Phil production can be a really
dangerous business as we've discussed in
our video about ten incredibly hard to
shoot movie scenes getting the perfect
action shot can sometimes mean pulling
off very risky stunts that have the
potential to go disastrously wrong
fortunately most productions have plenty
of precautions and safeguards in place
which means that unset deaths are very
rare but there are still some famous
cases of actors who died while filming
and others who died before they could
finish their current projects here are
screen rants 10 actors who died during a
movies production Heath Ledger the dark
knight actor Heath Ledger sadly didn't
live to enjoy the critical acclaim and
his Academy Award for Best Supporting
Actor as he died of an accidental
prescription drug overdose six months
before the Dark Knight arrived in
theaters the Joker wasn't Ledger's final
role though at the time of his death
Ledger was a little over a month into
filming Terry Gilliam's fantasy film The
Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus in which
he played a central role following the
actor's death
Gilliam came up with the idea of having
Ledger's character changed his
appearance and enlisted the help of
Johnny Depp Jude Law and Colin Farrell
to take over the role in scenes that
ledger hadn't yet got around to filming
with their help The Imaginarium of
Doctor Parnassus was completed and
became the final piece of Ledger's
legacy John Eric hexam there's a
dangerous misconception that guns loaded
with blanks are harmless when the truth
is that blanks can do a whole lot of
damage when fired at very close range
this was the fate that befell John Eric
hexam on the set of the CBS
action-adventure series cover-up in
which he played a CIA agent working
undercover as a moth during a filming
delay hexam began jokingly playing
Russian roulette with a 44 magnum loaded
with blanks the gun was pressed right up
against his temple when it went off
firing the wadding from the blank into
hexam skull causing a massive brain
hemorrhage after being declared
brain-dead hexam was eventually taken
off life support brandon lee the
vigilante superhero movie The Crow has
become a cult classic since its original
release in 1994 the film is notorious
for another reason
Brandon Lee's son of Bruce Lee played
the movie's main character Eric Draven
Rockstar who's brought back from the
dead to avenge his own murder
and the death of his girlfriend in a
scene where Eric returns home to find
his girlfriend being attacked after
Michael Massey fired a prop gun at Leigh
not knowing that the prop crew had
accidentally left a fragment of a real
bullet inside it the bullet struck Leigh
in the abdomen and despite being rushed
to the hospital and undergoing six hours
of surgery the wound cost him his life
Lee was just when he 8 years old Paul
Walker Paul Walker was a mainstay of the
Fast & Furious franchise from the very
beginning and his appearances in the
movie spanned over a decade from his
first appearance in The Fast and the
Furious it's his final portrayal of
Brian O'Conner in Furious 7 two months
into production on Furious 7 Walker was
killed when the driver of the pour she
was traveling and crashed the car into a
lamppost and two trees at high speed
following the accident Universal put
production on hold to give the cast and
crew time to greet and to give director
James Wan time to figure out how to
rework the film Furious 7 was eventually
completed using Paul Walker's brothers
caleb and cody as stand-ins for his
character but the combination of camera
trickery and CGI used to complete
Brian's story vic more like Brandon Lee
and John Eric hexam actor Vic murrow's
death was a result of an accident on set
which is easily one of the most
horrifying tales in the film industry
Morrow was filming time out a segment of
Twilight Zone the movie in which a
racist gets a taste of his own medicine
when he's cast back in time and assumes
the ethnicities of those he was
prejudiced against during the scene in
which murrow's character finds himself
in the Vietnam War a helicopter hovering
overhead was damaged by a nearby
pyrotechnic explosion and crashed
decapitating Morrow and killing two
child actors he was carrying several
people involved in the production
including director John Landis were put
on trial for involuntary manslaughter
but were ultimately acquitted Oliver
Reed Ridley Scott's historical epic
gladiator won a handful of awards in
2001 including the Award for Best Visual
Effects among the visual effects used in
the film were early CGI techniques that
completed actor Oliver Reed scenes as
Antonius próximo the gladiator trader
who becomes a mentor to Maximus Decimus
Meridius Reed died of a heart attack
towards the end of filming and his
characters fate was rewritten so that
instead of surviving próximo sacrifices
himself in order to buy Maximus hunt to
escape to complete his remaining scenes
a body double was used and a CGI mask
was placed over the body double spaced
to create the illusion of reid being
present it was an oscar-worthy effect
especially for the time and a powerful
final role for Reed
John riddim John Ritter first made a
name for himself as one of the leads on
the ABC sitcom Three's Company in the
1970s and 80s and by the early 2000s
you've gone from TV bachelor to TV dad
in another ABC sitcom 8 simple rules in
which he played a strict but
affectionate father Paul Hennessy during
filming of the show's second season
Ritter fell ill due to a heart defect
called aortic dissection which was
initially misdiagnosed as a heart attack
despite efforts to save him Ritter died
in a hospital later that day his death
was written into the show the Hennessy
family finding out that Paul had
collapsed while grocery shopping Bela
Lugosi Bella Lugosi started some of the
most famous horror movies ever made
including Dracula white zombie and the
black cat but he died while filming one
of the most infamously terrible movies
ever made Edwards plan 9 from outer
space well actually that's not
completely accurate
Lugosi had been filming various random
scenes with wood for other movie
projects in order to complete the scenes
Wood hired his wife's chiropractor who
had no acting experience and didn't even
look like Lugosi the stand-in for the
famous actor by holding a cape over his
face it's a bit of a far cry from the
technical wizardry that made the
completion of Furious 7 possible but
it's also one of many quirks that makes
plan 9 from outer space so memorable
Marilyn Monroe one of the most iconic
movie stars of all time Marilyn Monroe
is known for her roles in classic comedy
films like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes some
like it hot and the 7-year itch Monroe's
final film was a romantic comedy called
something's got to give
from which she was fired after one month
of production than later rehired with a
change of director before filming with
Monroe could resume the actress died of
a barbiturate overdose something's got
to give was never completed though the
footage was later pieced together for a
documentary called Marilyn something's
got to give Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman was a highly
respected actor who in 2006 won an Oscar
for playing the title role in Capote in
more recent years audience became
familiar with Hoffman as Plutarch
heavensbee the head GameMaker of the
Hunger Games sadly after decades of
sobriety Hoffman suffered a relapse into
the drug addiction that had played him
in his younger years and with just a
week of filming left on the Hunger Games
Mockingjay part 2 the actor died after
taking a mix of heroin cocaine
amphetamines and benzodiazepines
director Francis Lawrence decided not to
try and complete Hoffman's performance
using CGI
and futhark heavensbee was instead
written out of the scenes that Hofmann
had yet to shoot these are just a few of
the more memorable instances of actors
dying midway through production but
there are more examples out there let us
know in the comments which actors you
miss most and don't forget to subscribe
to our channel for more videos like this
one