Wild stories from the set

Maybe we should start archiving these stories just to get a complete historical picture.

Polanski, who basically ruins young girls.
And then he gets his wife brutally murdered later on.

Audrey Hepburn, lying dead in a car in Paris.

Then there's death by car: James Dean, driving a Porsche. Or the great Desmond Llewelyn.
Jennifer Gray sitting in a car where the driver kills someone—all because of speed.
Rowan Atkinson buys a McLaren and totals it in a heartbeat.

Maria Trintignant, where a friend beats her so badly she dies.

Pasolini, killed by some young guy.

Tarkovsky, dealing with radioactive contamination.

That one German film with several suicides.

Günther Kaufmann kills a woman and ends up in prison, or something like that.

The extras actually offer to finally kill Kinski—you can see it in their faces in the movie.

Who died from booze? Vivien Leigh? Maybe Fassbinder?
Who were the junkies? Hopper? Rourke.

Or Eiko Matsuda, who played her part so convincingly she had to flee her home country.

Anyone know anything about this stuff?

I'm not even sure if I've quite grasped the point here, but...

David Carradine passed away—basically, he choked during a solo session in his hotel room while they were out in Bangkok filming Stretch.

weird...

That sounds wonderful! You know, they really ought to write a whole piece on Sam Peckinpah’s relationship with the bottle, too. I’ve heard stories that he actually started sipping whiskey alongside his grandfather and his old buddies at a very young age. On top of that, we definitely shouldn't overlook the fact that he was quite an intense, difficult personality to deal with on set, which certainly made working with him a real challenge. 🙂

analoghawk13 said:Pasolini was murdered by some young, degenerate punk...

Maybe my information is flawed—but from what I recall seeing in a documentary once—it seems Pasolini was actually targeted by several pretty rough thugs, some of whom were likely armed, who eventually finished him off by running him over with a car... though they found blood from other people on his body as well, so I suspect their little encounter didn't go quite as smoothly as they planned...

Now, if Rai is lying, then I suppose I am too...

analoghawk13 said:....

You can actually see it in the actors' faces during the shoot—they’re seriously offering to finally take out Kinski themselves.

I'm curious about this. Could you go into more detail?

Sure enough..☕

Is the story about you threatening his life on the set of
Aguirre actually true?

Yeah. For Kinski to have walked off the set meant he would have broken a
duty I felt was bigger and more important than any of us. I only
told him very quietly that I’d shoot him, but I didn't have a rifle in
my hands. He had enough sense to realize I wasn't joking,
so he started screaming for the cops, even though the
nearest station was 300 miles away. The Press later wrote that I
directed Kinski fra behind The Camera with a loaded gun—a pretty
poetic image. I almost love the press for being that lyrical.
The fact is Kinski was well known for Breaking contracts and walking OFF films in The middle of shoots, and
that was just unacceptable to me.
He once broke off in the middle of a speech during the opening night of a play,
threw a burning candelabra into the
crowd, and then wrapped himself up in the stage carpet.
He stayed curled up in that carpet until the theater was
completely empty. Probably because he forgot
his lines. Back when we were prepping
Aguirre, he had to get a medical check-up for insurance. The doctor asked standard stuff
about allergies and family history, and then: 'Mr. Kinski, have you ever
dealt with fits of any kind?' 'YES, EVERY SINGLE DAY!'
Kinski yelled at the top of his lungs before he proceeded to tear
the doctor's office apart.

In Aguirre and Fitzcarraldo you worked closely with the native
Indians of the Amazon. What was their take on Kinski's antics?

During Fitzcarraldo, his manic episodes really strained things with the Indian
extras. He was genuinely terrifying to them, and it became a real issue
because the local tribes handled conflict in a completely
different way. They’d just huddle together and whisper, staying
dead quiet while they listened to Kinski's meltdowns. Toward the
end of filming, one of the chiefs pulled me aside and said, 'You likely
realized we were uneasy, but we weren't scared of that screaming lunatic,
shouting his head off, for one second.' They
were actually terrified of me because I stayed so quiet.

