Movie Scenes That Actually Killed Stunt Actors

Shark attacks, mid-air collisions, and  plummeting to their death. Unfortunately, these stunt actors lost their lives  making these movie scenes a reality. Harry O'Connor, who served as a stunt  double for Vin Diesel in "xXx," died on the Prague set of the film while performing a  paragliding stunt in his place. An experienced skydiver and stunt performer who'd joined  the industry after retiring as a Navy SEAL, O'Connor reportedly collided with a pillar  of the Palacky Bridge while paragliding

and broke his neck in the process before  passing away. It was his second effort to complete the stunt, the first of which  was successful and used in the movie. Director Rob Cohen later  said on his commentary track, "We had 500 stuntmen involved with this picture;  499 didn't get a scratch. It shows you the lengths to which we will go to bring this kind of  intense experience to the viewer. Stuntmen know they are in danger. They make their  living through danger. Most of the time, it's all rig

ht. Sometimes,  unfortunately, it isn't." O'Connor was 44. "You are America's best. Make us proud." Stunt pilot Art Scholl had become internationally  renowned for his aerial stunt work in films like "Blue Thunder" and "The Right Stuff" before he was  selected to complete an inverted air stunt that would become a big part of the storyline in "Top  Gun." According to The Los Angeles Times, Scholl was heard relaying his in-air troubles during  production on the scene, saying on his radio, "I've go

t a problem here." Scholl was highly skilled at the maneuver,  so colleagues concluded that there must have been a mechanical failure that  caused his vessel to crash. However, neither he nor his plane were recovered  from the debris, despite a search effort, so the details leading up  to his death are unknown. The mystery that surrounds the  failure that cost him his life still lingers with his widow, Judy  Scholl, who told The Daily Mail, "Art didn't say what the problem was. This is  the one

thing I'm not happy about with him. So I don't know if he had a control failure,  where maybe the camera jammed into the flight controls. Or whether he had an issue with  the flight controls where he wasn't able to get the airplane out of the flat spin or  whether he was disorientated. He didn't say." Scholl was 53. In one of the grisliest accidents to ever  occur on a Hollywood set, stuntman Jose Marco, a double for Burt Reynolds, was brutally attacked  by a real-life shark while shooting an un

derwater scene for "Shark!" Marco was filming alongside  a subdued bull shark in scuba gear when a great white managed to make it through the nets  protecting the area from the rest of the sea and charged at the camera crew before launching at  Marco and disemboweling the actor where he swam. Crew members tried to steer the shark away from  Marco with spears, but the animal was undeterred, and the stuntman's resulting injuries were  so severe that he died shortly after being transported to the h

ospital. The incident  was catastrophic, but producers wanted to and ultimately did use the footage of Marco's death  in the movie, along with publicizing the incident as a marketing push. Director Samuel Fuller  was so disgusted that he disavowed the movie, unsuccessfully attempting to have his name  removed from its credits. Marco was 32. The Vancouver, Canada set of "Deadpool 2" became  the site of a tragedy in August 2017 when a stunt woman named Joi "SJ" Harris was killed while  attempting

to complete a motorcycle sequence for the film. Harris was substituting for  actress Zazie Beetz as the character Domino and was not wearing a helmet during the scene  in question to match the character. Harris had successfully completed the stunt four  times in a row, but on the fifth attempt, she lost control of the vehicle and went  airborne before careening into a glass building. Local news crews reported that she was  treated on site by paramedics after the incident, but was later taken to

the  hospital and ultimately declared dead. In a statement, a rep for 20th  Century Fox said of the incident, "We are deeply saddened by the  accident that occurred on the set of 'Deadpool 2' this morning. Our  hearts and prayers are with the family, friends and colleagues of our crew  member during this difficult time." Lead actor Ryan Reynolds echoed that sentiment,  writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, "We're heartbroken, shocked and devastated  ... but recognize nothing can come close to

the grief and inexplicable pain her family  and loved ones must feel at this moment. My heart pours out to them — along with each  and every person she touched in this world." Angela Bassett's double in "Vampire in Brooklyn"  had invited her mother and siblings to the set of the film to watch her work on the day her  life was cut short. Sonja Davis' mother Wanda Sapp would later reveal that she overheard  her daughter casting doubt on the safety of the stunt she was about to perform during thei

r  fateful visit, telling The Los Angeles Times, "The last words I heard my baby say was when  she yelled down to the stunt coordinator, 'Are you sure?' I could feel Sonja  wasn't comfortable with the stunt." Davis had been performing a 42-foot backward  jump off a building, but rather than landing safely on the airbag that was supposed  to cushion her fall, she instead bounced back into the building before making impact  with the ground, much to her family's horror. Her mother initiated a multi

