11. Being an Extra in Film Used to be Dangerous (Ben Hur, Hell’s Angels)
Being an extra in films these days is a low paying, unexciting job. It involves a lot of standing around and waiting, and extras are rarely afforded the opportunity to meet celebrities on set. However, things were a bit different in some of our most classic movies. Before special effects and well-designed stunts, directors went to drastic measures to make sure things looked real. For example, the famous William Wyler directed Ben-Hur (1959) suffered a casualty of one of the chariot racers;Haunted Spooks (1920), directed by Alfred Goulding, made the mistake of keeping live bombs on set and an actor blew off two of his fingers and temporarily blinded him; Hell’s Angels (1930), directed by Howard Hughes, suffered three deaths in aerial stunts; and Michael Curtiz directed the great flood scene in Noah’s Ark in which three extras drowned and one extra lost a leg. It was because of horrible accidents like these that unions, safety regulations, and governmental agencies were created to protect actors in even low level positions.
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