Kinski's outbursts can be traced back to his ego.
Maybe "egocentric" isn't the right term; he was a pure ego-
maniac. Whenever a real emergency happened, it became a massive
issue because, suddenly, he wasn't the center of
attention anymore. On Fitzcarraldo, a woodsman got bitten by a snake
while cutting timber. That's a rare thing, maybe once every few years,
even with hundreds of guys working the jungle barefoot with chainsaws.
Snakes usually stay clear of the smell of gas and all the noise.
But out of nowhere, a venomous snake strikes the guy twice.
It only takes a few minutes before your heart stops, so he thought about
it for five seconds, grabbed the
saw, and hacked off his own foot. It saved him since the camp and
the antivenom were twenty minutes away. When that went down, I knew
i knew Kinski would start acting out over some tiny nothing, just because
he was no longer the main character. And he didn't miss his chance to throw a
fit.
In another instance, a plane carrying six people to the
remote site crashed. Everyone survived, thank God, but some
people were hurt pretty bad. The radio reports were a mess, and Kinski saw
that he wasn't the most important person there anymore, so
he threw a tantrum claiming his coffee wasn't hot enough that morning.
For hours, he stood three inches from my face, screaming at me. I
had no idea how to shut him down because we had to keep our ears on
the radio in case we had to dispatch a rescue team into the brush.
Then it hit me. An idea. I retreated to my shack where for months
I’d been stashing a single bar of Hershey's chocolate. Back then, we probably would have
ripped each other apart for a snack like that. I walked straight up to him,
and just ate the damn thing right in his face. Suddenly, he went stone silent.
He just couldn't wrap his head around it. Near the end of production, the
Indian extras actually offered to take Kinski out for me. I turned them down then, telling them,
"No, for heaven's sake! I still need him for the shoot. Just leave him to
me." But they weren't joking. If I’d given them even a tiny nod, they
would have pulled it off.
Kinski was this strange, twisted cocktail of pure cowardice and
bravery. A single wasp could send him screaming for a mosquito net
and a medic with a needle. Yet, during
Fitzcarraldo, I honestly think it
might have been Kinski's own idea to jump onto that boat while it was
plowing through the rapids. He looked at me and said, "If you step on that boat, I'm
coming too. If you go down, I'm going down with you." Still, he never really cared for
the wilderness or the great outdoors, despite acting like some kind of "Natural
Man." Honestly? Everything he claimed about the jungle was nothing but
posturing. He insisted everything in the wild was erotic, but during
Fitzcarraldo, he stayed hunkered down in camp for months without ever stepping foot in the
brush. Once, he ventured about a hundred feet into the trees toward a
fallen log, and the photographer had to follow him just to snap
hundreds of shots of him tenderly caressing and making love
to that tree. It was all about the image and the props for him. His high-end hiking gear mattered way more than the mountains
itself. Even his custom camo fatigues, tailored by Yves Saint
Laurent, were more vital to him than the actual jungle. In that sense,
Kinski had a healthy dose of pure, unadulterated stupidity.

Herzog on Herzog😁

Sorry, it got a bit long... Ogami will agree.😉

Chris Green83 said:This really caught my eye! Could you dive into the details a bit more?

Oh, absolutely... Kinski definitely had a reputation for being an incredibly difficult actor to work with. Honestly, I’ve heard stories suggesting Herzog actually wanted to aim a pistol at him at one point just to get some order on set! 🙂

Herzog on Kinski.

http://documentarystorm.com/my-best-fiend/

By the way, if you're looking for more of this kind of stuff, there's actually a dedicated thread titled Only for Hardcore Film Buffs (Enter at Your Own Risk) that is absolutely packed with all sorts of deep dives and insider info... I highly recommend giving it a read! 🙂

Yeah, Brian Ross7, I'm with you on that one.

In Fitzcarraldo (1982), there’s this one shot where Kinski is sitting at a table on the boat eating, and right behind him you’ve got this whole group of Indian extras—half-naked, spears in hand, maybe some face paint too. It’s framed centrally; you see little Kinski down in the middle, surrounded by this massive wall of Indians.
The look on the Indians' faces? Pure fury and hatred. Kinski? He just looks awkward, insecure, totally quiet.

That wasn't acting.

In a real, solid tribe, you don't have room for ego trips or people making scenes.

Brian Ross7 said:Sure...☕

So, you're asking if the story about me threatening him on the set of Aguirre is actually true? Well, let's just say the rumors have a certain weight to them. The Press later wrote that i directed Kinski fra behind The Camera with a loaded gun, and honestly, when things get that intense on a location like that, the line between directing and survival starts to blur. It wasn't some theatrical stunt for the sake of drama; it was a reaction to the chaos. You have to understand the atmosphere we were working in—it was volatile, exhausting, and completely unpredictable. Kinski's antics were at an all-time high, and sometimes, you just have to exert a very specific kind of pressure to keep the whole production from collapsing under its own weight.
Is that actually for real? I mean, come on. It sounds like one of those tall tales people tell to spice up a dull evening, but I suppose we've all learned by now that the truth is rarely as simple as it seems. One can never be entirely certain of anything in this life.

