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Fatal Method Acting: Difference between revisions
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=== [[Live Action TV]] ===
* 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.
* John Ritter was rehearsing on the set of ''[[8 Simple Rules]]'' when he collapsed with a previously unknown heart problem. He died later that day.
* J.I. Rodale, author and publisher of ''Prevention'' magazine, died during a taping of ''The Dick Cavett Show''. Cavett's next guest, journalist Pete Hamill, heard a snore-like sound from Rodale and tipped Cavett and the staff to check on him <ref>Both Cavett and Hamill deny that Cavett ever said "Are we boring you Mr. Rodale?" when it happened, as often reported</ref>. Rodale had ''suffered a fatal heart attack''. The episode never aired.
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* 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 [[wikipedia: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.
* Pro wrestler "Iron" Mike DiBiase had a heart attack during a match in June 1969. Despite an attempt from his friend Harley Race to perform CPR, DiBiase died shortly thereafter. His death was later used to explain the gimmick of his son, "The Million Dollar Man" [[Ted
* [[The Beautiful Game]] had [[wikipedia:List of association footballers who died while playing|quite a few cases.]]
* 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.
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* Actor Kevin Smith ([[Kevin Smith|no relation]]), best known for playing Ares on ''[[Xena: Warrior Princess]]'', died just after wrapping filming on ''[[Warriors of Virtue]] 2'' when he fell from a prop tower on a nearby set.
* Conway Wickliffe, a special effects technician working on ''[[The Dark Knight]]'', crashed the Batmobile while preparing a stunt.
* During the production of ''[[
* ''[[
* During a production shoot on location in the Philippines for the [[Chuck Norris]] film ''Braddock: Missing In Action III'', a Philippine Air Force helicopter hired by the Cannon Film Group crashed into Manila Bay killing four Filipino soldiers and wounding five other people, including a member of the film crew.
** A similar incident happened on the set of ''Delta Force 2'' two years later. Five people (including a cameraman and one of the actors) were killed in a helicopter accident and two others were injured when the engine failed. Both films had the same lead, director and producers.
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*** It was also ironic in that stingrays aren't really that dangerous. They're usually quite docile unless you step on one.
* Stuntman Tip Tipping was killed when his parachute failed to open while he was filming an episode of the British series ''999'', which was - ironically enough - a show with the premise of reenacting dangerous accidents.
* Boris Sagal, director of ''[[The Omega Man]]'' and father of actress [[Futurama|Katey]] [[Married...
* Game show contestant Michael Lush fell to his death while rehearsing a bungee stunt for [[The BBC]]'s ''[[wikipedia:The Late, Late Breakfast Show|The Late Late Breakfast Show]]'' in 1986, following at least two previous non-fatal accidents involving other contestants. His death prompted changes in safety procedures and a total ban on dangerous stunts involving members of the public.
* Actor Ken Steadman died when he flipped a dune buggy on the set of ''[[Sliders]]''.
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=== [[Music]] ===
* Guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott, formerly of [[
** Worse than that, he was killed right in front of his brother, Vinnie Paul, the band's drummer.
* Trumpeter Lee Morgan was shot on stage by his common-law wife.
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=== [[Film]] ===
* ''Barely'' averted by, of all people, [[
* 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.
* Barely averted by [[Malcolm McDowell]] during filming of ''[[A Clockwork Orange (
* In ''[[
** On the set of another ''[[James Bond (
** Also, considering the barrier to separate Connery from a shark in ''[[
** According to urban legend, Tom Jones passed out while holding the extremely long final note to the theme song in ''Thunderball''.
** On ''[[
** Another near miss in a James Bond film occurred during the filming of ''[[
* Pierce Brosnan was clearly also a great choice for Bond, though this time, the heroic life-saving happened after he left the role. In 2009, while filming the ''[[Percy Jackson]]'' movie, he noticed an empty van starting to roll down a hill toward Uma Thurman and another person. They couldn't hear him when he yelled to warn them of the impending danger, so he ran to catch up with the van, got in and stopped it himself. [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Epic.]]
** Also not the first time he saved a co-star from danger; Halle Berry choked on one of the grapes while filming the final scenes of ''[[
* While filming the river scene in ''The Two Towers'' of ''[[The Lord of the Rings (
** A related incident occured while filming ''The Fellowship Of The Ring'', again involving Viggo. During the climatic battle scene at the end of the film, one of the Uruk-Hai, originally meant to throw his knife at Aragorn and ''miss'', instead threw it ''right at him'' by mistake. Luckily, Viggo managed to ''deflect the knife with his sword'', turning it into a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] instead.
* [[Eli Roth]] and Omar Doom were almost incinerated during the filming of ''[[Inglourious Basterds]]''. [[Quentin Tarantino]] is not one for special effects, so the fire you see in the theater sequence burned far hotter than anyone had anticipated- nearly 2000 degrees Fahrenheit- and Roth collapsed from the sheer pain of being on the burning set. The fire marshals said that if filming had continued for 15-20 seconds more, the whole structure would have collapsed. The giant swastika was not originally supposed to fall, but the steel fastening was liquefied. In Roth's words: "We were almost that swastika."
