Cinema Interruptus

Previews

Long before the stereotypical bleached blonde was personified by the likes of Pamela Anderson, Jennifer Simpson, and Paris Hilton, decades before Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield, the blonde bombshell was virtually invented by the daughter of a Kansas City, Missouri, dentist who changed her name to Jean Harlow (pictured above) and was launched into Hollywood stardom by Howard Hughes when he cast her in 1930’s “Hell’s Angels,” an action drama about World War I combat pilots. In 1933, Harlow starred in a romantic comedy titled “Bombshell.”

Before superstardom, Jean Harlow had a revealing role
in the 1929 Laurel and Hardy short "Double Whoopee."

When Jean Harlow died, age 26, on June 7, 1937, of kidney failure (a disease doctors of the 1930s were ill-equipped to cure treat or cure), she was almost finished filming “Saratoga,” a romantic comedy pairing her for the sixth time with Clark Gable. The studio considered reshooting the entire picture, possibly with Jean Arthur (a Moviehouse favorite for her final screen role as the conflicted homesteader’s wife in the classic 1953 western “Shane”), but Harlow’s fans cried foul, and the late star’s remaining scenes were filmed with an actress as an on-camera double and another actress supplying the voice. “Saratoga” was released, successfully, nearly seven weeks after Harlow’s death.

 

This photo of director Jack Conway, Jean Harlow, and Clark Gable was taken
shortly before Harlow's collapse on the set of "Saratoga" and a week prior to
her death. The photo was released at the time her passing was announced.

Flash-forward 70 years...About six months before the release of “The Dark Knight,” which featured Heath Ledger’s career-defining (and Best Supporting Actor Oscar-winning) role as The Joker, the 28-year-old actor was found unconscious in his bed in his Manhattan apartment on the afternoon of January 22, 2008. He died, according to the medical examiner, “as the result of acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine…the manner of death is accident, resulting from the abuse of prescribed medication.”

At the time of his death, Heath Ledger was already involved in the production of a movie co-written and directed by Terry Gilliam, the American member of Monty Python and visionary filmmaker responsible for such wildly imaginative flights of fantasy as “Time Bandits,” “Brazil,” “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,” and “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” depicts a magical traveling theatrical troupe whose leader (Christopher Plummer) made a bet for souls with the Devil. Ledger was cast as Tony, a mysterious outsider who joins the troupe as a barker.

Director Terry Gilliam shares a laugh with Heath Ledger.

After Ledger’s death, director Gilliam suspended production on “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” thinking, “The film’s over, it’s as simple as that.” He soon expressed his determination to “salvage” it, perhaps by using computer-generated imagery, much like the transformation techniques used for Brad Pitt in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” and dedicating the film to Ledger. Instead, as a “memorial tribute to the man many have called one of the best actors of his generation,” Gilliam cast Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Ferrell as fantastical alter egos of Ledger’s character. The three actors contributed their salaries to Matilda Rose Ledger, Heath’s daughter with actress (and “Brokeback Mountain” costar) Michelle Williams.

Heath Ledger, Colin Ferrell, Jude Law, and Johnny Depp are the four faces
of Tony in "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus."

Tom Cruise had expressed interest in replacing Heath Ledger, but Terry Gilliam turned him down, because in the director’s eyes, Cruise, unlike the other three actors, hadn’t been a close friend of Ledger’s. Gilliam stated he wanted to keep the production “in the family – it’s as simple as that…It had to be in the family somehow…it was my attitude.”

Main Feature

How filmmakers respond to the sudden demise or untimely absence of an actor in the midst of a production has varied from movie to movie. Here are some of the more memorable cases.

 

Tyrone Power crosses swords with Basil Rathbone in "The Mark of Zorro" (1940).

Tyrone Power is best remembered as a sword-brandishing adventurer in such 1940s swashbucklers as “The Mark of Zorro,” “The Black Swan,” and “Prince of Foxes." He was, in fact, one of the finest swordsmen in Hollywood. Director Henry King, who worked with Power on several pictures, said, “People always seem to remember Ty with sword in hand, although he once told me he wanted to be a character actor.”

In September of 1958, Tyrone Power, along with his wife, Deborah, went to Spain to film the biblical epic “Solomon and Sheba,” costarring Gina Lollabrigida. Deborah was concerned about his health and urged him to take it easy during action scenes. He had filmed two-thirds of the movie and was throwing himself wholeheartedly into a duel with costar George Sanders when he complained of a pain in his left arm and chest. He was rushed to the hospital and died of a massive heart attack within the hour. He was 44.

 

The duel that did in Tyrone Power: Power faces off against George Sanders
in "Solomon and Sheba" (1958).

Major love scenes remained to be shot. One possibility considered by the moviemakers was to use the footage already shot of Power as “Young Solomon,” then cast another actor for the second half of the picture. Yul Brynner was eventually brought in to reshoot the role of Solomon. Tyrone Power is still recognizable in some distant shots, most notably in battle scenes previously filmed.

One of the most sought-after leading men in Hollywood in the 1950s, as well as one of the film community’s pioneering Method actors, Montgomery Clift (pictured above) was idolized for his piercing good looks and moody presence as brooding outsiders in such movies as “Red River,” “From Here to Eternity,” and “The Young Lions.”

On the night of May 12, 1956, in the midst of filming the Civil War era melodrama “Raintree County,” Clift left a dinner party at the Beverly Hills home of his costar and close friend Elizabeth Taylor and her husband, Michael Wilding. Tired and hung over, Clift promptly crashed his car into a telephone pole. He suffered a broken nose, a fractured sinus, a broken jaw, which had to be wired back in place, and several facial lacerations that required plastic surgery.

 

Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor star in "Raintree County" (1957).

After a two-month recovery, Montgomery Clift returned to finish the film. Despite studio second thoughts, Clift astutely predicted moviegoers would throng the theaters out of curiosity over differences in his appearance. Among the noticeable changes was the partial paralysis of one side of his face.

In what one acquaintance described as the “longest suicide in Hollywood history,” Clift spent the rest of his career relying on pills and alcohol for relief of constant pain. His health and appearance deteriorated relentlessly until his death, at age 45, in 1966.

When Vic Morrow (pictured above), an intense actor most remembered for his role as the gritty, antiheroic Sgt. Saunders in the World War II series “Combat!” (1962-1967), was cast in the 1983 Steven Spielberg production of “Twilight Zone: The Movie,” he was hoping it would revive an acting career that had bogged down in cheesy parts in exploitation pictures like “Message from Space,” “Humanoids from the Deep,” “The Last Shark,” and “1990: Bronx Warriors.”

In the first segment of “Twilight Zone: The Movie,” directed by John Landis (best known at the time as the director of “National Lampoon’s Animal House,” “The Blues Brothers,” and “An American Werewolf in London”), Vic Morrow plays a loudmouthed, racist businessman who suddenly finds himself pursued as a Jew by German SS officers in occupied France during World War II (pictured below); about to be lynched as a black man by Klansmen in the South of the 1940s; and as a Vietnamese villager fleeing an attack by American soldiers.

While filming the Vietnam scene, a pyrotechnics explosion severed the tail of a hovering helicopter, and in the ensuing crash, Morrow was decapitated and two child actors he had been holding were also killed. As he waited beforehand with the children in his arms, Morrow was overheard saying, “I’ve got to be crazy to do this shot, I should’ve asked for a double.” It was also reported that John Landis audibly ordered the chopper to fly lower. In the finished film, the Vietnam sequence ends with abrupt ambiguity.

It was revealed later that the children were going to be paid under the table, as director Landis was attempting to circumvent California’s child labor laws preventing kids from working at night. Landis and four members of the production were charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter due to the illegal hiring of the children. The defendants were found not guilty, but the children’s parents sued and settled out of court for an undisclosed amount, as did Vic Morrow’s children.

Director John Landis (far left) and four other defendants face the judge. 

“Twilight Zone: The Movie” co-producer Spielberg said the accident left everyone on the movie “sick to the center of our souls.” He would comment, “No movie is worth dying for. I think people are standing up much more now than ever to producers and directors who ask too much. If something isn’t safe, it’s the right and responsibility of every actor or crew member to yell, ‘Cut!’”

In 1996, John Landis, whose directing career was not detrimentally affected by the incident, recalled, “There was absolutely no good aspect about this whole story. The tragedy, which I think about every day, had an enormous impact on my career, from which it may possibly never recover.”

However, by 2008, Landis was singing another tune, refusing to acknowledge any culpability for the accident, declaring, “When you read about the accident, they say we were blowing up huts – which we weren’t – and that debris hit the tail of the helicopter – which it didn’t…The FBI crime lab, who was working for the prosecution, finally figured out that the tail rotor delaminated, which is why the pilot lost control. The special effects man who made the mistake by setting off a fireball at the wrong time was never charged.”                  

 

Oliver Reed shows his hairy side in "The Curse of the Werewolf" (1961), with
Catherine Feller, and his bare side in "Women in Love" (1969), with Alan Bates.

