Lights, camera, OUCH!
MARION McMULLEN looks back at the Hollywood stars who have truly suffered for their art
FILMING on the latest Mission Impossible film has been halted after its star Tom Cruise broke his ankle while filming a stunt. He’s the latest in a long line of movie stars who have been injured on set. In fact, stepping in front of a camera has been a risky business since the early days of cinema.
Silent movie star Buster Keaton was also famous for doing his own stunts and risked his life many times doing dangerous scenes like the falling two storey house stunt in Steamboat Bill, Jr in 1928.
He unknowingly broke his neck while filming Sherlock Jr in 1924 and two years later his comedy classic The General saw him knocked unconscious following real cannon explosions during a battle scene. A trade paper advert for the movie proclaimed: “Buster drives ‘The General’ to trainload of laughter” and Keaton himself once said: “Railroads are a great prop. You can do some awful wild things with railroads.”
Fellow silent movie comedy star Harold Lloyd lost his right thumb and forefinger and was temporarily blinded when a prop bomb exploded during publicity for his 1920 film Haunted Spooks. He concealed the disability for the rest of his career by wearing fleshcoloured prosthetic gloves.
Playing the Wicked Witch Of The West in 1939 musical The Wizard Of Oz proved hazardous for Margaret Hamilton. She was badly burned when a special trapdoor vanishing effect went wrong and she was off the film for a month recuperating. She said afterwards: “I won’t sue, because I know how this business works, and I would never work again. I will return to work on one condition – no more fire work!”
Orson Welles had to spend two weeks in a wheelchair when he tripped down a staircase filming 1941’s Citizen Kane and chipped his anklebone. He wore metal braces when he had to stand on-screen, but also injured his hands during filming when his character had to destroy a room.
Laurence Harvey broke his foot when a cannon rolled over it during filming of a battle scene for 1960 movie The Alamo, with John Wayne. The British actor apparently carried on filming and then later treated the injury himself.
Fellow Brit David Niven ended up in hospital after suffering an infection from a split lip while filming in a water tank for wartime thriller The Guns Of Navarone in 1961. The injury halted production for a month, but he returned to finish the film before he had fully recovered and spent another seven weeks in hospital after suffering a relapse.
The blockbuster Lawrence Of Arabia in 1962 made Peter O’Toole an international star, but he nearly died after he was thrown from his camel when he accidentally let a gun off next to its head during a battle scene. He was also left with a bloody and bruised rear the first time he tried to ride a camel and warned his instructor: “This is a very delicate Irish a*se.”
A brainwashing scene in A Clockwork Orange in 1971 left Malcolm McDowell with a scratched cornea and temporary blindness, while Ellen Burstyn suffered serious neck injuries while filming The Exorcist in 1973 in a clash with her possessed daughter.
Publicity for 1981 film Roar proclaimed: “No animals were harmed in the making of this film – 70 cast and crew members were.”
The movie was a health and safety nightmare and leading actress and animal rights activist Tippi Hedren was among those hurt. She needed 38 stitches after being bitten on the neck by a lion and broke her leg and suffered scalp wounds after an elephant bucked her off its back.
Tippi said: “Let me tell you, it hurts when you’re bitten by a lion. It’s not only that you may have an open, gaping wound, plus shock, but the pressure of those enormous jaws is so strong that it hurts.”
However, when it comes to movie injuries, it is hard to beat Jackie Chan. The martial arts expert performs his own stunts and has broken nearly every bone in his body over the years. He says being accidentally hit in the face by Bruce Lee during filming of Enter The Dragon in 1973 was the most painful injury.
“The ads all call me fearless, but that’s just publicity,” says the Rush Hour star. “Anyone who thinks I’m not scared out of my mind whenever I do one of my stunts is crazier than I am.”