-million dollar  wrongful death suit against the studio, Paramount Pictures, along with director  Wes Craven and producer/star Eddie Murphy, but the case was ultimately dismissed.  Stunt coordinators on the film would later claim in an oral history of the movie  that Davis didn't perform the jump correctly, but there were also no ambulances on  set during the incident. Davis was 32. "One More! Rest in pieces." The "Expendables" movies were envisioned as  a vehicle for pure action-driven spectacl

e, bringing together the biggest stars in  the genre. Led by Sylvester Stallone, the films have featured such heavyweight action  heroes as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris, Jet Li, Wesley Snipes, and many  more. But with all that action comes the increased risk of disaster, and tragically that's just  what happened on the set of "The Expendables 2." During production of a second unit  water scene on Lake Ognyanova, Bulgaria, stunt actor Kun Liu was killed and fellow  double Nuo

Sun was severely injured when a planned explosion went awry. The pair were riding  on an inflatable rubber raft at the time. Liu was reportedly doubling for Stallone himself,  while Sun was subbing for Jet Li in the second unit shot. Liu was just 26 at the time of his  death and the film was dedicated to his memory. Sun managed to survive his serious  injuries and filed suit against Sylvester Stallone and Millennium  Films for damages. The family of Liu, meanwhile, also pursued wrongful death d

amages  against the parties responsible for the movie, including stunt coordinator Chad Stahelski,  who went on to direct the "John Wick" films. In 2017 it was reported that the plaintiffs  were awarded $195,000 Hong Kong dollars, while Jet Li himself gave $5.8 million  Hong Kong dollars to the stuntman's family. Written and directed by the late schlock auteur  Albert Pyun, the 1982 sword-and-sandal adventure "The Sword and the Sorcerer" starred Lee  Horsley as Prince Talon, who learns he's desc

ended from noble blood and must take on a  powerful and evil wizard. Though it's not one of that decade's most memorable movies in the  genre, it made the news after one of the film's performers — 37-year-old John Hale "Jack" Tyree  — died in a stunt gone wrong during production. Tyree was a veteran of the industry who'd  worked on everything from "Escape From New York" to "History of the World: Part I." He was  filming a scene in Hollywood's Griffith Park for "The Sword and the Sorcerer," in wh

ich he was  to jump from an 80-foot cliff. He unfortunately landed a few feet away from the airbag intended  to cushion his fall, causing severe injuries that eventually cost him his life. As reported by  The Calgary Herald, an official said at the time, "It was definitely a high-risk stunt. But  Jack was a real professional. He had some more difficult high falls before, tougher than the  one he faced [on 'The Sword and the Sorcerer']." Perhaps surprisingly, the stunt  itself was left in the fil

m, despite Tyree's tragic passing, and the  film was dedicated to him in the credits. The James Bond franchise has built a reputation  for its impressive stunts and elaborate action sequences. Each film in the series seems to  attempt to top the one before it, and to do that can sometimes mean making the stunts riskier  and riskier. But by the time the franchise got to its 12th entry in 1981, "For Your Eyes Only,"  the risk-taking may have gone a little too far. To create one skiing and bobsledd

ing chase that  takes place amidst the wintery slopes of Italy, the film involved the use of a four-man bobsled, operated by the second unit director to better  capture footage of the action. Unfortunately, 23-year-old Italian stunt driver Paolo  Rigoni fell off the sleigh and was quickly killed after it overturned and dragged  him underneath. It wasn't the first or last serious injury to happen on the set of  a James Bond film, but it was the deadliest. It's been reported that it was his death

— along  with the death of professional bobsledder James Morgan just a week earlier during the 1981  bobsled world championships — that prompted the decision to shorten the Cortina bobsledding  track, where Rigoni was killed, to make it safer. Filmmaker John Woo was one of the  hottest action directors of the '90s. After a string of groundbreaking  features in his native Hong Kong, Woo was wooed by Hollywood and came over to  helm such favorites as "Hard Target," "Broken Arrow," and "Face/Off."

