that ''all'' of the band's drummers have died violently. Two of these deaths involved dying on-stage during a live show. Via [[Made of Explodium|spontaneous combustion]].

** In a [[Shout Out]] to this, ''[[Guitar Hero]] II'' features "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight" as an encore song - at the conclusion ''the drummer explodes''.

* In the sequel to ''[[Pet Sematary]]'', the boy's actress mother is accidentally killed on the set of a movie when she's electrocuted by live wires.

 

* Sort of, in [[Young Wizards|Deep Wizardry]]: the part of the Silent One in the ritual involves actually letting the giant shark eat you, and Nita did not know this until she had already taken the oath to participate. {{spoiler|Eventually averted, when the ritual goes waaayyy far south and the aforementioned shark throws away his own life in battle, satisfying the death requirement.}}

* 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 (Literature)|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.

 

* The song The Untimely Death of Brad by [[Five Iron Frenzy]] about the death of their trumpet player - this being a fictional example as it was inspired by a rumor.

* Fictional near-example in the [[Gorillaz (Music)|Gorillaz]] music video "El Manana": {{spoiler|everyone thought the helicopters attacking Noodle's flying island were [[All Part of the Show]] until the real stunt helicopters showed up, by which time Noodle had vanished. Turns out recently that she's [[Not Quite Dead]], but everyone thought she was.}}

 

* 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>

* In the ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'' episode "Oh Oh Oh . . . It's Magic", a stage magician's act [[Gone Horribly Wrong|Goes Horribly Wrong]] and he ends up suffocated inside a block of cement. {{spoiler|Subverted when they crack open the block at the morgue and find no body inside . . . then [[Double Subverted]] when it turns out the wrong block was sent to the morgue.}}

 

* In ''Pippin'', the Players explain how in the finale Pippin is supposed to [[Self Immolation|set himself on fire]] "for real" so he can have the perfect experience he's been looking for all the show. Pippin understandably objects: "Look, if it's just that if this ''isn't'' it... I'm going to have a tough time trying something else."

 

* Done as a plot point in the ''[[Ace Attorney]]'' series. In the third case of the first game, one actor, Manuel, was accidentally impaled on a fence. This leads into {{spoiler|Dee Vasquez's blackmail of Jack Hammer, the person who accidentally pushed Manuel during a fight scene onto the fence. Jack Hammer would then attempt to murder Dee Vasquez, who pushed Jack Hammer off onto the exact same fence five years later.}}

* You can set several up in the [[Hitman]] games, including replacing a prop gun with a real gun in a play.

 

* 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]].

* ''[[The Simpsons]]'' pokes fun at this trope and [[The Scottish Trope]] in one fell swoop, when the family meets Sir [[Ian McKellen]] and Homer doesn't catch on to the matter at all.