* Racing driver David Piper lost part of one of his legs in a severe crash during the making Steve McQueen's 1970 racing epic ''Le Mans''.
* While shooting the underwater scenes in ''[[Alien (
** [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]] almost suffered the same fate filming ''[[The
* Ed Harris almost drowned while making ''[[The Abyss]]''. The kicker was that [[James Cameron]] ''knew'' he'd run out of air and kept rolling anyway, a case of [[Enforced Method Acting]] that [[Gone Horribly Wrong|backfired on him]]--as soon as Harris got out of the tank, he was understandably pissed and went and decked the director. Both Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, his co-star, have gone on record saying they'll never work with Cameron again.
** Weirdly enough Cameron himself nearly drowned early on in the shoot, when his diving suit malfunctioned while he was still weighed down at the bottom of the tank during filming. Seemed to happen a lot on that shoot.
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* John Simm did one of his own stunts in the 2002 version of ''[[Crime and Punishment]]'' and got thrown down a flight of stairs, breaking several ribs and suffering internal bleeding. Initially, he ''refused to go to the hospital'' even after he'd developed a high fever, because the fever and the pain "helped him with the performance" and he didn't want to halt the production. Eventually, they managed to drag him to a hospital.
** [[Doctor Who|Maybe he knew that he'd regenerate?]]
* Brendan Fraser has a hanging scene in ''[[The Mummy
* During her intense boxing training for ''[[Million Dollar Baby]]'', Hilary Swank developed a serious staph infection at the bottom of her foot. She continued on with her training despite this, not telling anyone, until it ruptured and the pain became so severe she checked herself in. It turns out that the infection was that close to reaching her heart, meaning that had she not gotten help when she had, Swank might have been in the hospital for weeks. Director [[Clint Eastwood]] had no idea until much later.
* Robert Helpmann, who played the terrifying [[Nightmare Fuel|Child Catcher]] in ''[[Chitty Chitty Bang Bang]]'', was driving the character's carriage when it turned onto its side too quickly. As it was happening, Helpmann leaped onto the side of the carriage and jumped off, amazingly unharmed.
** According to Dick Van Dyke, who witnessed the incident, it was Helpmann's dancer's reflexes that saved him.
* Almost happened a few times during the production of ''[[The Good, the Bad
* [[Jackie Chan]] has broken every bone in his body at least once while doing his own stunts and fight scenes in a thirty-year action movie career filled with some of the most over-the-top action you'll ever see a live actor perform. He came closest to death while filming a stunt for ''Armour of God''. The tree branch he jumped to snapped and he fell fifteen feet. It took eight hours of surgery and a plastic plug to replace the lost skull fragments. Filming stopped for a month to let Jackie recover.
** A stunt for ''[[Rush Hour]]'' nearly crushed Jackie's skull between a pair of metal boxes. They slammed together about a quarter of a second after Jackie's head was clear. If he were any slower, he'd have been dead.
** Sadly, all those botched stunts have taken their toll on him. Accumulating so many injuries on the set has made it so [[Jackie Chan]] can no longer claim to do all his own stunt work. He now has to rely on stunt doubles for especially dangerous stunts and the number of stunts in his movies have been steadily decreasing over the years. His various accidents also mean that it's hard for him to get insured, so instead he's taken to training his stunt doubles on how to do them for him.
* During the climactic chase scene of ''[[
** Another incident occurred when his mask slipped during the nighttime chase scene and because he was blinded he almost sawed Marilyn Burns in half.
* Former astronaut Fred Haise was a stunt pilot in the movie ''[[Tora! Tora! Tora!]]'' During filming, he was involved in the crash of a BT 13. He suffered severe burns to 65 percent of his body and spent three months in the hospital.
* Shortly after filming the bacta tank scene in ''[[The Empire Strikes Back]]'', an electrical light fell into the tank of water. If [[Mark Hamill]] had been in the tank at the time, he would have been electrocuted.
* Barely avoided by John Hurt in ''[[The Elephant Man]]''. The prosthetics he was wearing on his head were very heavy, weighing in at about twenty pounds. When he tried to lie down for a nap for a few hours before going on-set, he practically strangled himself due to the weight of his head on his neck. {{spoiler|Of course, if he'd paid enough attention to the script, he should have known this would happen...}}
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=== [[Live Action TV]] ===
* Barely averted in the [[
** Possibly referenced in ''Last Human'', in which we learn that Lister has a lifelong fear of drowning.
** Also a runner was struggling for breath while doubling for Caroline Carmen inside a block of ice.
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** In another ''Doctor Who'' example, the story "Revenge of the Cybermen" was being filmed in a cavern. Elisabeth Sladen (Sarah Jane Smith) was to drive a boat in a whirlpool. The boat wouldn't run, and the stuntman jumped in and saved her from drowning.