Yeah... exactly.

Hey there!

silentcanyon58 said:Yeah, true enough... Kinski had quite the reputation for being an absolute nightmare on set. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if Herzog at one point actually considered aiming a loaded gun at him just to get some peace. 🙂

Herzog on Kinski.

I’ve spent a lifetime looking at film through a lens of both fascination and deep, weary skepticism. Looking back at my relationship with Kinski—that beautiful, chaotic disaster of a man—it feels less like a career retrospective and more like an autopsy of a fever dream. People often talk about "working" with someone, but with Kinski, you weren't working; you were surviving a weather pattern. There is this persistent mythos surrounding him, a sort of romanticized madness that the industry loves to chew on. But when you are standing in the eye of that storm, it isn't poetic. It’s exhausting. I remember how the press used to spin our dynamic, claiming I directed Kinski from behind a camera with a loaded gun just to keep him in line. It makes for a great headline, doesn't it? A little bit of cinematic grit to sell papers. In reality, it was much messier and far less organized. The truth is, Kinski was well known for breaking contracts and walking off films in the middle of shoots. It wasn't some grand artistic statement; it was just who he was. He lived in a constant state of friction with the world. I think even then, I knew Kinski would be the one to push every boundary until they snapped. Working on projects like *Aguirre* and *Fitzcarraldo*, where you worked closely with the native Indians of prati, the tension wasn't just between the actors and the directors—it was between the production and reality itself. You're out there in the elements, trying to capture lightning in a bottle, while Kinski is busy trying to set the bottle on fire. Looking back, I realize that much of what we achieved was despite the chaos, not because of it. We were all just trying to hold onto something tangible while everything around us was dissolving. It was a strange, heavy kind of magic. One that left you tired, disillusioned, and perpetually waiting for the next explosion.

Once I've wrapped things up at the office, I'll take a look. Thanks. 🙂

silentcanyon58 said:Lovely. They might as well write a whole chapter on Sam Peckinpah's alcoholism. Word is he started knocking back whiskey pretty early on with his grandfather and his buddies. Not to mention, let's not ignore that he was a notoriously difficult man to work with. 🙂

Apparently, Peckinpah was raised under his mother's iron thumb, which somehow fueled his later misogyny (women in all his films tend to be deceptive, sirens, or just plain trash...).

An interesting topic. A bit odd how it's laid out via a list, but it certainly has potential.
🙂

The tragic death of actor Vic Morrow (along with two child extras) during the filming of a Twilight Zone film... (nothing explicit shown here). John Landis—who was an absolute idiot for demanding the helicopter fly low right through the pyrotechnics, which eventually caused the crash—never actually took responsibility for it. Spielberg, though, didn't hold back at all; he blasted him publicly, both for that stunt and for the sheer stupidity of using live ammunition on set.

If my memory serves, Polanski disgraced that little girl about seven or eight years after his wife and a few guests were brutally slaughtered.

Trouble on set?

One of John Ford's favorite actresses, the stunning Maureen O'Hara, took a punch to the chin from the director himself—yeah, a punch to the face!—because, as O'Hara claims, she worked with a director Ford didn't respect, so he couldn't stand their collaboration.

Actually, I think O'Hara said it wasn't quite a punch, but I don't feel like checking right now; the hit definitely landed.

Michael Ortiz68 said:Apparently, Peckinpah grew up under his mother's very firm hand, which somehow shaped his later misogyny (it seems like women in all his movies are just manipulative, sirens, or total wrecks...).

It's such an interesting topic! A little blunt with the way it lists things out, but there's definitely some meat on the bone here. 🙂

I haven't sat down to read the entire feature yet, but I've pulled some bits & pieces from... erm... Modern Drunkard Magazine. 🙂

Sam (his family used to call him D-Sammy) picked up drinking quite early on. The Peckinpahs made their money ranching, and every Summer biti went to his grandfather ’ sa spread in The high country of north-east California and north-west Nevad. Up in those hills Young biti learned to drive cattle, how to brand them, and even how to notch their ears. He spent his days hunting deer, bears, and mountain lions, really learning how to "read" the wild.

