The strange death of director & father of Katy Sagal(RIP Boris Segal)

For those of you who haven't read Boris Sagal's (director of The Omega Man) biography.

Ten years after Sagal directed "The Omega Man" he was killed in 1981 during the early production of the 1982 TV movie, "World War III" in a helicopter accident in Oregon. He had just returned from filming aerial shots, his helicopter landing in the parking lot of the Timberline lodge on Mt. Hood (the exteriors location from The Shining.

Preoccupied with his work, he inadvertently turned the wrong way upon getting out of the helicopter, walking directly into the rear rotor blade; he died of severe head and shoulder injuries after emergency surgery 60 miles away in Portland. Astonishingly, filming resumed the very next day with a new director.

Coincidentally, his work includes the pilot episode of the TV series Combat! (1962), which starred Vic Morrow. Two decades after collaborating, Sagal and Morrow would die similarly (struck by a helicopter's rotor blade) within a year of each other, while shooting a movie on location. Vic Morrow was killed on the early morning hours of July 23, 1982 in a tragic, freak accident on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie while filming a scene involving a helicopter which crashed right on top of him and two young children.

Boris Sagal was the father of five children with writer, director and producer Sara Macon from 3 June 1952,until her untimely death on September 1st, 1975 at age 47 due to a heart attack. Of the Sagal's five children (Katey Sagal, David Sagal, Joey Sagal, Jean Sagal, and Liz Sagal) four would go on to pursue acting and directing careers of their own but, it was Katy Sagal who would become the most famous sibling as a result of her work in, "Married with Children", "8 Simple Rules" and later with "Sons of Anarchy".

After the death of his first wife, Boris Sagal would later remarry in 1977 to renowned dancer/choreographer until his own untimely death in 1981.