By the late 2000s,  he was back directing smash hits in China, and one of his first in his return to his homeland  was "Red Cliff," starring Tony Leung. It was the highest-grossing movie of the year in the Middle  Kingdom but came at the cost of a stuntman's life. A period piece about the battle of China's  Three Kingdoms, the set of the film became a deadly inferno when a blaze overtook the  production, claiming the life of stuntman Lu Yanqing and injuring six other crew  members. The accident

took place during a ship battle scene in Xiaotang Shan, just outside  of Beijing. During the filming of the sequence, a smaller vessel engulfed in flames was planned  to collide with a larger ship. But high winds carried the fire to the second ship and the flames  spread uncontrollably, injuring those onboard and killing Yanqing. A statement from the U.S. studio  Lion Rock, which was co-financing the film read, "The crew of 'Red Cliff' is deeply  distraught and full of regret." "Comes a Horseman

" was a 1978 Western starring  Jane Fonda, James Caan, and Jason Robards. Robards starred as Jacob "J.W." Ewing, a rancher  who wants to protect his sprawling valley from big business tycoons who would try to exploit it  for its natural resources. Working as Robards' stunt double was stunt actor Jim Sheppard,  who had a wealth of experience on Westerns like "The Wild Bunch" and "Hour of the Gun," and  even sci-fi outings like "Planet of the Apes." In "Comes a Horseman," Sheppard was filming a  s

cene in which he was supposed to be dragged behind a galloping horse through a fence to  simulate the death and disappearance of Robards' character. However, the horse didn't stick to the  straight path through a gate as planned, and the unexpected equine maneuvers caused Sheppard to be  thrown off, with his head striking a fence post. While he survived the initial blunt head trauma,  he died not long after being hospitalized. The incident sadly occurred on one of the last days  of filming. Alth

ough the scene did cut away from the fatal collision, the 41-year-old Sheppard's  last stunt was still included in the picture. "Hi guys! Colonel McCoy. I  was just in the neighborhood." Though mostly known for his martial arts  movies, Chuck Norris made plenty of military action flicks in the '80s, with "Delta  Force" being one of his most memorable. A surprise cult hit that co-starred  Lee Marvin, it got a sequel in 1990, "Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection."  For the follow-up, it was No

rris headlining the action alone as Major Scott McCoy. But  like many other action films, "Delta Force 2" also saw a deadly helicopter crash during  filming that took the life of a stunt actor. This time, it was in the Philippines,  where the action sequel was shooting, and it sadly wasn't just stuntman Geoff Brewer  who lost his life in the crash. Alongside him were pilots Don Marshall and Jojo Imperiale,  cameraman Gadi Danzig, and key grip Mike Graham. Though only three men died at the scene,

at  least two more succumbed to their injuries, of the nearly a dozen people hospitalized  after the accident. To make matters worse, the production company — notorious low-budget  studio Cannon Films — had seen the deaths of at least 10 people while filming numerous  projects over the course of four years. Another film in a long line that saw deadly  helicopter crashes during production, "Hired to Kill" is — like "Delta Force  II" — a low-budget action movie from 1990, this one starring Brian

Thompson, George Kennedy,  and Oliver Reed. Thompson plays a mercenary who poses as a photographer when he's hired to rescue  a freedom fighter being held behind enemy lines. During filming the year before the movie hit  theaters, a helicopter being used to shoot a mid-air scene crashed, injuring the pilot and  several others, and killing a stunt actor. The actor, Clint Carpenter, had been  a regular stuntman on the kid's action series "V.R. Troopers," and was riding with  a pair of fellow stunt

men. While performing what was later described as a "routine fly-by,"  moving across the camera's field of vision — set up on a rooftop — the vehicle attempted to  make a tight turn. For unexplained reasons, the helicopter failed to achieve the  turn and crashed into a group of trees, killing Carpenter, who was pronounced dead  before he even made it to a nearby hospital. Passengers Michael Kane, pilot Marc Wolff,  and stunt coordinator Mark Cuttin, along with a third unknown stuntman, all susta

