Behind the glamour, filming for Hollywood movies is notoriously dangerous, with plane crashes, explosions, falling structures and high speed chases all responsible for cutting short the lives of stunt doubles, actors and directors.
This was brought into sharp focus again on Thursday by the death of photography director Halyna Hutchins who was accidentally killed by Alec Baldwin with a prop gun on set in New Mexico.
The circumstances of how the weapon fired a lethal projectile remain unclear, but blank rounds are known for being sealed with paper wadding to build up pressure which can lead to fatal injury due to the hot gasses and unburned powder expelled.
Actor Jon-Erik Hexum died on the set of TV series Cover Up in 1984 when he accidentally shot himself while playing with a prop gun between takes, not realising it was still loaded with blanks. Wadding struck him in the temple, fracturing his skull and causing brain hemorrhaging which proved fatal.
The tragedy has grim echoes of the blank round that killed actor Brandon Lee on the set of the 1994 film The Crow, who was killed when a fragment of bullet lodged inside the gun was discharged when a blank was fired. It struck his abdomen with the same force as a live round.
Often stunt doubles are used for the most dangerous action, putting their lives on the line for the perfect shot, scaling heights, flying planes low to the ground and hanging out of moving vehicles.
But film sets, with explosives, falling buildings and vertigo-inducing staging locations, have also claimed the lives of actors, directors and crew members.
Here MailOnline recalls some of the worst tragedies to strike on set:
The Crow, 1994 – Dummy round kills actor Brandon Lee
Brandon Lee, the son of martial arts icon Bruce Lee, was a rising star before one of the most tragic deaths in Hollywood history cut his life short.
In the scene, Lee’s character walks into his apartment and discovers his fiancée being beaten and raped, before a thug fires a Smith & Wesson Model 629 .44 Magnum revolver at Lee’s character.
In the shooting of an earlier scene, the prop gun – which was a real Smith & Wesson revolver – had been loaded with improperly crafted dummy rounds, cartridges which have the powder charges removed so that in close-ups the revolver appears loaded with normal ammunition.
The crew failed to remove the primer from the cartridges and at some point, prior to the fatal incident, one of the rounds was fired.
Although there was no powder cartridge, the energy from the ignited primer was able to separate the bullet from the casing and push it up into the gun barrel where it got lodged – known as a ‘squib load.’
In the fatal scene, the gun was to be fired from 12ft away, with dummy cartridges being replaced by blanks, containing powder and primer but no bullets.
But the gun was not properly checked and cleared before the blank was fired by the actor playing the thug and the .44 bullet lodged inside the weapon was discharged and struck Lee in the abdomen.
After six hours of unsuccessful emergency surgery, Lee succumbed to his injuries at New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, North Carolina at just 28.
Lee’s relatives took to Twitter Thursday to mourn the tragedy on the set of Baldwin’s movie.
‘Our hearts go out to the family of Halyna Hutchins and to Joel Souza and all involved in the incident on Rust,’ read a tweet from the account, which is run by Lee’s sister Shannon Lee. ‘No one should ever be killed by a gun on a film set. Period.’
Motherless Brooklyn, 2018 – Set fire kills FDNY firefighter
Tragedy struck the set of Edward Norton’s directorial debut Motherless Brooklyn in March 2018, when fire broke out on the set.
The FDNY was called in to contain the blaze, with decorated fireman Michael Davidson, 37, who had been on the FDNY for 15 years, dying on the set.
He had been cited for bravery four times during his tenure, leaving behind a wife and four daughters.
The fire broke out in the basement of 773 St. Nicholas Ave., while the film crew was inside the building on the ground floor, with actors dressed up in period costumes for a scene in the movie, set in the 1950s.
FDNY member Michael Davidson, 37, died while battling the fire, which Norton was first to spot when he spotted smoke coming from the basement of a Harlem building used in the movie
Firefighters tackle the blaze Fire on ‘Motherless Brooklyn’ film set, New York, on March 23, 2018
Tragedy struck the set of Edward Norton’s directorial debut Motherless Brooklyn in March 2018, when fire broke out on the set, killing an FDNY firefighter
The five-story building is home to the former St. Nick’s Jazz Pub, which closed in 2011.
‘We were inside when the fire started and everybody came out panicking’, actress and model Angelica Guillen tweeted after the incident, adding that they ‘were all there and we are safe’ while offering her condolences to Davidson’s family.
Davidson was reportedly the first fireman into the building and suffered serious injuries after becoming separated from his crew.
