9. Entering the Twilight Zone
The television series The Twilight Zone was a popular weekly program from 1959 to 1964, the brainchild of writer and director Rod Serling. Its popularity was such that it was in high demand in reruns for years, and eventually was adapted as a full-length motion picture in the early 1980s. During the filming of the motion picture, an on-set accident involving a helicopter led to the death of popular actor Vic Morrow and two child actors, with multiple injuries to the helicopter crew and film personnel onboard. Morrow and one of the children were decapitated by the helicopter’s rotor; the other child was crushed beneath the machine. The accident caused a scandal over working safety, particularly for children on film sets, and years of litigation which kept the story on the front pages of trade papers for a decade.
The civil and criminal actions which occurred subsequent to the accident – which was more the result of negligence than misfortune – was scandalous, and the film’s director, John Landis, was charged and tried for manslaughter, along with other members of the film crew. They were eventually acquitted in terms of criminal liability, but civil penalties were assessed. Landis continued his career with little negative impact, but he found several long-term friendships with other filmmakers ended as a result of his evident cavalier attitude towards the accident and its causes. Millions of dollars were awarded to the families of the victims, mostly paid by insurance companies. Landis later attempted to deflect the blame for the accident, claiming that the cause of the accident had been in part a special effects fireball detonated by an underlying erroneously, an error for which he was never charged.