History Main / FatalMethodActing

* It's said that Brazilian dubber Creator/MagalhaesGraça died from a heart attack in 1989, while recording his lines for Duckworth from ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987''. However, other sources reportedly claim he died later in 1990 at home from an illness.

* Brazilian dubber José de Magalhães Graça died from a heart attack in 1989, while recording his lines for Duckworth from ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987''.

* Creator/BrandonLee was fatally shot on the set of ''Film/TheCrow'' in an accident. A B-unit filming close-up scenes had no professional armorer with them and built their own dummy rounds (for a shot of the cartridges in the revolver) by simply pulling the gunpowder from it. The trigger was pulled at some point, and the force generated by the primer exploding shoved the bullet into the barrel. The same gun was later reloaded with blanks and used for the scene of the murder of Lee's character; nobody had checked the gun and the blank fired the bullet into Brandon Lee's chest.

* Came within a hair's breadth of happening to Creator/SophieAldred on the set of the ''Series/DoctorWho'' serial ''[[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/DoctorWhoS26E1Battlefield Battlefield]]''. For one sequence, Aldred had been put into a plexiglas water tank for a cliffhanger. However, the tank had been poorly engineered and was straining under the pressure of the water, something only Creator/SylvesterMcCoy noticed just as filming started. Had the tank ruptured, all that water and Aldred would have been dumped directly onto exposed power cables, potentially killing her. To make sure that the crew knew he was voicing actual concerns and not just adlibbing as The Doctor, he yelled out "[[PrecisionFStrike Shit!]] Get her out!", knowing that that sort of language wouldn't be something he'd say in character. They got Aldred out in time and drained the tank before a fatal accident occurred. The BBC kept the footage and used it in a safety-training film shortly thereafter.

* Taiwanese-Canadian actor Godfrey Gao collapsed from cardiac arrest while filming a sequence for the Chinese sports-reality show ''Chase Me'' in November 2019, and was pronounced dead shortly thereafter.

* 19-year-old Kipp Walker of Bend, Oregon, took the stage at a coffee shop's Open Mic Night, performed a song called "Sorry For The Mess", and then [[http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-04-17/news/29464888_1_open-mic-coffee-shop-teenager-stabs fatally stabbed himself in the chest]].[[/folder]]

** There was also an episode where a fire broke out at a club. Two members of the [[spoiler: white supremacist]] band burned to death, an audience member was trampled, and another was stabbed.

* Not actually performing, but still technically on the job: pianist Music/VinceGuaraldi (creator of the legendary jazz scores in the early ''Franchise/{{Peanuts}}'' animated specials) suffered a fatal heart attack in 1976 while resting in-between concert sets.

* On August 31, 2020, Ronald "Ronnie" [=McNutt=], a US Army veteran and podcaster from New Albany, Mississippi, shot himself in the head during a Website/{{Facebook}} livestream. The original one has since been taken down, but not before others began posting the grisly video on other websites such as Website/TikTok, which prompted a lot of criticism towards websites for not taking the videos down sooner.

* Trumpeter Lee Morgan was shot on stage by his common-law wife.

* Ghanaian percussionist Rebop Kwaku Baah, a former member of the prog-rock groups Music/{{Can}} and Traffic, died of a cerebral hemorrhage while performing at a Jimmy Cliff concert in Sweden in 1983.

* In ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls1998'' episode "Abracadaver", a magician named [[PunnyName Al Lusion]] was disrupted during his act by a little girl who accidentally caused him to fall into an iron maiden. Al comes BackFromTheDead as a zombie to exact his revenge and selects Blossom, to whom the little girl bore an uncanny resemblance.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/PowerpuffGirls1998'' episode "[[Recap/ThePowerpuffGirlsS1E5BoogieFrightsAbracadaver Abracadaver]]" has the titular monster's former self, Al Lusion, suffer this: he was a stage magician who caused a young girl's toy to disappear. Upset, the girl unwittingly pantsed him and his attempt to retrieve his magical items while the audience laughed at him caused him to fall into an IronMaiden.

* Creator/AngelaBassett's stunt double fell to her death on the set of the 1995 film ''Film/VampireInBrooklyn''.

* ''Midnight Rider'', an adaptation of [[Music/TheAllmanBrothersBand Gregg Allman]]'s autobiography, ended up being shelved due to this. After filming a DreamSequence scene illegally on a train track that involved actor Creator/WilliamHurt lying on a hospital gurney, the cast and crew tried to remove the equipment from the track before an oncoming train approached their filming location when the hospital gurney got stuck on the track. When the train hit the gurney, second camera assistant Sarah Jones was in turn struck by the gurney before being propelled by the recoil into the train's path where she was struck again, dying instantly. Hurt, who was on the gurney before the train hit it, was able to run to safety. The accident wouldn't have occurred had director Randall Miller listened to others that the scene was too dangerous to film at the location he'd picked, or if he had simply arranged with a railroad company somewhere to film the scene legally at a time when trains weren't running or on a track that wasn't active. Hurt quit the film a month later, while Allman was outraged by the incident and sued the production to stop the film from being completed. An [[NoOSHACompliance OSHA investigation]] on the incident led to Miller being charged with manslaughter and the film being canned.

* On August 20, 1994, elephant trainer Allen Campbell was crushed to death and another handler was severely injured when they lost control of one of their elephants during a performance at Circus International in Honolulu, Hawaii. (A publicist was also injured while trying to close a gate to prevent the elephant from escaping the venue.) The elephant subsequently made a break for freedom, briefly getting loose on the streets of Honolulu before she was tracked down and killed by police. The shocking incident and the subsequent revelation that the elephant had snapped after years of horrific abuse (with Campbell himself being among the worst culprits) led to massive public outcry and ultimately a statewide ban on the use of performing animals in circus acts.[[note]]Even before the official ban, most circuses stopped using animals in performances in Hawaii anyway, as public disdain for the practice became so strong following this incident that circus performances featuring animal acts couldn't sell enough tickets to be profitable.[[/note]]

* On August 20, 1994, elephant trainer Allen Campbell was crushed to death and another handler was severely injured when they lost control of one of their elephants during a performance at Circus International in Honolulu, Hawaii. (A publicist was also injured while trying to close a gate to prevent the elephant from escaping the venue.) The elephant subsequently made a break for freedom, briefly getting loose on the streets of Honolulu before she was tracked down and killed by police. The shocking incident and the subsequent revelation that the elephant had snapped after years of horrific abuse (with Campbell himself being among the worst culprits) led to massive public outcry and ultimately a statewide ban on the use of performing animals in circus acts.

* Redd Foxx died of a heart attack on the set of his sitcom ''The Royal Family'' in 1991. His best-known role was on ''Series/SanfordAndSon'', which had a RunningGag about his character faking heart attacks; ''and'' the working title for the show he was filming had been ''Chest Pains''. Due to his role as Fred Sanford, the rest of the cast [[AllPartOfTheShow thought he was just faking it]] until it was too late. The show tried to continue without Foxx (with Jackée replacing him), but the series was cancelled shortly thereafter with several post-Foxx episodes unaired.

* Creator/JohnRitter was rehearsing on the set of ''Series/EightSimpleRules'' in September 2003 when he collapsed with a previously unknown heart problem. He died later that day.

* Legend has it that the famous playwright Molière died on stage, poisoned by the green dye of his costume, which is why [[TheScottishTrope superstition]] will not let any actor wear green onstage. Molière actually died of tuberculosis, and while his last performance was indeed interrupted by his illness, he died in bed a few hours later.

* Comedian Harry "Parkyakarkus" Parke -- the father of comedians Creator/AlbertBrooks and Bob Einstein, aka Super Dave Osborne -- had a heart attack and slumped into Milton Berle's lap while on stage for the 1958 Friar's Club Roast of [[Series/ILoveLucy Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz]]. An attempt to restart his heart after he was carried offstage was unsuccessful.
* Swedish comedian and actor Lasse Eriksson died on stage on March 3rd, 2011. At the end of his last performance, he collapsed and was brought to the nearest hospital, less than a mile away, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

* During a production shoot on location in the Philippines for the Creator/ChuckNorris film ''Film/BraddockMissingInActionIII'', a Philippine 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.

* The 1928 production ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah%27s_Ark_%281928_film%29 Noah's Ark]]'', directed by Creator/MichaelCurtiz, had three stuntmen drowning in the scene of the flood (plus [[TroubledProduction the main actress getting pneumonia, one of the actors breaking two ribs, and an extra needing a leg amputation]]). This film directly led to the creation of the Screen Actors Guild to prevent such a thing from happening again.

* H.B. Halicki was crushed by a telephone pole felled by a broken cable during the filming of an unfinished sequel to the original ''Film/{{Gone in Sixty Seconds|1974}}''.

* Almost all of the crew of the German Mockumentary "Bunkerlow" died in a plane crash in 1991. They were filming a satire about a weapon sales trip with a plane when the pilot, distracted by the filming, lost orientation and crashed into a mountain. The only passenger left unharmed was the sound engineer, who had set up his recording equipment in the plane's toilet.

* Creator/SteveIrwin was filming his own documentary, ''Ocean's Deadliest,'' when he was fatally stabbed in the chest by a stingray spine while snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef. Irwin was completely unaware of the stingray's presence until it stabbed him. The episode being filmed wasn't about stingrays, and Irwin had gone snorkeling during a break in filming to get B-roll footage for his daughter Bindi's show ''Bindi the Jungle Girl''. And stingrays aren't even all that dangerous; they're usually quite docile unless you step on one. Even then, while painful, the sting isn't deadly. It just happened to stab him in the heart, and on top of that Irwin instinctively pulled the stinger out, leading him to bleed to death.

* Boris Sagal, director of ''Film/TheOmegaMan'' and father of actress Katey Sagal, died like Vic Morrow; he was nearly decapitated when he walked into a helicopter blade during the filming of the miniseries ''Series/WorldWarIII''.
* In 1986, a man named Michael Lush fell to his death while rehearsing a bungee stunt for Creator/TheBBC's VarietyShow ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Late,_Late_Breakfast_Show The Late Late Breakfast Show]]'', which included an item called "the Whirly Wheel" in which audience members were trained to do a different stunt each week. The death followed at least two potentially fatal screw-ups involving earlier contestants, which had been covered up or {{played for laughs}} (one woman was injured doing a human cannonball act, and a car jumping act led to one vehicle crashing into a crowd, and a second landing on its roof and leaving the contestant with multiple injuries). The show was cancelled immediately and the scandal nearly ruined presenter Noel Edmonds' career. Lush's death prompted a serious tightening of safety regulations for all stunt sequences on BBC shows and a total ban on dangerous stunts involving members of the public.

* R&B singer Johnny Ace was taking a break backstage between sets at a concert in Texas on Christmas Day 1954 when he was playing with a revolver, declaring that he knew which chamber was loaded. He pointed it at his head and fired, killing him.

* Ty Longley, guitarist for the band Great White was on stage in West Warwick, Rhode Island when pyrotechnics used by the band's crew created a spray of sparks that ignited the foam soundproofing material in the ceiling around the stage. 100 people died in [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Station_nightclub_fire the resulting fire]], including Longley.

* R&B singer Music/{{Aaliyah}} died in a plane crash while leaving UsefulNotes/TheBahamas after filming the music video for "Rock The Boat". It becomes a little chilling watching the making-the-video special she filmed with Creator/{{BET}}; the end where she bids the BET crew farewell and leaves the set was the last time she was seen alive on camera.

* Wrestling/OwenHart 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 Wrestling/HulkHogan parody character 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 Wrestling/{{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. According to rumor, this was because he was ''supposed'' to end the stunt by coming off the rig a few feet above the ground and falling on his face (on the mat, not the top rope), in keeping with his character persona of being bumbling and incompetent. However, the riggers failed to recognize that they also needed to ensure it ''wouldn't'' release when it ''wasn't'' supposed to, and what Hart ended up with was a rig that was ''so'' easy to release that it was an accident waiting to happen (Hart's family would later allege that the WWE hired unqualified riggers in order to save on costs rather than pay the higher price for qualified experts who would have known better). 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.

* On March 21, 2015, in ''AAA'', Wrestling/ReyMysterioJr attempted to set up Perro Aguayo Jr. for his patented 619 maneuver, but Aguayo's neck snapped when it hit the ropes. Wrestling/{{Konnan}} tried to revive him, but Aguayo was pronounced dead in the hospital a few hours later.
* On October 21, 2019, Jesús Alfonso Huerta Escoboza AKA La Parka II (a LegacyCharacter to the original Wrestling/LaParka) missed a Suicide Dive and landed on the floor head first. He was rushed to the hospital where he was found to be paralyzed. On January 11, 2020, he passed away from complications due to his injuries.

** Ironically, Austrian tenor Josef Mann, who had been set to cover for Caruso during his illness (it was presumed he'd recover), really did die onstage during a performance of ''Theatre/AidaVerdi'' September 5, 1921.

* Brazilian dubber José de Magalhães Graça died from a heart attack in 1989, while recording his lines for Duckworth from ''WesternAnimation/Ducktales1987''.

* In the first season of ''Series/LasVegas'', Creator/JeanClaudeVanDamme makes an appearance and gets killed off in a sabotaged stunt.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' pokes fun at this trope and TheScottishTrope in one fell swoop during "The Regina Monologues", when the family meets Sir Creator/IanMcKellen and Homer doesn't catch on to the matter at all.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' episode "Sing a Song of Patrick", a radio studio promised to record a song in a newspaper ad. Patrick sent them "I Wrote This", an ''atrociously'' bad meandering pile of nonsense that is barely a song at best. So bad, it ''killed'' the band at the radio studio to produce a record.

* Ustad Bijon Chowdhury, while playing the Tabla (a percussion instrument used in classical music in the Indian subcontinent) during a live concert died in the middle of a performance with his hands still on his instrument.