On-Set Deaths, Buried Sexual Abuse, And 17 Other Dark Hollywood Facts That Are Seriously Messed Up

1.In one of our past posts, we talked about The Exorcist extra Paul Bateson later being convicted of murder. I've got an even worse one for you: serial killer Clifton Bloomfield, who appeared as an extra on shows like Breaking Bad and Felon basically mid–killing sprees. For example, he was hired on Felon after serving time as a convicted killer, and a month later went on to kill three more people before being caught and imprisoned again. According to the casting director, no one on set even knew or was told that Bloomfield was a convicted killer.

2.Obviously not as horrifying, but there are also celebrities who have killed people accidentally. Like Matthew Broderick (with Jennifer Grey as a passenger), who got into a 1987 car crash in Ireland that killed 63-year-old Margaret Doherty and her 28-year-old daughter, Anna Gallagher. He was only charged with careless driving and paid a $175 fine.

3.Actor Lane Garrison (best known for Prison Break) was also the cause of a deadly crash. The 27-year-old picked up two 15-year-olds and one 17-year-old and decided to go to a party with them while under the influence of alcohol and cocaine. After providing the girls with alcohol, he crashed his car, killing the 17-year-old. He was sentenced to over three years in prison but served only about a year and a half of that sentence. Since his release, he's continued to work in Hollywood.

4.Reality and fiction blurred while filming 1974's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The cast and crew were pushed to their breaking point while acting in horrible conditions, particularly during the 26-hour shoot of the dinner scene, which took place in over 100-degree heat around rotting animals (cast and crew would periodically go outside to puke).

At one point Gunnar Hansen, who played Leatherface, got impatient with problems involving the fake blood and really did cut star Marilyn Burns's finger and put it to actor John Dugan's lips. Dugan reportedly didn't realize he drank her real blood until years later, when he called it "kind of erotic."

Hansen also used a real chainsaw while chasing the actors around, and at one point, he was doing so while high after accidentally ingesting pot brownies during the shoot. Burns also really did twist her ankle when jumping 6 feet for her character's escape scene. Hansen was so terrifying that at one point, Burns said, she began to question whether this was actually a snuff film and he really did want to hurt her.

Costar Edwin Neal even started to lose himself in the long hours and dizzying scents: “I remember thinking, Kill...the... b___,’” he said of Burns. In another scene, where actor Jim Siedow beats Burns's character, he really did hit her multiple times (with her permission). She ended up being beaten up so badly, she passed out when filming cut.

5.Another horribly mistreated actor was Shelley Duvall in The Shining. It's been reported that director Stanley Kubrick refused to praise her work and intentionally isolated her from the crew, but this hasn't been confirmed. Costar Jack Nicholson admitted that Kubrick was an entirely different director with Duvall, and Duvall herself said Kubrick could be "pretty cruel," and called filming "almost unbearable." She actually ended up having health issues due to the stress, to the point where her hair fell out in clumps.

In Vivian Kubrick's documentary Making the Shining, when Duvall shows the clumps of her hair to Kubrick, he walks away and tells crew members, "Don't sympathize with Shelley." He also made her perform the emotionally draining baseball bat scene 127 times, to the point where she had wounds on her hands from clutching it, and didn't tell her what was going on in the scene or what to expect.

6.As with Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock's legacy as a director is blighted by his horrible mistreatment of one of his stars, Tippi Hedren, in The Birds. During filming, Hedren claimed that Hitchcock sexually assaulted her on set, got angry if she talked to other men, and told her costars not to talk to her.

This all came to a head as they filmed the scene where Hedren's character is viciously attacked by birds. She was told the mechanical birds were not working, so Hitchcock used live birds instead. For five days, Hedren said, live birds (that were trained to peck her) were thrown at her and even tied to her. When one almost pecked her eye, she broke down and had to spend a week in bed due to exhaustion.

7.In a previous post, we talked about Judy Garland's horrible mistreatment while filming The Wizard of Oz. Well...she wasn't the only one to have a dark experience on the set of the children's classic. Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West, suffered second- and third-degree burns during the scene where she leaves Munchkinland in a burst of flame. The trapdoor malfunctioned, causing her to be caught in the fire.

8.The green paint used as her makeup was also toxic. She could only drink through a straw when it was on (and couldn't eat at all), because it was too dangerous to risk her ingesting it. This was especially concerning when she was burned and the toxic makeup had to be quickly removed from her wounds. “They were literally clawing at her face because it would have scarred her for life,” Hamilton's daughter described, remembering that she was bandaged "like a mummy" while recovering. The studio also apparently called the next day, asking when she'd be back at work.