* ''[[The Brady Bunch]]'' episode where they visit Kings Island Amusement Park includes a scene of them on the roller coaster The Racer, which was filmed with a camera mounted onto the ride car. Robert Reed thought that the camera looked unsafe and made them do a test run first. When they did, the camera flew off and would have killed the actors if they had been on the ride.
* Bob Denver was nearly killed by a live lion used in one episode of ''[[
* An infamous 2006 Vampire Dragster crash very nearly killed ''[[Top Gear]]'' presenter Richard Hammond. In a slight subversion however, he had already done the required take successfully. It was revealed when they were watching the footage when he returned to the show that he was trying to set an official speed record (which requires running the vehicle in two opposing directions to get the average speed of each run), during which he crashed at 300mph. ''Had he been taller'' (something which he gets mocked for frequently on the show), ''he would have been decapitated''.
* In one of the closest calls of this trope ever, In 1995, Tracey Conway, one of the stars of the Seattle sketch comedy show ''[[Almost Live]]!'', had a heart attack just after an ''ER'' spoof, of all things. A fireman in the audience gave her CPR until an ambulance could arrive. Fortunately, she recovered.
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=== [[Music]] ===
* During a concert stunt [[
** Dannii Minogue also had a similar snake related incident.
* Barely averted by James Hetfield of [[
* The infamous [[Michael Jackson]] incident where his hair caught fire shooting a Pepsi commercial (leading to serious burns on his scalp).
* A near-fatal incident happend to [[Hideto Matsumoto|hide]] during a solo performance when he had a pyrotechnics accident onstage due to being drunk. Since being drunk later contributed to his far more private death, this is [[Harsher in Hindsight]]....
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* 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 ''[[
=== [[Music]] ===
* 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 [[
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** Another episode had a comedian who died just after a performance in a nightclub.
* Not ''quite'' sure where this belongs, but on one episode of ''[[The Tonight Show]]'' Johnny Carson had an effects technician as a guest. The tech had built a guillotine that supposedly looked more realistic than former effects, and Carson demonstrated it. After the gag, Carson remained unresponsive for some time; the other people on set appeared visibly worried that something had gone wrong until they got the hood off and Carson grinned at them.
* Similar to the above Carson example is illusionist David Copperfield's [[Department of Redundancy Department|illusion]] "[[Exactly What It Says
** Note that this illusion is extremely convincing when performed live, especially since [[Didn't See That Coming|the audience doesn't know what's going to happen]] and it's very easy to get caught up in the moment; the bit of cloth flying off the saw is a nice detail. It's [[Fridge Logic|only later]] that one realizes that had Copperfield [[Killed Off for Real|actually been sawed in half]], it wouldn't have been [[Bloodless Carnage|quite so bloodless]].
** Paul Daniels did a hoax of this type on a BBC Halloween special. The big finish was an escape from an iron maiden - except that the maiden appeared to spring closed on him. Awkward silence, the studio audience being asked to leave, roll credits... and no "reveal" that he was alright until ''after the following programme''.
* In the last episode of ''[[Oz]]'', Chris Keller exchanged Tobias Beecher's stage knife with a real one for a performance of ''[[Macbeth]]'', resulting in Beecher accidentally killing Verne Shillinger.
** Which sounds similar to the [[
* In the ''[[Midsomer Murders]]'' episode ''The Axeman Cometh'', a singer is killed by an electrified mic stand while on stage. The crowd initially think it's part of the act.
* Played with in an episode of ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]''. A magician survives incredibly dangerous, impossible stunts, but other people have a tendency of dropping dead of the same things that should have killed him.
* An episode of ''[[Dollhouse]]'' features attempts on the life of a pop singer, some of which occur onstage. In one case a stunt double is killed in her place.
* In ''[[The Mary Tyler Moore Show]]'', Chuckles the Clown was killed at a parade while dressed as a peanut, when an elephant tried to peel him.
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* Used in one of the stories told on ''Beyond Belief: Fact Or Fiction'', where during a pro wrestling match, the guy who was booked to lose died during the match. Of course, the history between the two meant that the dead guy, who was always showing up his current opponent looked like he was just deciding to sell like a ragdoll, and since the guy who won thought he was legitimately winning that way, nobody knew he was dead until after the match. Upon finding out that he was only winning because he was fighting a corpse, the narrator then says "even in victory, he was a loser."
* ''[[Mad About You]]'''s "[[Citizen Kane|Citizen]] [[Whole-Plot Reference|Buchman]]" has Paul's uncle dying while being interviewed for Paul's movie. The rest of the episode tries to find out the meaning of his [[Last Words]].
* ''[[Whose Line Is It Anyway?]]'' has a game of this. The players play actors in a live stage play that all die as soon as they get on stage leading one player (usually Colin Mocherie) who is still alive to heft the "corpses" around and supply the dialog himself.
* 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.}}
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{{quote| "Good luck!"<br />
"It's bad luck to say ''that'' too!" *A chunk of the theater sign falls on him* }}
* Not actually acting, but the example from ''The Spy Who Loved Me'' was parodied in the [[Cold Open]] of ''[[
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