Movie stars' brushes with death

OK, did some research on IMDB tonight after watchin THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY- found out interestingly in the trivia section that Clint Eastwood came VERY close to being accidentally killed in that scene involving the destruction of the bridge, since a fist-sized piece of rubble slammed into the sandbag near his head while he & Eli wallach were sheltering from the explosion. Now, WI said piece of rubble had been closer ? What impact of no Man with No Name or Dirty Harry ?

I also recall another such brush with death for Charlie Sheen, when, during the filimng of PLATOON in 1986, the Huey he was travelling in momentarily spun out of control, such that he nearly fell out of the chopper & was only saved by Keith David grabbing him by the arm to haul him back in. WI Charlie hadn't been so fortunate ?

Can any-1 else think of any other such incidents involving actors who nearly suffered fatal accidents ?
 

MrP

Banned
OK, did some research on IMDB tonight after watchin THE GOOD, THE BAD & THE UGLY- found out interestingly in the trivia section that Clint Eastwood came VERY close to being accidentally killed in that scene involving the destruction of the bridge, since a fist-sized piece of rubble slammed into the sandbag near his head while he & Eli wallach were sheltering from the explosion. Now, WI said piece of rubble had been closer ? What impact of no Man with No Name or Dirty Harry ?

I also recall another such brush with death for Charlie Sheen, when, during the filimng of PLATOON in 1986, the Huey he was travelling in momentarily spun out of control, such that he nearly fell out of the chopper & was only saved by Keith David grabbing him by the arm to haul him back in. WI Charlie hadn't been so fortunate ?

Can any-1 else think of any other such incidents involving actors who nearly suffered fatal accidents ?

Here's a few you can kill off in WWI. Arnold Ridley (not terribly well-known abroad, I suspect), Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce (bad news for fans of weird Holmes in WWII films). Although given there was a war on, accident is probably the wrong word. Wiki mentions a few more: Claude Rains, Herbert Marshall, Ronald Colman and Cedric Hardwicke.
 
I believe I heard something where Orlando Bloom fell out of a third story window. He might not have survived. There's also times you could reverse this by saying famous actors who didn't die like if John Ritter's heart problem had been properly dianosed and treated, would 8 Simple Rules survive? What would happen to all the actors who worked on the show that got other jobs since it ended (i.e. Kaley Cuoco not on The Big Bang Theory and David Spade not on Rules of Engagement)? Would James Gardiner have still done The Notebook?
 
Harold Lloyd lost 2 fingers when a movie prop bomb blew up in his hand. From then on, he had to wear a flesh color glove to hide this.
 
In World War II:
Deaths in OTL:
What if Leslie Howard didn't get shot down? What if Carol Lombard's plane didn't crash?
Close calls in OTL (potential and specific):
What if Jimmy Stewart was shot down? What if Audie Murphy got hit? (He was only one of two original men in his Battalion, I believe, at the end of the Italian Campaign who had not been removed from action due to death or injury.) What if Clark Gable had been shot down? (Though he only flew five missions, one resulted in the loss of a crewmember, the injury of two crewmembers, and Gable having shrapnel enter his boot- and nearly miss his head...) What if James Doohan hadn't gotten a cigarette case or a flask (I forget which) from his brother? (It stopped a bullet from hitting his heart- and he did wind up losing part of a finger...) What if Eddie Albert had been shot while landing on Tarawa? (Or, worse, if he drowned in the assault like many of his comrades.) What if Audrey Hepburn was killed in the shelling or bombing of Arnhem? (She resided in the area at the time, and helped tend the wounded afterwards.)
 

The Sandman

Banned
In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, there's a good reason why Paul Newman and Robert Redford's yells and cursing are so realistic in the scene where they jump off a cliff into the river below: the safety net that was supposed to have been there wasn't, and they actually did drop all the way into the river.
 

Xen

Banned
What if Mark Hammil was killed in a car accident in 1978 (I believe) after the release of Star Wars: A New Hope but before filming began on The Empire Strikes Back? {He was in a car accident which altered his appearence so they added the scene with the Snow Creature at the beginning to explain it)
 
Vic Morrow

I believe I heard something where Orlando Bloom fell out of a third story window. He might not have survived. There's also times you could reverse this by saying famous actors who didn't die like if John Ritter's heart problem had been properly dianosed and treated, would 8 Simple Rules survive? What would happen to all the actors who worked on the show that got other jobs since it ended (i.e. Kaley Cuoco not on The Big Bang Theory and David Spade not on Rules of Engagement)? Would James Gardiner have still done The Notebook?