He also crossed paths with and struck up friendships with one of his grandfather’s ranch hands, Bill Dillon, and the ranch foreman, Ed Klippert. These guys were the real deal—true cowboys—and since they felt Sam was getting a bit too soft living out in the suburbs, they took him under their wing. They taught him everything from how to handle a saddle to tracking a big cat, and of course, how to knock back what they called “the brown,” which Sam eventually came to recognize as “the elixir of liberation”—good old whiskey. By the time he hit seventeen, the crew was dragging Sam along on benders that could easily stretch for a week. They lived life in a whiskey-soaked blur, singing, scrapping, and blowing cash in Nevada whorehouses.

Full article

briskhound2 said:The death of actor Vic Morrow (along with two child extras) during the filming of a Twilight Zone film - here (nothing explicit is shown). John Landis, who foolishly insisted on flying a helicopter low through actual pyrotechnics—which ultimately brought it down—never took responsibility, though Spielberg immediately and loudly called him out for it, as well as for the sheer stupidity regarding the use of live ammunition on set.

A cameraman was killed during the filming of an American battlefield scene due to the use of live ammo. His name was Đorđe Jolić

silentcanyon58 said:....

Another article: http://articles.latimes.com/1991-12-..._sam-peckinpah

The part about his relationship with his mother:

Peckinpah's rage and defiance almost certainly stemmed from his relations with his divided family. Fern Church Peckinpah--Sam's mother, who died in 1983--is portrayed as a cold, manipulative shrew who haughtily dismissed her husband's family as "backwoods." Fine notes that the director's relationship with his mother did "long-term damage to his attitudes toward women,"

Then there’s that rather grim little tale about how Kubrick systematically manipulated Duvall just to ensure he looked authentically unhinged during those pivotal scenes in The Shining...

Bruno Gamulin makes movies.

Try beating that!

Jon-Erik Hexum ended up being a victim of a tragic accident while he was just "playing around" with a prop gun on the set of the TV show "Cover up." Back in the mid-80s, this series actually aired here in the States under the title "Na tajni zadatak."Wiki

analoghawk13 said:Günther Kaufmann kills his wife and goes to prison, or something along those lines.

You can actually see it in the actors' faces in the movie—it's like they're seriously offering to finally take out Kinski themselves.

Kaufmann (RIP) didn't kill his wife.🙄
He actually went to prison for the murder of an accountant. He confessed to the crime even though he didn't commit it, just to protect his wife, who was battling cancer and was already near death at the time.
Basically, the wife had paid off some thugs to kill Kaufmann’s accountant because he had stumbled onto one of her scams. She took money from him and promised he'd get it back through some legal loophole that probably didn't even exist. Once Kaufmann found out, he decided to go to prison in her place just so she could spend her final days surrounded by her children and loved ones. It was a massive sacrifice, the kind of thing very few people would ever do for anyone else. Eventually, the actual perpetrators turned themselves in, and Kaufmann was released.

As for Kinski, it’s no secret the guy was deeply troubled. His older daughter recently wrote a book that caused quite a stir in the German media; in it, she describes growing up with a monster of a father who subjected her to years of abuse.
So, don't be surprised if the people forced to work with him felt like they wanted to kill him. If you look on YouTube, there are countless clips of his scandals on various German talk shows where you can see the pure panic on the moderators' faces, terrified that he might actually lash out at them.

Anyway, it's an interesting topic.👍

analoghawk13 said:Maybe we should be collecting these stories—just to get the full historical picture.

Polanski, who screws over little girls.
And then they brutally massacre his wife later on.

Audrey Hepburn lying dead in a car in Paris.

Death in a car, in general: James Dean, a Porsche. The great Desmond Llewelyn.
Jennifer Gray sitting in a car where the driver kills someone—all because of speed.
Rowan Atkinson buys a McLaren and totals it in an instant.

Maria Trintignant—a friend beats her so badly she dies.

Pasolini was murdered by some young male slut.

Tarkovsky ends up with radioactive contamination.

German cinema has several suicides.

Günther Kaufmann kills a woman and sits in prison, or something like that.

The extras seriously offer the director a chance to finally kill that Kinski—you can see it in their faces in the movie.

Who died from alcohol? Vivien Leigh? Maybe Fassbinder?
Who were all the junkies? Hopper? Rourke.

Or Eiko Matsuda, who acted so convincingly she had to flee her home country.

Anyone actually know anything about this?

You forgot the death of Alan J. Pakula... A metal pipe pierced his skull.