History Main / FatalMethodActing

**** Well, to be frank, Irwin supposedly made the mistake of pulling the detached stinger out of his chest after it impacted. When that happened, he pulled out a chunk of his still-beating heart and he began to bleed profusely. Had he not done so, Irwin actually had a good chance of survival.
**** This troper is astonished that Irwin was so [[IdiotBall stupid]] as to pull the stinger out. Anyone versed in first aid, as he most certainly would have been, knows not to do exactly that when pierced by a large object, lest the resultant ''gaping hole in their body'' starts bleeding uncontrollably.
***** This is an UrbanLegend, and probably in no small part due to Irwin's MemeticBadass (and WhatAnIdiot) reputation. According to the diver who was down with Irwin, he died pretty much instantaneously.
***** Yeah, complete and utter myth that he pulled the stinger out. The stingray was still alive, and may well have thrashed and pulled the stinger out itself.
** The worst part of the entire story was the aftermath for stingrays. Many people wanted to go on hunts to rid the area of these "deadly creatures." Which is [[CompletelyMissingThePoint completely]] the opposite of what the late Irwin would have wanted.

* In RosencrantzAndGuildensternAreDead, the leader of a troupe of actors describes a performance where they managed to get a convict sentenced to death to play the part of a character who dies onstage. The actor describing it is very critical of the guy, as the part called for no crying or begging for mercy, and [[RealityIsUnrealistic the death didn't look right]].

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

***** Yeah, complete and utter myth that he pulled the stinger out. Two things to think of: 1) The stingray was still alive, and may well have thrashed and pulled the stinger out itself. 2) Even if the stinger was left in, nice solid injection of stingray poison STRAIGHT TO THE HEART??! He isn't "riding that one out"

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

* Curly of TheThreeStooges suffered a stroke during the filming of the short ''Half-Wits Holiday''. He is notably absent from the final scene of the short because he had to be written out of it in order to complete it. His health had been declining for a long time, as evidenced by his frail condition in the shorts leading up to his final one. It was delayed, however; he didn't die for another few years.

* Country Dick Montana, lead singer of the alt-country band The Beat Farmers died of a heart attack near the beginning of a in British Columbia in 1995.

* Dick Shawn, who died of a heart attack onstage. It took time for anyone to realize he was dead, as the audience thought it was part of his act.

* Beloved Danish movie- and theater actor Dirch Passer passed away from a heart attack during a rehearsal. According to stories, he asked for someone to turn up the dim lights, shortly before he collapsed on the scene.

** In a bit of sad symmetry, Brandon Lee's father Bruce also suffered an untimely accidental end. While going over a script for his pet project ''Game of Death'' (which he had abandoned to work on EnterTheDragon) he suffered an allergic reaction to Equagesic, a then-common painkiller, which led to a fatal cerebral adema. The suddenness of Lee's passing led to much speculation about the "true" cause of his death, including rumors that Bruce and fellow actress Betty Ting-Pei were having an affair and she murdered him when he tried to break it off, and others saying that Bruce was actually "executed" by TheTriadsAndTheTongs for either revealing fighting techniques supposedly exclusive to their hitmen, or refusing to act in HK movies sponsored by them.

* ''TheDarkKnight'' is dedicated to two people: HeathLedger (who is not an example of this, he died of an overdose some time later, and TheDarkKnight [[TheImaginariumOfDoctorParnassus wasn't the last film featuring Ledger to be released, anyway]]), and Conway Wickliffe, a special effects technician who crashed the Batmobile while preparing a stunt.

* During a production shoot on location in the Philipines for the ChuckNorris film ''Braddock: Missing In Action III'' a Philipine Air Force helicopter hired by the Cannon Film Group, crashed into Manila Bay killing four Filipino soldiers and wounding five other people, including a member of the film crew.

* A number of people's suicides have been recorded on TV, either because they set it up deliberately or because a news crew happened to be passing at the time. However the only case of a professional performer doing so seems to have been Christine "Chris" Chubbuck, a talk show host for the Sarasota channel WXLT-TV, who shot herself dead during a live show, ''Suncoast Digest'', on July 15th 1974.

** Likewise, the infamous MichaelJackson incident where his hair caught fire shooting a Pepsi commercial (leading to serious burns in his scalp).

* Almost happened to Matthew Fox in the last episode of ''{{Lost}}'' due to a real knife not being swapped out for a collapsible one. Luckily, Fox was wearing a kevlar pad - which, not only was it suggested he not wear protection, but Fox was in the process of trying various other forms of protection, of which none of the others would've saved him.

* Eli Roth and Omar Doom were almost incinerated during the filming of ''InglouriousBasterds''. QuentinTarantino is not one for special effects, so the fire you see in the theater sequence burned far hotter than anyone had anticipated (nearly 2000 degrees Fahrenheit!) and Roth collapsed from the sheer pain of being on the burning set. The fire marshals said that if filming had resumed for 15-20 seconds more, the whole structure would have collapsed. The giant swastika was not originally supposed to fall, but the steel fastening was liquefied. In Roth's words: "We were almost that swastika."

* The infamous 2006 Vampire Dragster crash, which very nearly killed ''TopGear'' presenter Richard Hammond. In a slight subversion however, he had already done the required take successfully. It was revealed when they were watching the footage when he returned to the show that [[TemptingFate he wanted to have another go just for fun]], during which he crashed at 300mph.

** On ''YouOnlyLiveTwice'' during filming a scene, a big light fell from the ceiling and almost crushed actress Karin Dor(Helga Brandt). If the camera hadn't called her over from where she was standing she would have been killed.

** Pierce Brosnan was clearly also a great choice for Bond, though this time, the heroic life-saving happened after he left the role. In 2009, while filming the ''PercyJackson'' movie, he noticed an empty van starting to roll down a hill toward Uma Thurman and another person. They couldn't hear him when he yelled to warn them of the impending danger, so he ran to catch up with the van, got in and stopped it himself. [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome Epic.]]

* ''TheSimpsons'' pokes fun at this trope and TheScottishTrope in one fell swoop, when the family meets Sir Ian [=McKellan=] and Homer doesn't catch on to the matter at all.

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**** Well, to be frank, Irwin made the mistake of pulling the detached stinger out of his chest after it impacted. When that happened, he pulled out a chunk of his still-beating heart and he began to bleed profusely. Had he not done so, Irwin actually had a good chance of survival.

* Beloved Danish movie- and theater actor Dirk Passer passed away from a heart attack during a rehearsal. According to stories, he asked for someone to turn up the dim lights, shortly before he collapsed on the scene.

* ''Top Gun'' is dedicated to Art Scholl, a stunt pilot who died in a plane crash during the filming of the flat spin scene.

* In Masakazu Katsura's early manga ''Present from Lemon'', the male lead's father (''enka'' singer Momojirou Sakaguchi) died of a heart attack on stage.

** In a bit of sad symmetry, Brandon Lee's father Bruce also suffered an untimely accidental end. While going over a script for his pet project ''Game of Death'' (which he had abandoned to work on EnterTheDragon) he suffered an allergic reaction to Equagesic, a then-common painkiller, which led to a fatal cerebral adema. The suddenness of Lee's passing led to much speculation about the "true" cause of his death, including rumors that Betty and Bruce were having an affair and Betty murdered him when he tried to break it off.

* Almost happened a few times during the production of ''TheGoodTheBadAndTheUgly''. When they filmed the scene where the bridge is detonated a chunk of debris flew not six feet from Clint Eastwood's head and it would have meant his death if it hit him. When Eli Wallach had to lie by train tracks as a train went by he wasn't warned that if he raised his head too high the steps jutting from the cars (which weren't accounted for when figuring out the safety shit) would have taken his head off. On another occasion a crew member put a bottle of acid right beside his drink and he was almost poisoned when [[IDrankWhat he drank from it]] (he had the sense to spit it out right away). And yet another time when he had his hands bound and was sitting on a horse during the scene where Blondie shoots the rope the horse got too spooked and ran a mile before anyone could stop it.

* Example of sorts: Jackie Wilson, who collapsed during a concert from a heart attack. He suffered a severe blow to the head and fell into a coma, from which he never recovered and died eight years later.