The danger zone

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This article was published 28/01/2017 (3495 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In trying to bring spine-tingling thrills and chills to the screen, filmmakers strive for reality.

Sometimes it gets too real, as we can see from the tragic death last week of actor and stuntman Johann Ofner, who was shot and killed while filming a gunfight scene for a music video in Brisbane, Australia.

According to news reports, a criminal investigation is underway into the tragedy, which occurred at a bar called Brooklyn Standard, where the Sydney hip-hop group Bliss n Eso was filming its latest music video.

“During the filming of that scene, several firearms were used,” Det. Insp. Tom Armitt said. “As a result of the use of those firearms, one of the actors has received wounds to the chest and has subsequently died from his injuries.”

The band’s representatives told CNN the 28-year-old stuntman was “fatally injured when a prop gun discharged… The exact cause of Johann’s fatal injury is still to be confirmed, but as the gun was loaded with blanks, not live ammunition, the cause was not a bullet or live round.”

While tragic, Ofner’s on-set death doesn’t seem to be all that unusual, as we can see from today’s heartbreaking list of the Top Five Film-Set Fatalities:

5) The film: The Warrens of Virginia (1924)

The fatality: Actress Martha Mansfield

The facts: Back in the Roaring Twenties, silent-film actress Martha Mansfield was a rising star. She had performed in the famed Ziegfield Follies and was cast opposite the legendary John Barrymore in 1920’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Things were definitely looking up for the 24-year-old actress on Thanksgiving Day in 1923 as she sat in a car with fellow actors on location in San Antonio, Tex. They had just finished the day’s shooting for her latest film, a Civil War love story involving a Union soldier and a girl loyal to the South, portrayed by Mansfield.

The young actress was still in costume, the ruffled finery of a Southern belle, when someone in the vehicle struck a match. Here’s what the San Antonio Evening News said at the time: “One of the men in the party lighted a match, which ignited the filmy war-time Southern costume which Miss Mansfield was wearing. (Leading man) Wilfred Lytell, with quick thought, threw his overcoat over Miss Mansfield. The big topcoat settled over her face and shoulders and as a result, it was stated, her face and neck were saved from burns… Her chauffeur quickly grabbed the burning clothing and tore it from her body as she jumped out of the car in terror and started to run. He was painfully burned about the hands.”

The badly burned actress was rushed to hospital, where, less than 24 hours later, she succumbed to her injuries. It was never determined who tossed the match that ignited Mansfield’s clothing. One theory stated she had lit a cigarette herself, though her mother dismissed the notion, saying smoking made her daughter “uncomfortable.” Dry-eyed studio executives later noted Mansfield had finished her work on the film, saving them the trouble of recasting her role. No prints of the movie survive.

 

4) The film: XXX (2002)

The fatality: Stunt double Harry O’Connor

The facts: Actor Vin Diesel famously defies death in the first installment of the Triple X film franchise, wherein he portrays Xander Cage, a (hold your breath for this next bit) thrill-seeking extreme sports enthusiast, stuntman and rebellious athlete-turned-reluctant spy for the National Security Agency who is sent on a dangerous mission to infiltrate a group of potential Russian terrorists in Central Europe. While Diesel gave the impression his life was on the line during the roller-coaster action, his stunt double, Harry O’Connor, 45, lost his life on April 4, 2002, filming a hair-raising action sequence in Prague, Czech Republic.

A skydiving expert and retired Navy SEAL, O’Connor turned his passion for parachutes into a professional career as a stuntman and aerial co-ordinator for films like Charlie’s Angels and Tomorrow Never Dies. The scene in XXX called for O’Connor to parasail along the Vltava River, pulled by a speedboat toward the Palacky Bridge, which he would pass under with inches to spare before rappelling down onto a submarine, while his parachute, for dramatic effect, crashed against the bridge railing. According to several reports, O’Connor performed the stunt perfectly, but the noted perfectionist felt one more attempt would make the scene even better.

Sadly, he could not have been more wrong. According to Prague police: “He was being pulled at high speed on a paraglider and hit a pillar of the Palacky Bridge. He died on the spot due to heavy injuries.” His death was caught on camera and film director Rob Cohen decided to include the scene, with the final moments edited out, as a show of respect for the stuntman’s final act. He was survived by his wife and two children.’

 

3) The film: Top Gun (1986)

The fatality: Renowned aviator Art Scholl

The facts: If you are like most movie fans, you have probably seen Top Gun several hundred times, seeing as how it is broadcast on some station almost every day. Which means you are more than familiar with the heroics of devil-may-care navy pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, as portrayed by Tom Cruise, when he is sent to Miramar Naval Air Station (Top Gun school) for advanced training.

