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Separating fact from fiction: Making movies can be deadly

(Court TV) -- Spiderman gracefully swings from one towering skyscraper to the next. Yoda shows off acrobatic martial-arts moves in "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones" and a gigantic space worm gnaws on a New York City subway car in "Men in Black II."

Ever growing pyrotechnics and edge of your seat action sequences have become the norm in Tinsel Town and continue to thrill audiences. But those high-flying stunts have a downside -- on-the-set injuries and even fatalities.

About one and a half of every 100 workers on movie and TV sets die a year, according to the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration. That number continues to rise as more people join the ranks of motion picture employees, which has swelled from 138,000 to 185,400 between 1995 and 1997.

The following is a list of famous, real-life movie deaths:

-- Probably the most noted death on a set occurred when Brandon Lee, son of the renowned martial-arts master and actor Bruce Lee, was killed while filming the final scenes of "The Crow." A few minutes before Lee's tragic death, the crew filmed close-ups of a real .44-caliber Magnum revolver with dummy bullets, which are real bullets with no gunpowder. The dummy bullets were then replaced with harmless cardboard wadding for a scene in which Lee was supposed to be killed by a drug dealer played by actor Michael Massee.

But when Massee shot the gun Lee dropped to the floor and began bleeding. He was rushed to the hospital, where doctors later learned that the tip of the dummy bullet had broken off and remained in the gun when the cardboard was placed in it. It was this metal tip that killed Lee.

-- An even bigger blockbuster, "Spiderman," also recently suffered misfortune when welder Tim Holcombe was struck by a forklift that had been transformed into a crane on March 6, 2001. His widow is now suing Columbia Pictures and Ingersoll-Rand for an undisclosed amount. Sony Pictures, Columbia Pictures' parent company, has been fined $59,000 for using the forklift in a way not sanctioned by the manufacturer.

-- Some say moviemakers also were to blame when Vic Morrow, beloved star of TV's "Combat," died on the set of Jon Landis' "Twilight Zone: The Movie." The actor was running across a Vietnam battlefield set when a low-flying helicopter crashed into him and the two child actors he was carrying. All three died. Landis and four members of the production staff were charged with involuntary manslaughter, but were later acquitted.

-- Chuck Norris seems to be the unluckiest man in Hollywood when it comes to on-set deaths. Although he has never been in a life-threatening accident, many of his crew members have. Five were killed on the set of "Delta Force II: Operation Stranglehold," when a helicopter crashed. Four more people died in yet another helicopter crash during the filming of "Braddock: Missing in Action III."

-- TV sound stages also aren't immune to fatal mishaps. Norris' bad luck followed him when his weekly TV drama, "Walker Texas Ranger," suffered a fatality recently. A stuntman died of a heart attack while driving a pickup truck off a jump ramp. Another TV tragedy took place on the set of Fox's now cancelled "The X-Files" when a man setting up scaffolding accidentally hit a high-voltage power line with a metal rod on July 31, 2000. Six others were injured.

-- Probably the most famous TV tragedy occurred when heartthrob Jon-Erik Hexum, star of "Cover Up" put a gun to his head as a joke. He knew it was filled with blanks, but when he pulled the trigger he immediately slumped to the ground. He lapsed into a coma and was taken off of life support six days later. Doctors said the gun was discharged so close to his head, that the cardboard wadding inside fractured his skull, jettisoning bone fragments deep into his brain.

-- Finally, even TV news has seen real blood shed on its sets. In 1974, Chris Chubbock, host of Sarasota, Florida's morning talk show "Suncoast Digest," looked into the camera and said, "In keeping with Channel 40's policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts and in living color, you are about to see another first, attempted suicide." She then pulled out a gun and fatally shot herself in the head.