As far as reversing actor deaths is concerned?

1. What if Vic Morrow didn't die in the early 80's during the filming of The Twilight Zone?

2. What if Brandon Lee didn't die during the filming of The Crow?

3. What if Sharon Tate somehow wasn't murdered by Manson's associates in 1969?
 
German actor Klaus Kinski is murder during shooting of Werner Herzog's movie "Fitzcarraldo"

Kinsky known for his temper tantrums,
fought with Herzog and other members of the crew and greatly upset the native extras.
One of the native chiefs offered Werner Herzog to murder Kinski !
Herzog think this joke, say "why Not ?"
(OTL Herzog he declined because he needed Kinski to complete filming.)


Roger Moore end his Bond Role after he get Paralyzed do accident
during shooting The Spy Who Loved Me in 1976
in scene were Bond kills Stromberg in a dining room.
during explosion a spliter hit Moor in his Spine (OTL he hurts his back bad)

The ABYSS
Actor Ed Harris drowning during Shooting "descend into Abyss" scene
(OTL almost happen to Harris!)
 
Michael J Fox was almost accidentally hanged during the filming of Back to the Future III, in that scene where Buford Tannen's gang is lynching him. Here's the quote from his autobiography (good book BTW):

While making Back to the Future, Part III in the winter of 1989, I had actually hanged myself during a botched film stunt. Marty McFly, stranded in 1885, finds himself at the mercy of a lynch mob. At the last moment before they string him up, he manages to insert his left hand between the rope and his neck. This shot was not designed to include my whole body, so for the first couple of takes, I stood on a small wooden box. While this was technically a stunt, it was also my close-up, so [his stunt double] Charlie was on the sidelines. No matter how I shifted my weight, the swinging effect was not realistic, so I offered to try it without the support of the box. This worked well for the next couple of takes, but on the third I miscalculated the positioning of my hand. Noose around my neck, dangling from the gallows pole, my carotid artery was blocked, causing me briefly to pass out. I swung, unconscious, at the end of the rope for several seconds before Bob Zemeckis, fan of mine though he was, realized even I wasn't that good an actor.
 
Lee Marvin's platoon was almost wiped out during the Battle of Saipan and Marvin himself was severely wounded by a machine gun round in the buttocks. The wound severed his sciatic nerve and, despite such wounds being refered to a "million dollar wounds", there's a good chance he could have died from that wound or if that bullet had hit him a little higher or lower in the leg or back severing an artery.

On the flip-side...

Steve McQueen had signed on to star in an adaptation of the Roderick Thorpe novel Nothing Lasts Forever, the story of New York detective Joe Leland who, while visiting his daughter, an executive of the Klaxon Oil company at it's Los Angeles headquarters, finds himself waging a one man war against a group of German terrorists who have taken control of the building.

After McQueen's death in 1980, the project was shelved.

A slightly revised version of the original script would later light up box offices around the world and launch Bruce Willis's career as a mega-star.

The film, was Die Hard.
 
Clark Gable and Jimmy Stewart both flew combat missions in WWII.

Rod Serling saw combat in the Pacific. Imagine no Twilight Zone.

Bogart served in the Navy during WWI, on a transport ship.

Henry Fonda actually got a Bronze Star for combat in WWII.
 
hmmm, dare I say it- but another instance is with LA CICCIOLINA, when back in the mid-1980s, she nearly contracted AIDS after making a porn film with John Holmes (who was HIV-positive, & died soon after)- but miraculously didn't- so, WI she did in fact get AIDS, & didn't get to stand for the Italian Parliament ?
 
Not a movie star per se but a major TV presence in his day: suppose Ernie Kovacs had been driving perhaps 5 mph more slowly on a rainy night in January 1962? Then his auto accident likely would not have been fatal; indeed, it's not impossible that he might have walked away. That could have had a major impact on the direction of TV comedy and indeed the development of special effects, since Kovacs was always on the cutting edge of new techniques in the medium.
 
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