What you may not know is that the making of this blockbuster film claimed the life of Art Scholl, 53, a legendary American aerobatic pilot, aerial cameraman and flight instructor. On that fateful day, Art, flying his Pitts S-2 plane, had been asked to film some shots — known as “plate shots” in the movie business — which are used as a backdrop behind the actors on a green screen during filming. His shocking death bore a striking resemblance to the on-screen demise of “Goose,” Maverick’s partner in the film, who died after failing to recover from a flat spin.

On Sept. 16, 1985, Art was attempting an inverted flat spin, something he’d done countless times before, when he crashed into the Pacific Ocean. “Part way down he radioed again saying, ‘I have a problem,’ and then about three seconds later he said, ‘I have a real problem,’” his widow, Judy, told Britain’s Daily Mail in 2015. “So the guys in the observer airplane went into the area where he was operating and by the time they got there he was gone. Neither he or his airplane were ever recovered.” The accident has been a mystery for decades.

“Art was a great pilot and a great showman,” Judy Scholl was quoted as saying. “But he was very calculating and prepared constantly. He was a triple type-A personality… He wouldn’t go out and break rules or anything. So on Top Gun I just don’t know what happened. It was a massive shock to me.” Top Gun was dedicated to his memory.

2) The film: The Crow (1994)

The fatality: Actor Brandon Lee

The facts: While an actor and a martial artist in his own right, Brandon Lee’s main claim to fame was that he was the son of pop-culture icon Bruce Lee, the most famous martial artist in history. The elder Lee’s semi-mysterious death at the age of 32 in 1973, likely caused by an allergic reaction to a tranquilizer, is still debated today by movie fans. And his son’s death 20 years later on the set of The Crow, a dark-fantasy action film based on a comic book, is almost as controversial. Brandon was mortally wounded on March 31, 1993, when he was shot with a blank round only eight days before the film was to complete production.

The movie tells the story of a rock musician (Lee) who is revived from the dead to avenge his own death as well as the rape and murder of his fiancée. In the fatal scene, Lee’s character walks into his apartment and discovers his fiancée being attacked, which is when another actor fires a revolver at him. For the scene, dummy cartridges were exchanged with blank rounds, which feature a live powder charge but not a bullet, so the gun can be fired safely. However, a bullet from the dummy round had become trapped in the barrel, causing the bullet to be fired with virtually the same force as if the gun had contained a live round. The bullet tore into Lee’s abdomen and through his vital organs, coming to rest at his spine.

The wounded actor was rushed to hospital, where, despite undergoing hours of surgery and 28 litres of blood transfusions, he died of massive bleeding. Lee, who was only eight when his famous father passed away, was just 28 when he died. With the help of stunt doubles and special effects, the movie was released posthumously.

1) The film: Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)

The fatalities: Actors Vic Morrow and child actors Myca Dinh Le (7) and Renee Shin-Yi Chen (6)

The facts: If movie sets are safer today, it may have something to do with a horrific tragedy on July 23, 1982, on the California set of this ill-starred film. It starred veteran character actor Vic Morrow, best known for the Second World War TV series Combat!, the TV miniseries Roots and the groundbreaking film Blackboard Jungle. In this sci-fi horror, Morrow portrayed an outspoken bigot who undergoes a change of heart through time travel. In the climactic night scene, Morrow’s character is trying to save the lives two Vietnamese children during a helicopter raid on their village.

But the helicopter was flying at an altitude of only eight metres, too low to avoid the explosions of pyrotechnics used in the scene. When the blasts severed the chopper’s tail rotor, it spun out of control and crashed, decapitating Morrow and Le with its blades, while Chen was crushed to death. The segment was dropped from the final version of the movie. It turns out the film had violated child labour laws by hiring the two children without the proper permits. A host of other labour violations came to light after the tragedy. “The grisly, graphic death and celebrity of the film’s director, John Landis, finally brought much-needed attention to the issue of safety on the Hollywood movie set,” notes the website Entertainment.HowStuffWorks.com. “As a direct result, studio heads and workers’ unions hammered out a codified set of safety standards.”

It also reportedly ended the friendship between Landis and producer Steven Spielberg, who later said the crash had “made me grow up a little more” and had left everyone involved “sick to the centre of our souls.” The accident led to legal action that lasted nearly a decade, though no one was found criminally culpable. The children’s families reportedly collected millions from several civil lawsuits. And Morrow was never able to deliver this scripted line: “I’ll keep you safe, kids. I promise. Nothing will hurt you, I swear to God.”

 

It may seem trite, but as we sit in darkened theatres, or even the comfort of our own dens, it wouldn’t hurt to remember that the onscreen illusion of danger sometimes becomes all too real.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca