MovieChat Forums > Vic Morrow Discussion > Sad death

Sad death

posted 7 years ago by slimone (7996)
7 replies | jump to latest

In the early morning hours of July 23, 1982, Morrow and two child actors, 7-year-old Myca Dinh Le, and 6-year-old Renee Shin-Yi Chen, were filming an episode of Twilight Zone on location in California, in an area that was known as Indian Dunes, near Santa Clarita. They were performing in a scene for the Vietnam sequence, in which their characters attempt to escape out of a deserted Vietnamese village from a pursuing U.S. Army helicopter. The helicopter was hovering at approximately 24 feet (7.3 m) above them when the heat from special effect pyrotechnic explosions reportedly delaminated the rotor blades[10] and caused the helicopter to crash on top of them, killing all three instantly. Morrow and Le were decapitated by the helicopter rotor, while Chen was crushed by a helicopter strut.

[–] rootvegetables (1698) 7 years ago

Simply horrifying.

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[–] MissMargoChanning (6630) 7 years ago

Fine actor. Three senseless deaths. I still think that the people involved, from the director down to the crew should have thought out the way that scene should have been shot. It was pure carelessness.

[–] Interlepos (1808) 7 years ago

I wonder what John Landis did the following hour after the accident, when he realized what had happened. There must have been pandemonium on the set, and a real feeling of terror. It was a tragic event, that definitely could have been avoided, but in the end nobody intended for it to happen.

[–] MissMargoChanning (6630) 7 years ago

I can't remember the book, but I checked it out at the library. It had to do with the entire thing just a few years after this tragedy. I know that Landis was held accountable. I can't remember the name of the book, but it did have to do with the directors of the movie. I'm sure that the name of the book could be found if you google it.

[–] MickyMac (3191) 2 years ago

Why did they have the actors and helicopter in the same shot when they could've done it in cuts and optical printers? I think people who don't know any better they want to see the actors and helicopters in the same shot because they want to see it with their own eyes.

[–] CoriSCapnSkip (2243) 6 years ago

Talk about irony! This evening TCM ran a spot featuring Vic Morrow promoting The Blackboard Jungle[/i]. Immediately following that, Ben Mankiewicz came on with the evening's guest programmer, John Landis. Landis introduced the film he chose, [i]Paths of Glory[/i], about a military commander's indifference to vast losses of the lives entrusted to him in his quest for personal success. The Vic Morrow thing may have been intentional on someone's part, but the creepy thing is Landis was probably totally oblivious to the irony of all this. It also seems Morrow sensed years earlier how he was to die. http://www.aintnowaytogo.com/twZone.htm The whole thing was so creepy and ironic it would have been material for an episode of [i]The Twilight Zone.

[–] TMC-4 (20178) a year ago

DEATH AND DISASTER ON THE SET OF TWILIGHT ZONE THE MOVIE | Full Story and Victim’s Graves Visited

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0oAQNfFyXk

By Scott on Tape.