Shooting some films turns into tragedies for the actors. And no one can find an explanation for this mysticism
The film about Batman "The Dark Knight" is now breaking all possible records in the world box office. The main reason for the popularity of the tape was the sad story of Heath Ledger, who played the Joker, a tragic bloody jester, in fact a devil. This was his best role, and it was also the last one completed. A couple of months after the end of filming, Ledger died after inadvertently drinking a handful of incompatible sleeping pills and antidepressants. And shortly after the premiere, another actor from The Dark Knight, Morgan Freeman, got into a serious car accident …
We decided to recall other "damn films", which were accompanied at different stages of production by injuries, bruises and tragedies.
Poltergeist
When Steven Spielberg wrote the script for a film about angry spirits in the early 80s, he could not imagine that this picture would become a legend. And really frightening.
Four actors died during the filming of Poltergeist and its two sequels. One - from cancer, the second - due to kidney failure, the third, 12-year-old girl - from a rare Crohn's disease, the fourth was strangled by a jealous groom. They say that when they had a fatal fight, there was another person in the house - a friend of the girl. In order not to hear screams and swearing, he turned on the disc at full power - just with the soundtrack to "Poltergeist".
On the set of films, the situation was also filthy. Actress JoBeth Williams said that every day, when she came home from the set, she found that the photographs hung askew on the walls. She corrected them, but the next day everything was repeated. During the photo shoot for the third part, the face of actress Zelda Rubinstein in one photo was flooded with light; then it turned out that just as the photographer pulled the trigger, her mother died. The house in which the shooting took place was destroyed in 1994 by an earthquake.
Some are looking for an explanation in the fact that in the filming of the first picture, real, and not plastic skeletons were used. The group ordered them from a studio supplying equipment for filming, and did not even suspect that they were really dealing with bones. When this was revealed, the filmmakers were very angry. The adherents of the mystical theory believe that the spirits were just as angry.
Promotional video:
Rosemary's Baby
Roman Polansky's film about a woman who, against her own will, became the mother of Satan's son, the future Antichrist, became a sensation in 1968. A few months later, tragedy struck: a gang of Satanists led by Charles Manson broke into Polansky's house, killing his wife, who was eight months pregnant, and four other people. Manson hadn't even seen Rosemary's Baby. It's just that a producer used to live in this mansion, who refused to record and publish Manson songs. Polansky himself escaped death only because shortly before this bloody massacre he left for London.
In the same 1969, the film composer Krzysztof Komeda died. His death was reminiscent of the circumstances of the death of one of the minor characters in the tape.
Omen
Another film about the little Antichrist, which turned into big trouble for its creators. On the very first day of filming, the car, in which the director and the leading actors were traveling, got into a disaster. Actor Gregory Peck flew to London - and his plane was struck by lightning. The plane did not fall, but then Peck was going to fly to Israel and then he miraculously escaped, canceling the ticket booking at the last moment (the plane crashed and all the passengers died). Another lightning struck the plane on which the screenwriter of the tape was flying. The third lightning nearly killed the film's producer when he was in Rome. For director Richard Donner, the lightning passed, but the hotel in which he was staying became the target of an IRA terrorist attack, and then he was hit by a car.
The Conqueror
There are few more tragic and absurd stories in the history of cinema than the one that happened on the set of the 1956 American film about Genghis Khan. On the set itself, everything was fine. Well, yes - there was a flood, because of which the whole group almost died. Well, yes - the panther tried to eat the leading actress Susan Hayward. But all these are trifles compared to the main problem: the filmmakers either did not know, or did not think that their chosen nature recently served as a testing ground for nuclear weapons. Not only was they filmed in a place not far from which 11 atomic bombs had just been detonated, but then they also brought tons of contaminated soil to Hollywood to scatter it across the pavilions and complete some scenes …
A quarter of a century later, it turned out that more than ninety people caught cancer on the set. Half had already died by that time. Moreover, this statistics does not include hundreds of sick from the crowd, as well as the relatives of the actors who visited them. Among those who have died from cancer is actor John Wayne, the brightest Western star in Hollywood history.
Christopher Reeve is the most famous performer of the role of Superman. Some believe that he was the victim of a curse imposed on this hero …
Superman
There is a belief that filmmakers who take on the story of Superman - the most powerful man on Earth - will face serious problems. There is a legend that the character was cursed by its creators - the authors of the original comics Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster. They have long sued DC Comics for the right to receive royalties from the sale of books about Superman, and supposedly their anger still haunts everyone who contacts this hero.
Playing Superman is a deadly number. The very first performer of this role, Kirk Elin, got off easy - he was simply not offered any more movie roles. But the next Superman, George Reeves, was found with a bullet in his head a few days before the wedding, and it is still unclear whether it was murder or suicide. The story of the third, most famous Superman - Christopher Reeve - is even sadder: he fell off his horse and spent several years paralyzed in a wheelchair before dying. Margot Kidder, who in the same film played the superhero's girlfriend, went crazy …
The list of misfortunes that haunted the actors, screenwriters and directors of films and TV series about Superman could fill this strip entirely. But what is really there: even Kennedy was killed immediately after his administration approved the appearance of the president as a comic book character!
Saga of the ancient Bulgars
During the shooting of the historical epic of Bulat Mansurov, several actors died - Evgeny Dvorzhetsky, Pyotr Glebov, Anatoly Romashin … An extremely dramatic story happened to the latter. In "Saga" his hero is brutally killed - crushed by a wooden flooring. Soon after filming this scene, when Romashin was at his dacha, a tree fell on him. The actor died under his weight.
The film went into disrepute. They say that the emergency rooms on the set were overcrowded, the equipment constantly refused … Now you will no longer understand what is true here and what is not. But the fact that the rolling fate of the tape was very unfortunate is a fact.
WHO IS NOT LUCKY YET?
Cleopatra and Atuk the Eskimo bring trouble
The filming of the 1945 film about the Egyptian queen lasted 18 months, the director was bitten by a camel, a German bomb fell near the set, and, most sadly, the leading actress Vivien Leigh had a miscarriage. In the early 60s, a four-hour film with Elizabeth Taylor was started in Hollywood (see photo). The actress constantly had health problems, once she almost died, but she underwent a tracheotomy in time (a scar on her neck is visible in some scenes).
The seemingly innocent comedy "Atuk" about an Eskimo who moved to a big city was never filmed. First, John Belushi, who signed up for the project, died of a drug overdose. Comedian John Candy was called for the main role, but he died of a heart attack. Another candidate, Chris Farley, died again from a drug overdose just before signing the contract. Since then, Hollywood producers are afraid to even pronounce the name of this comedy.
On the set of the new James Bond film Quantum of Solace (due out in November), there has been trouble after trouble. One stuntman drowned an Aston Martin in an Italian lake, another crashed an Alfa Romeo and nearly died. One of the technical workers was stabbed to death. The leading actor Daniel Craig was first smashed in the face (it took eight stitches), and then accidentally cut off the tip of his finger.