Alec Baldwin prop gun fumble: A look at past Hollywood accidental deaths

The death of the 42-year-old director of photography Halyna
Hutchins on the sets of Alec Baldwin’s movie “Rust” in New Mexico
after Baldwin discharged a prop gun has made the world look into other tragic
incidents that have occurred on the movie sets.

There have been multiple other cases of deaths of cast and crew
from accidents during the production of movies and the death of the Ukrainian
national is the latest in that tragic line.

Some of the accidents include:

Brandon Lee

Actor Brandon Lee, son of the renowned martial arts master
and actor Bruce Lee, died in 1993 at the age of 28 while filming the final
scenes of the movie “The Crow. His death was also caused by a prop gun.

It was actor Michael Massee who had fired at Lee during a
scene with the gun. Investigation later found that the prop gun that was used
in the scene was improperly loaded. The gun had its dummy bullets replaced with
cardboard wadding, but a portion from one of the dummy bullets had broken off
and remained in the gun. The metal tip hit Lee’s abdomen and killed him.

Also read: What is a prop gun, that Alec Baldwin fired to accidentally kill crew member?

Vic Morrow

Actor Vic Morrow was killed along with two child actors while filming a scene for the movie “Twilight Zone: The Movie”. The trio was being filmed fleeing from a village during the Vietnam War while a US Army helicopter hovered over them.  

The helicopter crashed due to a pyrotechnic explosion and fell on Morrow, who was 53, and the child actors. The trio was killed on the spot.

Charges of involuntary manslaughter were framed against Director John Landis, the pilot, and three others. All were acquitted from the charges following a high-profile trial that lasted almost nine months.

Jon-Erik Hexum

Jon-Erik Hexum had accidentally shot himself in the head on the sets of the TV series “Cover Up” in which he was cast to play Mac Harper, a CIA operative posing as
a male model.

Hexum reportedly was playing around
with a prop gun from a scene when he shot himself in the head in 1984.

A piece of his skull went into his brain. He
was taken off of life support a week later and declared dead.