Baldwin and gun victim inside the film-set chapel of death
Revolver ‘was used for live target practice hours before she died’
sTAnding just a few feet from Alec Baldwin, this is cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in the last photo of her at work on the set where the actor would later shoot her fatally.
it was released by serge svetnoy, chief electrician on the western Rust, who says he held his dying friend in his arms after she was hit in the chest.
director Joel souza, who was hurt in the accident last Thursday, said Baldwin, 63, had been rehearsing drawing his revolver and firing at the camera.
But it was claimed yesterday that crew members had used the same gun for target practice with live rounds hours before he shot the 42-year-old mother of one. industry website The Wrap said they went ‘plinking’ – shooting at cans with real bullets – that morning.
At the time, filming had been delayed after some crew walked out over pay and conditions, including gun safety fears.
Mr souza told police three guns laid out for the scene were checked that morning – but he was unsure if they were rechecked before the fatal scene.
Mr svetnoy said Baldwin – as the film’s co-producer and co-writer – ‘has to live with the thought that he took the life of the human because of unprofessional people’.
The spotlight has focused on assistant director dave Halls, who gave Baldwin the gun and said it was ‘cold’ – or unloaded. Halls was removed from the set of a previous film, Freedom’s Path, in 2019 after a prop gun went off accidentally and a crew member was hurt. Ex-colleagues claimed he was a bully and ‘flippant’ about gun safety.
Rust was also only 24-year-old Hannah gutierrez’s second movie as head armourer. Extra ian Hudson said yesterday the cast often had to check guns themselves.
Hollywood prop master neal Zoromski said he refused to take a job on Rust after getting a ‘bad feeling’ about it, telling the Los Angeles Times the film was ‘an accident waiting to happen’.
Police have taken spent casings as well as loose and boxed ammo from the set in new Mexico. But it is still not known whether Mrs Hutchins was hit by a real bullet, a blank or some other projectile.
Rust Productions insisted safety was its ‘top priority’, and said it would review procedures. it claimed it was not aware of complaints about gun safety on set.
donald Trump’s son, donald Jnr, is selling £20 T-shirts on his website that say ‘guns don’t kill people, Alec Baldwin kills people’ – apparently payback for the star’s TV parodies of the ex-President.
‘Accident waiting to happen’
THE history books will record his glittering achievements as a manager. But Walter Smith’s true worth might be summed up by one moving event as far removed from his beloved Ibrox as it is possible to imagine.
In 2008, when Smith was in his second spell as Rangers manager, he and his thenassistant, Ally McCoist, acted as proud pallbearers at the Catholic funeral of Celtic great Tommy Burns in Glasgow.
Celtic fans who gathered outside St Mary’s of the Assumption that day might have wondered at two men so profoundly committed to the Ibrox club’s cause taking such prominent roles in the burial of such a faithful servant of Parkhead.
At the time, Rangers were preparing for a last-day dogfight with Celtic to win that year’s SPL championship but none of that mattered as Smith and McCoist accompanied Burns on his final journey.
For them, this was no empty gesture across the divide. They were there to show their love and respect for a man they cherished as a friend and fellow football man.
It spoke volumes, therefore, that when Smith’s own sad death was announced yesterday, the Celtic hierarchy tweeted the ‘devastating news’ alongside a picture of Smith and Burns, who had formed their close bond during Smith’s tenure as Scotland manager.
Some footballing figureheads polarise opinion, but the heartfelt tributes which have poured in have been notable for the warm regard in which supporters of all hues held the man known affectionately to Ibrox fans as ‘Sir’ Walter.
An intensely private man, those who knew him best were quick to highlight Smith’s many qualities as a human being. Sir Alex Ferguson described his ‘strong moral compass’, adding that in all the long years of their friendship, he found in him ‘a man with great integrity’. Sir Alex added: ‘He treated people well. He lived his life well, too. He was superb, too, in the friendship he offered so many people. I was very grateful to be part of that. I value that.’
Many of those he coached, McCoist included, pointed to him as a ‘second father’. Even that most wayward of sons, Paul Gascoigne, who occasionally found himself pinned to the changing room walls by his Armani lapels by an infuriated manager, heaped praise on his mentor: ‘I really looked up to Walter, he gave me something to smile about again with football and he supported me like a father figure whilst at Rangers,’ he said.
IN the pantheon of Scottish managers, he will be hailed a colossus. Among Ibrox’s finest, few can hold a candle to the legend who guided the club for the bulk of its nine-in-a row era from 1989 to 1997 and, later, the 2008 Uefa Cup final. In between those two spells, he managed Everton and the Scotland national team.
