Veteran English actor Oliver Reed died before finishing all of his scenes for Ridley Scott's
2000 epic Gladiator.
This forced Scott to engage in some digital trickery with outtakes to depict the death
of Reed's character, gladiator handler Proximo.
But the circumstances surrounding Reed's death serve to illustrate two things about the man:
he was every bit as tough as his onscreen persona suggested, and he was a bit too fond
of liquor for his own good.
The film was shot on location in Malta, and on the night before he was to shoot his final
scenes, Reed celebrated by dropping in on a local pub.
He put down eight pints of lager before moving on to a dozen double shots of rum and half
a bottle of whiskey.
Then he proceeded to take on a crew of British Navy sailors in an arm-wrestling contest,
defeating them all before finally preparing to retire for the night.
But after decades of such behavior, Reed's body had finally had enough.
He suffered a massive heart attack, and dropped dead on the spot.
The pub where he died has come to be known as "Ollie's Last Pub."
Fans the world over come through to browse its collection of memorabilia, have a pint
or three, and pay tribute to one of the most legendary tough guys in film history.
But his complete list of credits is longer than your arm.
Among them were the 1973 version of The Three Musketeers and its 1989 sequel, The Return
of the Musketeers, both directed by Kinnear's frequent collaborator Richard Lester.
Alas, the latter ending up being his final role.
Kinnear was injured in a fall from a horse during the shoot in Spain, and he was subsequently
admitted to a hospital in Madrid.
His injuries weren't considered life-threatening, but they were apparently too much for his
body.
He suffered a heart attack the next day while still in the hospital, and doctors weren't
able to save him.
Kinnear's untimely death had a profound effect on the film's cast and crew, but none were
so affected as Lester, who had lost a dear friend.
1987's Million Dollar Mystery was as much a gimmick as it was a film.
Its cast of zany characters spent the entire runtime hunting down a series of three cash
stashes of one million dollars hidden somewhere in the United States.
The ending revealed that the third stash of hidden loot was totally real, as it challenged
audiences to use clues from the film to determine its location.
The movie was widely ignored when it wasn't being roundly panned, but its most unfortunate
legacy lies in the accident that took the life of stuntman Dar Robinson.
Widely considered by his peers to be one of the gutsiest stunt workers alive, Robinson
held a number of insane records, including the highest fall ever put on film.
He had somehow never suffered an on-set injury in his career, but that changed in the most
tragic fashion possible during the shooting of a routine motorcycle chase sequence.
Robinson went into a curve at a high speed on his Honda 600 dirt bike, losing control
and skidding off the road.
He was separated from the bike, thrown down an embankment and impaled by a sagebrush branch.
He was airlifted to a hospital, but his injuries ended up killing him.
John Jordan was among the most fearless camera operators who ever lived, having developed
his own perilous technique of getting the kind of aerial shots that simply shouldn't
have been possible.
Secured only by a harness, with his feet resting on the skid of a helicopter, he would lean
out into the blue to secure his amazing shots.
It was during the filming of one such aerial sequence for the James Bond film You Only
Live Twice that he came a little too close to one of his subjects, a Bell 47 helicopter.
One of its blades struck and almost removed his foot, which eventually had to be amputated.
But Jordan was undeterred, and he went right back to work doing what he did best.
This gung-ho attitude finally caught up with him in 1969 while shooting Catch-22.
Jordan was acting as second-unit director, shooting from the open door of a B25 bomber.
Once again, a passing aircraft got a little bit too close, but rather than making contact,
it created a freak gust of wind that threw the B25 off to one side.
Jordan lost his balance, got too close to the door, and was promptly sucked out.
He plummeted to his death 4,000 feet into the ocean.
While not a household name, director, actor, and stunt driver Toby Halicki won himself
a cult following in the 1970s by virtue of being preternaturally gifted at the art of
filming car chases and crashes.
His sophomore effort, 1974's Gone in 60 Seconds, is a prime example of this gift.
But during the filming of its 1989 sequel, Halicki met his end in a bizarre accident
that strangely had nothing to do with his insanely dangerous stunt work.
While filming in Tonawanda, New York, the crew was setting up to shoot the collapse
of a water tower for a scene that Tonawanda officials had tried mightily to prevent.
Halicki had been forced to take out an $8 million insurance policy in order to get them
to relent, and he had announced his plans to sue the city upon the film's completion.
But as it turned out, he probably should've paid more attention to their concerns.
The tower collapsed prematurely, causing an attached steel cable to snap.
The cable then knocked over a nearby telephone pole, which fell directly on top of Halicki.
He was treated by EMTs at the scene to no avail, and he was pronounced dead on arrival
at the local hospital.
Halicki's widow Denice served as an executive producer on the 2000 remake of Gone in 60
Seconds as a means of preserving her husband's legacy.
2008's The Dark Knight featured some incredible stunt work in conjunction with spectacular,
and sometimes dangerous, practical effects.
Among the stunt performers working on the film was Conway Wickliffe, a 41-year-old veteran
of the industry.
While shooting a portion of the Tumbler/Batcycle chase sequence, Wickliffe was in the process
of capturing a fairly standard shot when tragedy struck.
He was filming a stunt car while hanging out the window of an SUV.
His vehicle's driver inexplicably veered off course, failing to follow his prescribed route
and instead plowing through a grassy area, a detour that ended with a crash into a tree.
Despite the fact that the SUV was only going about 20 miles per hour, Wickliffe sustained
injuries serious enough that he was pronounced dead at the scene.
His untimely demise was, unfortunately, a harbinger of things to come, as star Heath
Ledger died of an accidental drug overdose shortly before the film's release.
The shocking deaths of both men were memorialized in The Dark Knight's closing credits.
In 1978, residents of Lexington, Kentucky were thrilled to have a real Hollywood production
in town.
It was Steel, starring and produced by Lexington native Lee Majors.
The film's climax called for its villain to plummet from a skyscraper to his death, and
the city's Kincaid Towers, which were nearing completion, were just the ticket.
The fall was performed by 27-year old A.J.
Bakunas, who at one time held the record for the highest fall, and the scene had been completed
with Bakunas jumping from the ninth story into an airbag.
But then Bakunas got word that Dar Robinson had recently broken his record, causing him
to insist on shooting the scene again, making the jump from the top of the 323-foot tower
this time.
The on-set physician tried desperately to halt the attempt.
But Bakunas, intent on regaining his record, wouldn't change his mind.
He performed the fall, and struck the airbag squarely in the prescribed area, only to have
it rupture.
Amazingly, despite having just fallen hundreds of feet essentially onto concrete, Bakunas
initially clung to life.
But although his head and internal organs had escaped serious injury, his lungs had
taken too much damage.
He died the next day.
In February 2014, a 20-person film crew showed up for work on the biopic Midnight Rider,
the life story of rocker Gregg Allman.
Director Randall Miller had them shoot scenes on an active train track, assuring them that
it was in use only by two trains, both of which had already gone by.
In the unlikely event that another train appeared, they were told they'd have only sixty seconds
to clear the track.
That ended up being not nearly enough time, as a third train made an unexpected appearance
in the middle of the shoot.
The locomotive was traveling at a speed close to 60 miles per hour.
It struck a bed which had been affixed to the tracks, sending debris flying.
27-year old camera operator Sarah Jones was somehow pushed into the path of the train,
which struck and killed her instantly.
Miller subsequently became the first filmmaker to be convicted on a criminal charge related
to events on a film set.
He pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to two years in prison,
with eight years of probation to follow, while Midnight Rider was canceled.