Has anyone ever died on stage/set?

Question

You know, one of the actors just suddenly dies while acting in front of an audience/camera.

Answer 1

Tommy Cooper did. Tragic.


Someone below said Brandon Lee. That is true. He had implants in his short that explode to look like he's been shot but one was fitted the wrong way round and killed him. They finished the film with a double.

Oo Oo, I have another. Didn't John Candy die before they finished filming Cool Runnings?

Answer 2

number one is right Tommy Cooper died and the audience laughed thinking it part of the act until he was whisked off he died of a heart attack.
In northern Ireland just last week a circus performer died on the trapeze as loads of school kids watched.
Macbeth The play that it is unlucky to speak the name of, or to quote from, in a theatre. Instead it is known as by euphemisms such as 'The Scottish Play' or 'The Unmentionable'. This tradition dates from the first opening night of the play in 1606 when the boy actor playing Lady Macbeth died backstage during the show. Since then the play has apparently been dogged by bad luck.

Answer 3

Yup, previous answer correct - Tommy Cooper had a heart attack onstage and probably went out the best way he could - the audience thought it was a gag and burst into laughter. I think he'd appreciate that.

Oh, and the Brandon Lee thing is true, he was shot during testing of a shotgun which should have been firing blank rounds but wasn't. Rumours of a link to the Chinese mafia have never been proven. Most of the Crow is CGI animation with a different actor having Brandon's features pasted on.

Answer 4

Sid James (he of the 'Bwah hah hah!' laugh in the Carry On films) died on stage while acting in a farce - the odd thing was that he did it so inconspicuously that it took a few moments for anyone to notice.

Eric Morecambe died just after walking offstage after a public audience he'd done in a theatre talking about his life.

Vic Morrow and two child actors died when a helicopter exploded over them during the making of the movie 'Twilight Zone'.

Answer 5

Yes!
Sid James of "Carry On" fame actually died quietly on stage while sitting on a couch during the performance of a farce in London's west end.

AND!

I was forgetting the most famous of all!!

St. Genesius, the patron Saint of actors was performing before the emperor Nero in a play which satirized Christianity when he had a conversion experience in the middle of performance. When he confessed this to the audience and said he could not continue, Nero had him crucified to finish the play. The true patron of actors; honest artist, but a little dumb.

Answer 6

Tommy Cooper did indeed die of a heart attack on stage.

Just to clear up a few bits about the Lees though.

Bruice Lee died after an aleargic reatcion to a painkiller he took which caused his brain to swell putting him into a fatal coma. This was durin the filming of Enter the Dragon (not game of death) and caused some minor changes in the story and a few of extra non bruce lee bits needed filming to help pad it out.

Brandon Lee died in a tragic accident durin the filming of The Crow. In the scene shown near the begining of the film (it was obviously fimled at the end of filming though) where Brandon is held up by two of Fun boys goons and shot by a third (they ended up using the first take as he was killed in the second) a small shap peice of the plastic barrel of the blank firing gun broke and fell in to the barrel in front of the blank (a shot without projectile), when the gun was fired this was expelled as if it was a small plastic bullit which by sheer unluckiness lodged in Brandon Lees spine severing his spinal column.

Both tragic but nothing particularly suspicious about either.

Answer 7

Roy Kinnear - Actor
Madrid, Spain. (broke his pelvis after falling from a horse and subsequently bled to death) while filming.

In Hollywood's most infamous on-set tragedy, Vic Morrow and two child actors in Twilight Zone, The Movie were killed when struck by a helicopter during the late-night filming of a mock Vietnam battle scene in Valencia, California. All exposed film was immediately seized, but some eventually made its way into the 1992 compilation film Death Scenes 2.

Answer 8

John Ritter from the tv programme 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, and the above Brandon Lee, Sid James and most famously Tommy Cooper

Answer 9

Vic Morrow, film actor and father of actress Jennifer Jason Leigh, died along with two child actors when a helicopter crashed on them during filming of The Twilight Zone.

There are plenty of others - see the first link below.

Answer 10

Yes most famously in recent years the British comedian Tommy Cooper died whilst on stage.

Answer 11

Bruce Lee died during the filming of 'Game of Death' - a movie that is about Bruce Lee actually faking his own death and coming back to kill all his enemies. Bruce only appears in the film a few times - the rest of the scenes involve a body double for him

Also check out Oliver Reed's last line to Russel Crowe in Gladiator, which he died of alcohol poisoning during filiming. 'Whereas you were a man of honour, well I? I'm an entertainer' What an epitaph!