ined injuries.  Though they suffered broken ribs, a leg fracture, and a punctured lung among them, they  were able to escape with their lives. "Houston, we have a problem." Before "Apollo 13" in 1995, it was 1983's "The  Right Stuff" that held the title for best film about NASA's space flight program. Oddly  enough, that movie also included "Apollo 13" actor Ed Harris, who plays astronaut John  Glenn. It recounts the years that led up to the launching of the Mercury 7, beginning when  Chuck Yeag

er first broke the sound barrier and includes all the incredibly dangerous  exploits of test pilots like Yeager, Glenn, and Alan Shepard. The film features several  incredible high-flying stunts, and one of them involves a pilot parachuting to safety  from the confines of an experimental aircraft. Unlike in the movie, though, the pilot never  did make it home safely. Performing the scene was stunt actor and Houston native  Joseph Svec, both a veteran of the profession and a qualified parachutist

.  But during the filming of the ejection, Svec inexplicably failed to pull his ripcord, the  parachute never opened, and he plummeted to his death. According to a manager of the California  City Airport where the scene was being filmed, an investigation revealed that nothing was  wrong with Svec's chute, suggesting that it was either a simple error by Svec or that he  somehow lost consciousness during the plunge. In the 1930s, Jack Budlong wasn't strictly a  stunt performer; he was also a profe

ssional horseman and actor. But for the 1941 movie  "They Died With Their Boots On" — a Civil War classic about General Custer that  starred Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, and Gene Lockhart — Budlong was brought in for  the film's sprawling war scenes. Reportedly, Budlong played both Union and Confederate  soldiers at various points in the production, and it was during one sequence when he was in the  Southern grays that the horse rider was killed. Budlong, who is said to have been  a close p

ersonal friend of Flynn, had persuaded the star into getting him a role  as a stunt-performing extra during the film's war scenes. Not much of a veteran stunt  actor, though, Budlong's inexperience may have been what led him to insist on using  a real saber rather than a prop. So when, during filming, his horse began bucking due to  the simulated artillery exploding around them, Budlong was tossed off the animal and landed  right on his very real, very sharp blade. Budlong was taken to a Los Ang

eles  hospital, but it was far too late for him: the saber had punctured his abdomen and  exited via his back. He wasn't the only casualty of filming, though, as the  production of "They Died With Their Boots On" led to countless injuries and  at least two more deaths besides Budlong. "Do you know what is there, waiting beyond  that beach? Immortality! Take it, it's yours!" Brad Pitt's 2004 ancient war movie  "Troy," directed by Wolfgang Peterson, adapted Homer's "Iliad," the epic poem that  dep

icted the historical Trojan War waged between the Greeks and the Spartans. Its filming was also  a massive undertaking and a throwback to epics of the '50s and '60, which meant it had several  large-scale action sequences involving hundreds of extras. It also led to the death of one of  the many stunt actors involved in the production. Stuntman George Camilleri was admitted to a  hospital during filming with "serious trauma" to his ankle, according to the Times of Malta,  while also suffering ch

est pains and shortness of breath. He underwent surgery, but two days  later he was dead. Though initially it wasn't realized that his death had been related to an  on-set accident, a later inquiry traced the cause of Camilleri's death all back to injuries he'd  sustained while filming an action scene on "Troy." An autopsy revealed that Camilleri's death  was caused by pulmonary thromboembolism, with the report stating, "Pulmonary thromboembolism is not an  uncommon complication following trauma