But in his heart, he remained true to the club he yearned to play for as a boy and where he narrowly avoided becoming a victim of the Ibrox disaster as a fan.
Born in Lanark on February 24, 1948, Smith grew up a Rangers fan in Carmyle, in Glasgow’s East End, his passion for the club passed down by ‘a much-loved grandfather, old Jock’, who took him to his first Ibrox match aged five.
He once recalled: ‘My childhood in Carmyle was a very happy one and football was a massive part of our lives.
‘There was a park just up the street from where we lived called the Orchard and, as soon as my brother Ian and I came in from school, we would run up there to get involved in a game of football.
‘From the moment you got there until it was dark there would be three or four games on the go and you would usually come up against grown men who wouldn’t hold back. It certainly toughened you up.’
That toughness would help him endure the disappointment of being passed over by Rangers. He signed as a defender for
Dundee United in 1966, while still an apprentice electrician.
He played in the United side which lost 3-0 to Celtic in the 1974 Scottish Cup final and despite playing for the Tannadice outfit, he could still be found supporting his boyhood team at Ibrox.
Such loyalty very nearly cost him his life in the Ibrox disaster on January 2, 1971, in which 66 Rangers fans died in a crush following an Old Firm game.
He headed down the fateful Stairway 13 a matter of seconds before Colin Stein scored a late equaliser, sparking scenes of jubilation among the home support.
He remembered: ‘My brother and I were about a third of the way down the stairs. I think the majority of the people who died were further down the stairs, so when we found out later what happened we realised how fortunate we had been.’
After a spell at Dumbarton, Smith returned to Tannadice in 1977 but, after a pelvic injury curtailed his playing career at the age of 29, he made his name as a coach under Jim McLean. The duo made a formidable pair as United won the Premier League in 1983 and reached the European Cup semi-final in 1984.
McLean was known for his temper, but former Dundee United and Scotland forward Kevin Gallacher remembers Smith as the more combustible of the two.
While an apprentice at the club, Gallacher said Smith accused him of not cleaning the first team’s boots properly. ‘Walter got me in the boot room and gave me what for,’ he said. ‘He was ferocious when he was angry and the players feared him even more than they did McLean.’
The ‘Walter glare’ became a feared weapon deployed against not just wayward players but sports reporters deemed to have overstepped the mark.
Smith’s credentials as a coach soon became highly rated, serving as assistant to Scotland manager Alex Ferguson at the 1986 World Cup. By that time it had been announced he would be moving to Rangers as assistant to Graeme Souness.
SOUnESS once referred to Smith as his ‘best ever signing’, and after succeeding him, Smith stamped his own authority on the club and the Scottish game by pulling off a major coup, capturing Gascoigne from Lazio for £4.3million.
With his star rarely far from the tabloid front pages, Smith revealed how he kept ‘Gazza’ on a tight rein: ‘Generally you have a coach and you have a team. The team plays for you, the manager,’ he said. ‘But, in Paul’s case, we had to play for him; we had to live with all his foibles and his eccentricities to get that little bit of genius into our team.’
Such shrewd insight brought its rewards and Smith won 13 major trophies in seven years, including the domestic treble in 1993.
Smith was awarded an OBE in October 1997 for services to football. He collected it proudly at Buckingham Palace with his loyal wife, Ethel, by his side.
But an era was ending. Smith left Ibrox in 1998 after Celtic prevented their rivals claiming a tenth straight title.
After four seasons at Everton and a brief stint as assistant to Ferguson at Manchester United, he was appointed Scotland manager in December 2004.
Retaining Tommy Burns from his predecessor Bertie Vogts’s staff, he later explained it was a coaching decision and had ‘nothing to do with the Rangers and Celtic thing’. nevertheless, a close friendship blossomed: ‘I only got to know [Tommy] during that time and while I still feel fortunate, I’d like that to have lasted a lot longer,’ he said.
Despite reviving the national team’s fortunes, leading them to a memorable 1-0 win over France in a Euro 2008 qualifier at Hampden and marching them 70 places up Fifa’s world rankings, he resigned in January 2007 when Rangers once again came calling.
He went on to win eight more trophies with Rangers and guided them to the 2008 Uefa Cup final, losing 2-0 to Zenit St Petersburg.
Smith retired from management aged 63 in 2011, saying ‘the time is right’. A deeply private man away from football, he loved nothing more than enjoying the company of family.
Earlier this year, he had surgery for an unspecified medical condition. His determination to keep his illness private meant his death came as a shock.
Like his great friend Tommy Burns, his funeral is bound to attract many notables from football and beyond. They will come because of what Walter Smith meant to them, as a friend, a mentor and a father figure.
He treated people well. He lived his life well, too