Taking a break from filming “Gladiator” in Valletta, Malta, London-born actor Oliver Reed, cast as Proximo, the grizzled former gladiator who trains and befriends Maximus (Russell Crowe), ended up in a bar, engaging five Royal Navy sailors a third his age in arm-wrestling. A known hell-raiser throughout a career of tough guy roles, notorious for prodigious consumption of alcohol and for knockabout brawls, Reed downed three bottles of Captain Morgan rum, eight bottles of imported German beer, several bottles of Famous Grouse blended whiskey and Hennessy cognac (amounting to a bar tab of $700) before dropping dead from a heart attack. He was 61.

 

Neither director Ridley Scnott nor Oliver Reed seem pleased that
the photographer has spotted them on the set of "Gladiator."

Reed still had three weeks of principal photography on “Gladiator” remaining. The movie’s insurance coverage included a clause allowing the filmmakers to reshoot all of Reed’s scenes with another actor, at an estimated cost of $25 million (on top of the picture’s overall budget of $103 million), but most of the cast and crew were exhausted from the shooting schedule, and director Ridley Scott had no desire in dropping Reed from the film. The script was rewritten, and the remainder of Oliver Reed’s scenes were completed using computer-generated images of the actor’s face on a double and, in one instance, a mannequin.

Around 3:30 on the afternoon of November 30, 2013, 40-year-old actor Paul Walker (pictured above, right, with Vin Diesel), who played undercover crime fighter Brian O’Conner in the enduringly popular “Fast & Furious” franchise, and his friend, Roger Rodas, were on their way to a charity event for victims of Typhoon Haiyan in Rodas’ 2005 Porsche Carrera GT when the car, at a speed possibly as high as 100 mph (in a 45 mph zone), crashed into a concrete lamppost and two trees, bursting into flames as a result. Both bodies were burned beyond recognition.

 

Cody Walker and Caleb Walker pose with brother Paul Walker.

Production on “Furious 7” was delayed as the screenplay was rewritten. Paul Walker’s brothers, Caleb Walker and Cody Walker, were used as doubles to complete Paul’s action scenes. The resulting production combined the use of computer-generated imagery with carefully manipulated camera angles and lighting as the Walker brothers stood in for Paul. The process was similar to the “redevelopment” of Oliver Reed’s character in “Gladiator.” Incidentally, Cody Walker is rumored to portray a character named Jack O’Conner in “Furious 8,” which Vin Diesel said would be released in April of 2017.

 

Philip Seymour Hoffman (second from right) stands among "The Hunger Games"
cast mates Liam Hemsworth, Jennifer Lawrence, Donald Sutherland,
Josh Hutcherson, and Stanley Tucci.

On the other hand, after Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death, Francis Lawrence, director of “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2,” asserted there would be “no digital manipulation or CG (computer-generated) fabrication of any kind.”

On February 2, 2014, Hoffman, 46, was found dead in the bathroom of his Manhattan apartment. His death was officially ruled an accident caused by “acute mixed drug intoxication, including heroin, cocaine, benzodiazepine and amphetamine.” At the time of his death, the actor had completed filming his role as Head Gamekeeper-Secretary of Communications Plutarch Heavensbee in “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1” (released more than nine months after his death) and had a week left of production on “Part 2.”

Philip Seymoour Hoffman (left) stands alongside
"The Hunger Games" costar Woody Harrelson.

Lionsgate Films affirmed that since the majority of Hoffman’s scenes had been shot, the November 2015 release date for “Part 2” would not change. It was originally announced that Hoffman’s character would be digitally recreated for a major yet-to-be filmed scene, but director Francis Lawrence maintained he would not “fake a performance” and said he had rewritten the actor’s remaining scenes to compensate for his absence.

Entr'acte

There have been rare instances when the sudden death of a performer left directors so shaken that they considered, if not actually followed through on, abandoning their career.

 

William Holden and John Wayne star in "The Horse Soldiers" (1959).

“The Horse Soldiers” (1959) was the only Civil War period picture directed by John Ford, the iconic filmmaker responsible for a number of classic westerns, including “The Searchers.” It was loosely based on the historical Grierson’s Raid, a successful U.S. cavalry foray into Confederate territory during the Vicksburg Campaign. The real-life hero, Col. Benjamin Grierson, a former music teacher who hated horses, was depicted onscreen by John Wayne as a rough-and-tumble railroad engineer named John Marlowe.

During the climactic battle scene, veteran stuntman Fred Kennedy (pictured above in a publicity photo) suffered a broken neck while performing a routine horse fall and died. The 46-year-old stuntman had worked with John Ford on a number of pictures, including “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon,” “The Quiet Man,” and “The Searchers.” In the biography John Ford: Poet in the Desert, author Joseph Malham wrote, “Ford was completely devastated. (He) felt a deep responsibility for the lives of the men who served under him.”

 

John Ford (center) directs John Wayne and William Holden in "The Horse Soldiers."

