History Main / FatalMethodActing

* The tragic ending of ''MoulinRouge'' has the heroine die of natural causes during a curtain call.

** The shooter was former Marine Nathan Gale. The police officer was James D. Niggemeyer. Niggemeyer received several commendations, and this Troper's personal thanks via E-mail.

* Les Harvey, guitarist for Scottish rock band Stone the Crows, was electrocuted [[strike:live]] dead on stage in 1972.

* Similar to the above Carson example is illusionist David Copperfield's [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment illusion]] [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Death Saw]], wherein [[DeathTrap Copperfield is chained to a table and must escape]] [[MacGyvering using only a hairpin borrowed from an audience member]] before the [[TimeKeepsOnTicking slowly-descending]] [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Death Saw]] cuts him in half. However, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Death Saw]] [[GoneHorriblyWrong malfunctions and begins descending faster than the magician anticipated]], causing him [[OhCrap to panic visibly]] until [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast The Death Saw]] reaches him and [[KilledOffForReal the inevitable happens]]. However, [[BackFromTheDead Copperfield appears to revive]] and the rest of the illusion in which [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel Copperfield remotely controls the severed lower half of his body]] is [[DeadBabyComedy played for laughs]]. See it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SefD84fbEE here]].

* Similar to the above Carson example is illusionist David Copperfield's [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment illusion]] [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Death Saw]], wherein [[DeathTrap Copperfield is chained to a table and must escape]] [[MacGyvering using only a hairpin borrowed from an audience member]] before the [[TimeKeepsOnTicking slowly-descending]] [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Death Saw]] cuts him in half. However, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The Death Saw]] [[GoneHorriblyWrong malfunctions and begins descending faster than the magician anticipated]], causing [[OhCrap him to panic visibly]] until [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast The Death Saw]] reaches him and [[KilledOffForReal the inevitable happens]]. However, [[BackFromTheDead Copperfield appears to revive]] and the rest of the illusion in which [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel Copperfield remotely controls the severed lower half of his body]] is [[DeadBabyComedy played for laughs]]. See it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SefD84fbEE here]].

* Robert Helpmann, who played the [[{{Understatement}} terrifying]] [[NightmareFuel Child Catcher]] in ''ChittyChittyBangBang'', was driving the character's carriage when it turned onto its side. As it was happening, Helpmann leaped onto the side of the carriage and jumped off. Being a trained ballet dancer certainly helped, but making it more impressive was that he was almost 60 when it happened!

* ''TheDarkKnight'' is dedicated to two people: HeathLedger (who is not an example of this, he died of an overdose some time later), and Conway Wickliffe, a special effects technician who crashed the Batmobile while preparing a stunt.

* Singer Charles Haddon of British band Ou Est Le Swimming Pool died of suicide after jumping off of a mast immediately after the band's performance at Pukkelpop.

* Happened when British comedian Tommy Cooper had a heart attack on live TV in 1984. He was declared dead on arrival at hospital shortly afterwards, although going by the video recording on Youtube it (thankfully) seems like he died pretty much within seconds.

* Folk singer Tiny Tim collapsed during a live performance of "Tip Toe Through The Tulips". He lost consciousness and died shortly afterwards.

* Fejez (real name Paolo Panigada), member of the Italian band "Elio e le storie tese", died of a brain haemorrhage while performing on stage in December 1998.

* Sid James is rumoured to haunt a dressing room at the Sunderland Empire Theatre after he had a heart attack and died onstage while performing there in 1976. The rest of the cast thought he was messing around when he failed to deliver his next line, and ad-libbed to cover. Then, when the truth was discovered, the initial request "Is there a doctor in the house" was met with a round of laughter. Incidentally, Les Dawson once used the haunted dressing room and then refused to ever play the venue again.

** Yardbirds/Renaissance frontman Keith Relf died in a similar fashion while rehearsing on electric guitar at home.

* During the filming of the scene where Ace is trapped in the water tank in the ''DoctorWho'' episode "Battlefield", the front of the glass tank cracked and broke. Realising that the water was about to pour out onto a floor with live electrical cables, Sylvester [=McCoy=] yelled "Get her out of there!" and Sophie Aldred was lifted clear just as the water poured out, saving her life.
* In ''TheSpyWhoLovedMe'''s ski-parachute jump, a ski hits the stuntman's parachute. That could have been fatal.

->"It's bad luck to say ''that'' too!" *A chunk of the theatre sign falls on him*

* In ''ThePrestige'', ChristianBale accidentaly kills HughJackman's wife during a magician stunt.

* John Simm did one of his own stunts in the 2002 version of Crime and Punishment and got thrown down a flight of stairs, breaking several ribs and suffering internal bleeding. Initially, he ''refused to go to the hospital'' even after he'd developed a high fever, because the fever and the pain "helped him with the performance" and he didn't want to halt the production. Eventually, they managed to drag him to a hospital.

** Another near miss in a James Bond film occurred during the filming of Octopussy. The film required several shots of stunt men climbing about on the outside of a train. During filming, the train went out of the approved area that they were supposed to work in, and one stunt man was dashed against a concrete barrier, breaking both his legs.

* Owen Hart fell to his death in the Kemper Arena during WWE's Over the Edge pay-per-view show in 1999, while preparing for a big stunt entrance that would see him, as his recently-revived Hulk Hogan parody The Blue Blazer, being lowered in from the rafters. He had done so in a rehearsal earlier in the day with no problems, but unlike [[{{WCW}} Sting's]] harness circa 1997, which had multiple connection points and a full vest that took a good amount of time to remove once he actually landed, Owen's contraption was held with [[NoOSHACompliance a single release point around his chest]] that could be (and probably was) triggered simply by breathing too deeply. Regardless, he ended up falling nearly seventy-eight feet while being lowered, where his chest impacted the top rope. He managed to survive until arriving at the hospital, but was soon after pronounced dead from a severed blood vessel near the heart.

* In the final episode of FatherTed there was a scene where Tommy Tiernan plays a priest with depression seeking guidance from Ted, while Ted dances around to the theme from ''Shaft'', the music slowly spurring Tommy to cheer up. Take after take, the director wasn't happy with Tommy's performance, meaning Dermot Morgan had to dance around the set several times, increasingly exhausted. Later that day Morgan suffered a heart attack and died. At the time, Tiernan was on his way to England for the weekend. He came back on the Sunday and heard the "You'll never guess who died?" gossip from his taxi driver. At the funeral Tiernan stood next to Ardal O'Hanlon (Dougal) and O'Hanlon leaned over and gravely whispered "You killed Father Ted." The two actors then [[TheFunInFuneral burst out laughing]].

* Devon Clifford, drummer with You Say Party We Say Die, collapsed on stage during a gig in Vancouver in 2010 and passed on two days later in a hospital. They are changing the name of their band.