, fracture of the lower leg, surgery  to the lower limb and immobility." According to the investigation, the initial  injury occurred when Calmierri had been jumping over the side of a galleon. But  mixed signals between extras led to him making an error and jumping from the wrong  spot, which he hadn't been prepared for. The 1965 film "The Flight of the Phoenix"  starred James Stewart as a pilot whose plane crashes in the Sahara. Desperately  trying to keep himself, his crew and his passengers

alive in the remote desert, his  only hope is a passenger whose experience as an aircraft designer has him convinced they  can build a new plane out of spare parts from the wreck. It's a nail-biting tale of adventure  and survival, but in the making of the movie, a famed stunt pilot who was hired to make  risky aerial maneuvers lost his life. An experienced racing pilot who'd  worked in Hollywood since the 1930s, Paul Mantz was well-known for helping  Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan

prepare for their first attempt  to circumnavigate the globe. He was practically pilot royalty in his day,  but that didn't mean he was invincible. During filming of "The Flight of the Phoenix," he  was flying low in a sequence meant to simulate a take-off when something went wrong and the  plane crashed, killing him. Ironically, it wasn't even Mantz who was supposed to be  behind the controls that day, but his partner Frank Tallman. At the last minute, though,  Tallman injured his knee and Man

tz filled in. With Mantz's death, "The Flight of the  Phoenix" may have been a cursed production: In 2004, Dennis Quaid starred in a remake  that seriously injured cameraman Ciaran Barry. He received a million-dollar  settlement, though no one was killed. Movies about dangerous professions are  inherently going to involve precarious stunts, so when it came time to film a story  about the construction of a skyscraper, there was extra danger involved. Experienced  stuntman A.J. Bakunas was doublin

g for lead actor George Kennedy on the Lexington, Kentucky  set of "Steel" when tragedy struck. In the scene, he attempted a daring drop that  would feature him plunging from the top of a high-rise to simulate the  falling death of Kennedy's character. Bakunas was a well-known name in the industry  long before he went to work on the film. By all accounts, he had been preparing for the jump for  weeks and decided to increase the length of his fall to 323 feet instead of the ninth-story leap  he'd

already completed. He wasn't doing it to make the stunt more impressive, but instead simply  hoping to top a stunt performed on another set by rival stuntman Dar Robinson — who was still  nearly a decade away from his own fatal stunt. Bakunas completed the jump as planned, but the  airbag below ruptured, injuring him critically right in front of a massive crowd of spectators  who had assembled to watch the stunt. The actor was still alive and conscious as he was  rushed to the emergency room an

d treated, but he eventually succumbed to  his injuries. Bakunas was only 27. "One thing I'd like to know. Are  world records worth the risk?" Movies involving high-flying aircraft action can  be fraught with danger and typically require the skills of talented stunt pilots who can pull off  death-defying maneuvers. That was the case with "Von Richthofen and Brown," a 1971 World War I  epic about one of the greatest flying aces that history has ever known. A passion project for  director Roger Co

rman, who put up much of the financing himself, the film was shot in Ireland  and told the story of Manfred von Richthofen, also known as "The Red Baron," and the pilot Roy  Brown, who took him down. Filming the intense dogfights, though, led to a mid-air collision  that killed stuntman Charles Boddington. Following the incident, the Irish  government decided to shut down the production's aerial scenes that Corman  had scheduled for Weston Airfield, not far from Dublin. According to contemporary

  accounts, Boddington's disastrous crash in the sky wasn't even the last accident during  filming. Just a day later, pilot Lynn Garrison and actor Don Stroud received injuries after an  unscheduled crash landing in the Liffey River. It probably isn't much of a surprise to learn  that there have been some mishaps on the sets of movies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. After  all, the overly-muscled body builder-turned-actor is known for his explosive action movies,  from science fiction and fantas

y to military thrillers. In 1988, filming on his buddy cop  action-comedy "Red Heat" went a little too far even by Arnold's standards, resulting in  the death of stunt actor Bennie Dobbins. The film, which was dedicated to Dobbins,  had Arnold in the role of a Russian military captain named Ivan Danko. He's sent to  Chicago where he teams up with a local cop after they realize they're both looking for  the same criminal. Filled with guns-blazing shootouts and bare-knuckle brawls, "Red Heat"  is

an underrated Arnie classic. But filming one scene that involved the "Terminator" star  duking it out hand-to-hand with a stunt man, who wasn't Dobbins, led to a  death in an unexpected way. During the scene, Dobbins was serving as  the stunt coordinator, helping stage the scene with his two actors when he suddenly  collapsed. Suffering a fatal heart attack, Dobbins was airlifted to a local hospital  but didn't survive. He was 55 years old, and left behind work in many action classics like  "Fir

st Blood," "Commando," and "The Running Man." "It's time to start running!"