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Killed on set: Round-up of famous Hollywood tragedies over the years
The Alec Baldwin fatal prop gun shooting incident this week isn’t the first on-set deaths in Hollywood. On-set tragedies date back to the 1910s. Take a look…
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With cinematographer Halyna Hutchins killed and movie director Joel Souza wounded after actor Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun during filming, we look at other deadly movie accidents.
ALSO READ: James Gunn leads tributes to cinematographer Halyna Hutchins
‘THE CAPTIVE’
Gun-related deaths go back to the dawn of cinema with extra Charles Chandler shot in the head in 1915 while filming the Cecil B DeMille movie The Captive.
He died after a bullet was left in a rifle after soldiers shot at a door with live ammunition to give the scene more realism.
‘TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE’
Actor Vic Morrow was decapitated and two Vietnamese-born child extras killed in 1982 when a helicopter crashed on them after being hit by pyrotechnics during the shooting of a night battle scene for the sci-fi horror movie near Los Angeles.
Director John Landis was later acquitted of the manslaughter of the 53-year-old star as well as the children, aged six and seven, in the first such case in Hollywood history.
‘THE CROW’
US actor Brandon Lee, a martial arts legend and the son of Bruce Lee, was shot and killed on the set of The Crow in 1993 in a case that set off a whirl of conspiracy theories about him being murdered by Hong Kong gangsters.
But investigators found his death was caused by negligence. An actor fired at Lee with a gun which was supposed to contain blanks. However, there was a bullet in the chamber and Lee, 28, died hours later from his injuries.
‘BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT’
Rumours of a “Curse of Batman” circulated after the 2007 death of stuntman Conway Wickliffe during a car scene of The Dark Knight was followed by the drugs overdose of Heath Ledger, 28, who played The Joker.
Co-star Morgan Freeman was badly injured in a car crash and Batman himself Christian Bale faced accusations of assaulting his mother and sister the day before the film’s UK premiere.
‘THE JUMPER’
A set dresser was killed on the Samuel L. Jackson sci-fi movie in 2008 when frozen sand, earth and ice from an exterior set collapsed onto staff below during shooting in Toronto.
David Ritchie, 56, died instantly.
ALSO READ: Actor Alec Baldwin fatally shoots woman with prop gun on film set
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