9.And Buddy Ebsen, who originally was set to play the Tin Man, almost died due to his on-set makeup. "They dusted his face and hands with aluminum powder…real aluminum dust," his daughter Kiki Ebsen revealed. "It was in the air. And because the lights were hot, his makeup melted several times a day. So he had to be reapplied with aluminum dust. And he inhaled it over time. It coated the inside of his lungs like paint. He could not get oxygen to his blood, but he didn’t know this was happening. He just knew that he was cramping up [on] set and during shooting."

Scared to lose the role, Ebsen said nothing — but 10 days later, he woke up unable to breathe and was hospitalized. He had to use an oxygen tank for two weeks, and it took another six weeks for him to recover. "He actually couldn’t get oxygen to the blood, and his blood fermented. The doctor described it as … a breakdown of the nervous system," Kiki said. He was then told to get "the hell back to work" — and when he couldn't, he was replaced with Jack Haley.

10.The snow in the film was made of potentially lethal asbestos. Other movies that used asbestos as snow include White Christmas, It's a Wonderful Life, and Citizen Kane.

11.In fact, multiple actors died in part from inhaling asbestos on set — mostly famously Steve McQueen. His death has been partially attributed (even by McQueen himself) to the frequent use of asbestos on film sets (though his military service and racing suits may also have been to blame). He died a year after being diagnosed with mesothelioma.

12.Actors dying on live TV is exceedingly rare, but one talk show guest came close. On an episode of The Dick Cavett Show meant to air in a few hours, health expert and writer J.I. Rodale died while the show was filming with a live audience. This came directly after Rodale had boasted of his good health, including saying, "I never felt better in my life." Just after his interview ended and he'd moved over to make room for second guest Pete Hamill, Rodale let out a snore.

While Cavett said he immediately knew Rodale was dead, and Hamill whispered, "This looks bad," the audience thought that it was a gag and Rodale was faking boredom at Hamill's interview, and began laughing. Though the footage was never aired, Cavett also remembers a camera operator filming Rodale dead or dying on the floor.

13.Similarly, comedian Dick Shawn (best known for playing Hitler in The Producers) died onstage during a comedy act at UC San Diego, and the audience thought it was part of the act. They laughed and waited for five minutes before anyone went to help him.

14.Dying of a heart attack on set unfortunately seems to happen kind of a lot. Harvey Lembeck was reportedly appearing as a guest star on Mork & Mindy when he had a heart attack and died on set at age 58, and Adolph Caesar was similarly performing on the set of Disney comedy Tough Guys when he died of a heart attack at age 52. And soap opera star Jay Pickett died of a heart attack at age 60 while sitting on a horse on the set of his own film, Treasure Valley.

15.But perhaps most creepy is the example of Tyrone Power, who suffered a heart attack on the set of Solomon and Sheba. He died before making it to the hospital, still in his costume. What's creepy about it? Well, his father (also named Tyrone Power) had also died (in the arms of his son) during an on-set heart attack while he was shooting The Miracle Man.

16.Josh Ryan Evans's character Timmy became a fan favorite on the soap opera Passions. After he'd appeared on the show for three years, his character was killed off — and the same day the episode aired, Evans tragically died in real life.

Timmy was actually supposed to be resurrected — Evans was only meant to take a few weeks off for filming. However, while seeking treatment for a congenital heart condition during the break, he died. He was only 20 years old.

17.Tara Correa-McMullen, an up-and-coming actor who appeared on shows like Zoey 101, died in a gang-related potential drive-by shooting at age 16 in 2005. Friends said that she had recently been hanging out with a "bad crowd" but had been trying to get her life back on track.

Eerily, Correa-McMullen was best known for playing a former gang member on Judging Amy. Her character was trying to turn her life around after involvement in a drive-by shooting, but ultimately failed and was killed in jail.

18.In one last eerie coincidence, in Heathers, two of the actors later had untimely deaths that seemed predicted by their characters. Peter (Jeremy Applegate) prays he won't kill himself — the actor later died by suicide. Kim Walker — who had the iconic line, "Did you have a brain tumor for breakfast?" — died of a brain tumor.

19.And finally, let's end on one that is personally one of the most disturbing Hollywood facts to me: how many celebs have supported director Roman Polanski, who was charged with drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl in 1977. He fled the US and has continued to make popular and acclaimed films, including The Pianist, for which he won the Oscar for Best Director.

In 2009, he was arrested for his crimes in Switzerland — and a ton of celebs signed a petition advocating for his release, including Penélope Cruz, Harrison Ford, Natalie Portman, David Lynch, Wes Anderson, Darren Aronofsky, Sam Mendes, Martin Scorsese, Tilda Swinton, and Emma Thompson — though Thompson later retracted her signature and Portman later apologized. The petition was actually successful, and Polanski was released. Today, Polanski continues to collect accolades, despite the fact that he's been accused of more sexual misconduct (which he has denied).