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15 Actors Who Died On Set Either During Filming Or Production Of Their Movies Or Shows

Sometimes unfortunate incidents happen during filming of a movie or show and at times it results in the death of actors on the set itself.

Being an actor in Hollywood is not always about glitz and glam and it is easier said than done. Sometimes, in fact, this job can be downright dangerous as it has proved to be life-threatening quite a few times. They died from incidents that occurred while on the set of the show or movie they were filming. This makes some movies pretty hard to watch because we know that a certain actor met his/her demise. We have prepared a list of fifteen such actors who have died while the movie was in production. Read on to know more. 

1. Vic Morrow



 

While filming 'Twilight Zone: The Movie', Morrow was killed on the set along with two other child actors Myca Dinh Le and Renee Chen. He was enacting a scene where he was being attacked by American soldiers in Vietnam. It was then the pyrotechnics exploded which severed the helicopter's tail and it crashed. It decapitated Morrow and two child actors were killed along with it. 

2. Brandon Lee



 

Bradon Lee, the son of Bruce Lee was killed in a stunt accident while he was filming his movie 'The Crow'. During filming, Lee was walking through a doorway carrying a grocery bag as another actor fired blanks at him from 15 feet away, as reported The Los Angeles Times. He was hit on his lower abdomen by a projectile and died later that day at the age of 28.

3. John Ritter



 

Ritter suffered a fatal heart condition while he was on the sets of '8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter'. Ritter had become ill while working on the ABC series and ended up collapsing on set. He was rushed to the hospital where he was treated for a tear in his aorta. He passed away later that evening and the show was retitled '8 Simple Rules' and continued for another season with David Spade and James Garner as replacements

4. Tyrone Power



 

Power suffered a massive heart attack while he was on the sets of 'Solomon and Sheba', during a fencing scene  He died on the way to the hospital on March 15, 1958, reported by Ranker

5. Redd Foxx



 

Foxx, while on the set of 'The Royal Family' died of a massive heart attack. It was extremely ironic that he was famous for grabbing his chest and calling out to his dead television wife, Elizabeth. 

6. Roy Kinnear



 

Kinnear sadly passed away while he was filming for the movie 'The Return of the Musketeers' when he fell from a horse and broke his pelvis. The next day, Kinnear died from a heart attack. 

7. Martha Mansfield



 

Mansfield, a star during the silent film era, passed away in what can be only described as a freak accident when a passerby lit a cigarette and accidentally flicked the match into the automobile. The matchstick landed on her costume which was a giant and highly flammable Civil War-era dress and resulted in her death. 

8. Steve Irwin



 

The Australian adventurer and animal advocate, nicknamed as 'The Crocodile Hunter' were stung and killed by a stingray on September 4, 2006, while filming 'Ocean’s Deadliest'. As reported by the Los Angeles Times, Steve Irwin and his cameraman were in chest-deep water and they came across an 8-foot-wide stingray. After they were filming with the stingray for a while, it ended up attacking him and Irwin died before he could get help. 

9. Paul Mantz



 

Mantz was a great aviator who landed a role in Air Mail, where he flew a biplane through a hangar that wasn’t much bigger than his aircraft. After that, he appeared in several other films, such as 'For Whom the Bell Tolls', 'Twelve O’Clock High', and 'The Wings of Eagles'. Manz later passed away on July 8, 1965, while performing a stunt for 'The Flight of the Phoenix' where he was flying over a desert in Arizona when his plane struck a hill and broke into pieces, immediately killing him. 

10. Jon-Erik Hexum



 

Hexum was killed because of an unexpected gunshot wound on the set of the CBS adventure series 'Cover-Up' in 1984. He played the character of Mac Harpe. As reported by Entertainment Weekly, Hexum jokingly picked up a .44 Magnum pistol loaded with blanks and said “Can you believe this crap?” and pulled the trigger. The impact of the burst fractured his skull which drove a bone fragment the size of a quarter into his brain, causing massive bleeding. He was rushed to the nearest hospital where surgery was performed but he remained comatose and was pronounced brain dead later. 

11. Art Scholl

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A  lot of scenes in the movie 'Top Gun' was done by skilled stuntmen. Art Scholl was one such pilot who died on set while attempting to execute a move with his plane known as a flat spin. Sadly enough, the camera equipment mounted on the plane added too much-unexpected weight, which made the plane spin out of control and crashed into the ocean below. 

12. Bruce Lee



 

While Bruce Lee technically didn't die during the filming of the movie, he passed away during production, collapsing while dubbing for 'The Game of Death' at Golden Harvest Studio in Hong Kong. He was taken to the local hospital shortly after and doctors pointed out an abnormal swelling on his brain. They managed to keep the swelling under control and he was discharged back home. But sadly, two months later Lee went to sleep and didn’t wake up, and was later pronounced dead.

13. Heath Ledger



 

Heath Ledger passed away in 2008 due to an accidental overdose, he was in the middle of filming 'The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus'. The production of the movie halted for a while, and later on, Jude Law, Colin Farrell, and Johnny Depp each played a version of Ledger's character in the film. 

14. Paul Walker



 

Even though Paul Walker technically didn't die while filming the movie, he passed away in an unfortunate car crash in 2013, when he was already done filming a significant portion of the movie. To complete the production of the film, his brothers, Cody and Caleb, were used as stand-ins. 

15. James Dean



 

When James Dean passed away because of a car accident in 1955, he had actually completed filming on the movie Giant and he received a posthumous Oscar nomination. One particular scene in the movie required dubbing and Nick Adams lent his voice to the scene so the movie could go on.