Some of the most famous people in the world are the same ones who died in very odd, and sometimes unbelievable, ways.
The prop gun that wasn’t safe
Filming a movie comes with all sorts of dangers. But the set of The Crow was something else. Actor Brandon Lee was right in the middle of filming on March 31, 1993, when a prop gun caused a serious accident.
Another actor fired a revolver loaded with blanks. But he didn’t realize that a piece from an earlier dummy round was still lodged inside, so the blank ended up forcing it out. Lee died at the hospital hours later.
The scene went off course
The set of Twilight Zone: The Movie was equally as dangerous. Vic Morrow was filming action scenes near Saugus, California, on July 23, 1982, alongside two child actors. The scenes featured a helicopter, explosions, and actors running through water. But then disaster struck.
Morrow was carrying the children when pyrotechnics damaged a low-flying helicopter. It crashed directly into the filming area and onto the actors. All three of them died on impact, and the whole thing happened while the cameras were rolling.
One last enormous stunt
Toby Halicki was an actor who liked to destroy things for movies. He was behind the original Gone in 60 Seconds in 1974 and became pretty famous for the film’s giant car-chase sequences. That’s why a collapsing water tower probably didn’t seem too strange.
Halicki was preparing Gone in 60 Seconds II in Buffalo in August 1989 and was filming a stunt when the water tower was supposed to fall to the ground. But it didn’t go as planned. A cable snapped and pulled down a telephone pole. The pole struck him, and he died instantly.
The wire finally won
You wouldn’t think a performer like Karl Wallenda would keep doing shows at 73. But that’s exactly what he did. He was the leader of the famous daredevil group the Great Wallendas, and he’d had quite the experience of being on a high wire.Â
On March 22, 1978, Wallenda stepped onto a wire around 120 feet above the ground between hotel towers in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Wallenda didn’t seem to account for the weather, though. The winds were especially strong that day, and partway across, he lost his balance. He fell and landed on a taxi.
A solo run through the trees
Singer Sonny Bono had made one of the strangest transitions in the celebrity world. He went from pop music to politics after being one half of Sonny & Cher, and became mayor of Palm Springs. He even won a seat in Congress.Â
Bono was skiing on January 5, 1998, at Heavenly Ski Resort in Lake Tahoe when he left the marked trail. Big mistake. Bono entered a wooded area alone and hit a tree at an estimated 20 to 30 mph and was killed. He was 62.
The gift that came back
The weirdest detail about Marvin Gaye’s death isn’t simply that his father killed him. No, it was the fact that he was killed with his own gift. The Motown singer was staying at his parents’ Los Angeles home on April 1, 1984, when an argument broke out.
The conflict between Gaye and his father, Marvin Gay Sr., became physical, and his father later shot his son with a .38-caliber handgun. It was the same gun Gaye had bought for his father before. Gaye died just a day before his 45th birthday.
An NHL game turned fatal
The game on January 13, 1968, should’ve been another NHL game for Canadian hockey star Bill Masterton. It ended up costing him his life. He was a center for the then-newly formed Minnesota North Stars, and they were playing the Oakland Seals. Masterton fell backward during the game and struck his head on the ice.Â
This was during the days when helmets weren’t as common as they are today. Masterton never regained consciousness and died two days later at 29, being the only NHL player to have died directly from injuries during a league game.
A very unusual plane
John Denver was a singer who loved flying almost as much as he loved music. That’s why he was piloting the aircraft himself on October 12, 1997. The original singer of ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads’ had recently bought a small home-built, experimental plane.
He took off from Monterey, California, and practiced several landings before heading over the coast. But then the aircraft plunged into Monterey Bay near Pacific Grove, and Denver died. It was a very theatrical death for a very theatrical man.
The plane came back toward the bus
Randy Rhoads was in Leesburg, Florida, to play guitar for rock artist Ozzy Osbourne on March 19, 1982. The tour-bus driver, Andrew Aycock, decided that he was going to take a small plane up. He wasn’t authorized to do so, but still, he did it anyway, and invited Rhoads to join. Makeup artist Rachel Youngblood went along, too.
Aycock began making low passes in the plane over the tour bus. It all seemed like fun, until one pass led to a wing clipping the bus itself. The plane crashed into a tree and then a nearby building. All three people aboard were killed.
A small fall became deadly
You’d expect an action star like William Holden to have an equally dramatic death. But no, there was no movie-set accident or high-speed crash for the Oscar-winning star. He was alone inside his Santa Monica apartment in November 1981 when he apparently tripped on a throw rug.
Holden then hit his forehead on the sharp edge of a bedside table, and the injury caused severe bleeding. There was nobody there to help him, and he died alone. His body wasn’t discovered until several days later.
The applause had just ended
Comedian Harry Einstein was better known as Parkyakarkus, and he performed at a Friars Club event at the Beverly Hilton on November 23, 1958. The event was in honor of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. The audience loved his set so much, in fact, that they gave him a standing ovation.
Einstein sat down in a chair after his set was done and suffered a heart attack. He died that very night at 54, not long after one of the strongest performances of his career. What a way to go.
Two cars, one crossing
As an actor, Orson Bean refused to let his age stop him, and he continued working even when he was 91 years old. February 7, 2020, seemed like another normal day out for him. He was crossing Venice Boulevard in Los Angeles on his way to see a play when a Honda Civic struck him outside a marked crosswalk. But it didn’t end there.
Bean fell into the roadway, and then a second vehicle, a Toyota Prius, struck him, too. Yes, he was hit by two cars in the same night. The longtime panelist on To Tell the Truth and actor from Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman died there and then.
The joke stopped being a joke
Redd Foxx made many jokes about his health. He’d practically trained audiences not to take him seriously when he played Fred Sanford on Sanford and Son. One of his running gags involved him clutching his chest and staggering around. He’d then announce that ‘the big one’ was coming to get some sympathy.Â
That’s exactly what happened on October 11, 1991, when he was rehearsing The Royal Family at Paramount Studios. Foxx collapsed, and people initially thought he was doing the old routine again. But it was real. Foxx was taken to the hospital and died later that evening.
One strange fight before home
Star of the 1977 movie Eraserhead, Jack Nance was having what seemed like an ordinary argument on December 29, 1996. He got into a fight with two men near a donut shop in South Pasadena and was punched in the head. Nance went home afterward.
He told his friends that he’d been involved in a fight, but nobody thought anything of it. But then one of his friends found him dead inside his house. He’d died from blunt-force injuries to his head that may have been caused by a fight. That means he died from a fight outside a donut shop. How strange.Â
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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