New York Fire Department Commissioner Daniel Nigro at the time said the blaze had erupted in the basement about 11pm and that crews went down the stairs to fight the fire with Davidson as nozzelman’.
‘They encountered heavy fire and they did the best they could. The fire continued to advance. Units were forced to back out of the building. Somehow while backing out of that building, firefighter Davidson was separated from the rest of the unit.
‘The search ensued. Members tried desperately to find firefighter Davidson and when they did he was unconscious.
‘Despite the best efforts of the members of our fire fighting forces, EMS and here at the hospital, they were unable to revive Michael and he perished.
‘Our entire city mourns his loss.’
It took more than 175 firefighters, and dozens of vehicles to get the fire extinguished by 2.30am the next morning.
The Expendables 2, 2012 – Explosion kills stuntman on rubber boat
The Expendables 2 starred Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jet Li and had an explosion scene filmed on the water in Bulgaria.
Stuntman Ken Lui was killed in October 2011 while performing in a rubber boat on Ognyanovo dam, just outside the capital, Sofia.
The 26-year-old Beijing native did not survive after suffering wounds from a nearby explosion in the Stallone vehicle. Bulgarian press at the time reported that Stallone’s stuntman was seriously injured during the explosion that killed Kun Liu.
Emergency crews arrive at the scene of the explosion scene that killed stuntman Kun Liu during filming of The Expendables 2
First responders at the scene that killed stuntman Kun Liu during filming of The Expendables 2
Millennium films denied reports that the doubles for Stallone and Li had been involved in the accident.
Liu’s parents, Liu Zong Yu Liu and Bai Yan Mei, filed a wrongful death lawsuit in 2012 against Millennium Films and the movie’s stunt coordinator, following their son’s death.
They were eventually awarded HK$195,000 (£19,400) after a protracted court battle lasting four years.
The Twilight Zone: The Movie, 1982 – Vic Morrow and a child actor decapitated by a helicopter’s rotor blades, a second child crushed by the aircraft
The tragic accident that killed actor Vic Morrow and children Myca Dinh Le, 7, and Renee Shin-Yi Chen, 6, resulted in major filming code changes.
The scene was supposed to feature Morrow’s character being transported back to Vietnam, where he was supposed to protect two Vietnamese children.
A helicopter flying above Morrow and the two children was sent crashing to the ground by an ill-timed explosion during filming of a chase scene.
The helicopter fell to the ground, its main rotor blades decapitating Morrow and the child actor Le, while one of the aircraft’s landing skid crushed the second child Chen.
Tragic: The tragic accident that killed actor Vic Morrow and children Myca Dinh Le, 7, and Renee Shin-Yi Chen, 6, resulted in major filming code changes
Deadpool 2, 2017 – Stuntwoman Joi ‘SJ’ Harris dies in motorcycle crash
The production of the highly-anticipated Deadpool sequel was tarnished when stunt motorcycle rider lost control of her bike and fatally crashed.
Joi ‘SJ’ Harris was filming a stunt sequence at Shaw Tower in Vancouver, when she lost control and crashed into a plate glass window.
It was Harris’ first gig as a stunt rider, though she was an experienced rider, and was the first African-American female professional road racer.
Harris was not wearing a helmet at the time of the accident, because her character, Domino, played by Zazie Beetz, didn’t wear one in the scene.
Tragic: The 40-year-old was killed when she lost control of her motorcycle while practicing a stunt on the Vancouver set in August 2017
Details of an investigation report by WorkSafeBC found that the Harris was killed in a freak, low-speed accident.
‘A temporary worksite had been setup to record a film scene for a movie production. The site had been cordoned off from general public and traffic by the Vancouver Police Department,’ the report said.
‘The worker had been rehearsing a stunt scene that involved driving a motorcycle, Dictate 939 Hyperstrada, out of the open doors of a building, across a concrete pad and down a ramp that had been built over three stairs and coming to a stop on the stair landing.’
It went on to say that during the initial shooting of the scene Harris continued driving beyond the planned stopping spot on the stairway landing and continued to drive down a second ramp which was built over the bottom stairs and across the road.
It concluded: ‘The motorcycle struck the concrete sidewalk curb, the worker was thrown off the motorcycle and propelled through a plate glass window of a building.’
Josh Brolin said afterwards: ‘We had somebody pass away on Deadpool 2 and it was an absolute freak accident.
‘The woman was such a wonderful woman … it wasn’t even a stunt, it was a freak accident.
‘It was a terrible thing that happened. Was it a nano-decision that she made in order to save the bike and this, you know what I mean?’ he continued.
‘You could look into it all [these ways], but sometimes things just happen that are tragic.’