“The Horse Soldiers” was supposed to end with the triumphant arrival of Col. Marlowe’s forces in Baton Rouge, but John Ford “simply lost interest” after Kennedy’s death and let the movie end with Wayne’s reluctant farewell to love interest Constance Towers. Ford’s disinterest might have contributed to the film’s lackluster box-office and critical reception. Despite the presence of John Wayne and William Holden, it was deemed a commercial failure, due largely to the two stars’ high salaries, and the complex relationship among multiple production companies.

 

Christopher Walken and Natalie Wood play an estranged couple in "Brainstorm."

The production of 1983’s “Brainstorm,” a wildly innovative science-fiction drama about the affect a new sensory experience device has on a scientist’s exploration into the afterlife, was nearly scuttled by star Natalie Wood’s drowning death during a break in filming on November 29, 1981. On a weekend trip to Santa Catalina Island, California, with husband Robert Wagner, “Brainstorm” costar Christopher Walken, and the boat’s captain, the inebriated Wood, who had a lifelong fear of water, drowned under circumstances that still remain mysterious.

Wood had completed her major scenes, but the financially troubled MGM viewed the accident as an excuse to shut down the already endangered production. Director Douglas Trumbull (best known as a special effects wizard who was responsible for, if not a contributor to, the photographic effects in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” and “Blade Runner”) remembered, “When she died, all the sets were locked…No one could get in or out without special permission while all the negotiations took place.”

After MGM refused to pay for the movie to be completed, the insurance giant Lloyd’s of London provided over $6 million to finish principal photography and post-production. Trumbull rewrote portions of the script and used a body double for Wood in some long shots. The film was dedicated, “To Natalie.”

Douglas Trumbull (pictured above with Natalie Wood) quit directing films after “Brainstorm.” In 2013, he explained that the "very suspicious circumstances" of Natalie Wood’s death were the main reasons he walked away. “I had been a writer-director all my life, and I decided it wasn’t for me because I was put through a really challenging personal experience. I do not think the story has ever been told. I don’t know the story myself, but I know what my experience was. I decided to leave the movie business.”

 

Douglas Trumbull is pictured at work on "U.F.O.T.O.G." (2014).

Trumbull eventually returned to filmmaking, as a visual effects consultant for 2011’s “The Tree of Life,” written and directed by Terrence Malick and starring Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, and Jessica Chastain. In 2014, Trumbull made a science-fiction short titled “U.F.O.T.O.G.” The ten-minute production was made in 4K 3D and filmed at an astounding 120 fps (frames per second). Filmmaker Peter Jackson shot “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” at 48 fps, while the film industry standard is 24 fps. Trumbull said, “We are exploring and discovering a new landscape of audience excitement…”

 

Roy Kinnear (far right) is in character as Planchet with screen Musketeers
Michael York, Oliver Reed, Frank Finlay, and Richard Chamberlain.

Among British actor Roy Kinnear’s many reliable characterizations was Planchet, the chubby, much put upon servant of d’Artagnan (Michael York) in the series of rambunctious “Musketeers” films directed by Richard Lester. On September 19, 1988, Kinnear fell off his horse during the making of “The Return of the Musketeers” in Toledo, Spain. He was transported to a Madrid hospital with a broken pelvis but died from a heart attack the following day.

 

Director Richard Lester (center) finds himself surrounded by The Beatles
on the set of "A Hard Day's Night" (1964).

Richard Lester burst upon the moviemaking scene with the landmark Beatles romp “A Hard Day’s Night” in 1964. He later directed Christopher Reeve in “Superman II” and “Superman III.” Roy Kinnear had become a familiar, frequently hilarious presence in a number of pictures directed by Lester, besides “The Three Musketeers,” “The Four Musketeers,” and “The Return of the Musketeers”: “Help!” “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” “How I Won the War,” “The Bed Sitting Room,” and “Juggernaut.” Kinnear was also recognizable as Veruca Salt’s father (pictured below with Gene Wilder) in “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory."

As a direct result of Roy Kinnear’s death, Richard Lester quit the film business and has refused to discuss the accident. He returned to directing, once, in 1991, with the Paul McCartney concert movie “Get Back.”


Exeunt

Roy Kinnear’s son, Rory Kinnear, is an actor best known for playing Bill Tanner, M’s Chief of Staff, in the James Bond films starring Daniel Craig. He also portrayed Detective Robert Nock in 2014’s “The Imitation Game.” Rory was ten when his father died. His father and mother (herself a busy actress on British TV) would tell him, “You’re far too bright to become an actor. We only did acting because we didn’t have anything else to do.”

 

Rory Kinnear (right) poses on-location with 007 Daniel Craig.

Rory Kinnear said, “I…felt that my becoming an actor was a way of getting to know (my father) better.”