Alec Baldwin: Hollywood's King of Menace

From that Reuters article:

Cano said the incident took place at the Bonanza Creek Ranch, south of Santa Fe, during a rehearsal and it was not clear whether it had been filmed.

He said the prop gun was one of three on a cart outside a building. One of them was taken by the assistant director on the movie who went inside and handed it to Baldwin.

"As the assistant director handed the gun to the actor Alec Baldwin, (he) yelled 'cold gun', indicating the prop gun did not have any live rounds," the affidavit said.

As the investigation proceeded, questions were raised about working conditions on the set of "Rust", a small budget Western movie of which Baldwin was both star and a co-producer.
Cano said the incident took place at the Bonanza Creek Ranch, south of Santa Fe, during a rehearsal and it was not clear whether it had been filmed.

He said the prop gun was one of three on a cart outside a building. One of them was taken by the assistant director on the movie who went inside and handed it to Baldwin.

"As the assistant director handed the gun to the actor Alec Baldwin, (he) yelled 'cold gun', indicating the prop gun did not have any live rounds," the affidavit said.

As the investigation proceeded, questions were raised about working conditions on the set of "Rust", a small budget Western movie of which Baldwin was both star and a co-producer.
"We cited everything from lack of payment for three weeks, taking our hotels away despite asking for them in our deals, lack of Covid safety, and on top of that, poor gun safety! Poor on-set safety period!" one camera crew member wrote on a private Facebook page, according to Deadline.

Reuters could not immediately confirm the accounts. Rust Movie Productions did not respond to a request for comment on Friday but said in a statement it was investigating.

"Though we were not made aware of any official complaints concerning weapon or prop safety on set, we will be conducting an internal review of our procedures while production is shut down," the company said in its statement.

..."I don't understand why we would still use blank rounds in a day when you could simulate them," indie film director and producer Ben Rock told Reuters on Friday.

Sorry to post that bit twice; ads kept jumping out. That's my alibi!

fbclid=IwAR2BUqsbGwYxgovgAwBYSmmPrnUjYlejkvdLVTuCqo-P69dxsUqqhOjz8L8

I saw Alec Baldwin at a high end Japanese restaurant in Santa Fe two nights before the shooting. Meanwhile, they were making crew members drive 50+ miles from ABQ each day after promising them they’d have lodging in town. https://t.co/I7xHpCsaSc

— Jason Paladino (@jason_paladino) October 22, 2021

Only a day before the tragic shooting on the set of #RustMovie, a crew member on the film commented on a pro-IATSE Instagram video by actor and producer @AlecBaldwin Baldwin complaining of unsafe work hours.

Link to the original post: https://t.co/su0jdHjBrm pic.twitter.com/Bipfncrnpy

— Marta Evry (@venice4change) October 22, 2021

I’m not sure how the description of what the redditors are talking about isn’t true either way. How traumatized he must feel and his state of mind going forward are very much a central part of the drama of this story, ESPECIALLY now that he may be responsible for the dangerous circumstances. It’s very hard to not wonder about the state of mind of someone in that highly melodramatic situation. Being the “main character” doesn’t mean being the good guy, and if he is indeed the bad guy it would be similarly silly to go as far as to assume he is evil like cliche bad guys in fiction and isn’t going through some real shit atm. Understandable to imagine people focusing on that speculation.

*So far*, seems like assistant director who brought the gun to Baldwin didn't check it first, and why bring that one? Maybe because it was checked? Gun consultant to productions said this morning on CNN that there might have been three for different purposes, like a total prop gun just to show on screen, and a rubber gun for characters to struggle over.

Since they'd already had some kind of accident, at least one, involving misfire...

Oh man, she did a lot--despite headline, this is more about her: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rust-filmmaker-joel-souza-breaks-silence-after-colleague-halyna-hutchins-n1282208

Yeah when I first heard a bit of this story yesterday the news piece I'd picked up halfway thru was talking about how well regarded she was by her peers

received no less than five texts from out-of-town friends asking if i knew anything about the guy that went to the hospital here -- nice try, losers!!!!

anyway, just a huge bummer all around

in awe pic.twitter.com/p1NNdtgScP

— saying 'yacht' when it is CLEARLY a houseboat 😤 (@ChrisCaesar) October 22, 2021

B-b-but people love...oh wait.

10 paces then we turn and run at eachother with these bats

re: the discussion upthread about the general danger of film sets. It's actually insane how many people die or are seriously injured shooting movies and most of them you don't even hear about

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_film_and_television_accidents

so it's starting to sound like "why was the gun pointing at people?" is a pertinent question

On the final night of shooting in Nova Scotia, 80 cast and crew members were hospitalized after pranksters spiked the clam chowder at the catering area with PCP.[183]

wtf
On Titanic

Unidentified Henry Lehrman comedy (1919). Comedian Billie Ritchie, while working on a short comedy film, was kicked in the stomach by an ostrich and sustained internal injuries, which eventually caused his death.

Super Mario Bros. (1993). Bob Hoskins was stabbed four times, electrocuted, and was nearly drowned. During one scene, Hoskins broke a finger when the door of a van slammed on his hand.

During the filming of Public Enemy Number One Bobby Davro suffered a broken nose when the pillory he was placed in, not being secured vertically, toppled over projecting him face-first onto the studio's concrete floor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxYBpZ70y70

With this guy being a HUGE celebrity, I went to his filmography to try to recollect what movies I had seen him in, and there has only been one role that wasn't a voice-over/voice actor part: Beetlejuice. Apparently he was the dead husband? It was shocking to me because that really doesn't look like Alec Baldwin to me.

Voice roles that I have seen Baldwin in:

The Royal Tenenbaums Narrator (voice)
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie Dennis the Hitman (voice)
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa Makunga the Lion (voice)
The Boss Baby Boss Baby (voice)

And of those, I don't actively recall any of the performances except Boss Baby.

Bob Hoskins as Rasputin

just being pedantic here, but Bob wasn't electrocuted

Citation needed

Unidentified Henry Lehrman comedy (1919). Comedian Billie Ritchie, while working on a short comedy film, was kicked in the stomach by an ostrich and sustained internal injuries, which eventually caused his death.

― Gardyloominati (Neanderthal), Sunday, October 24, 2021 6:13 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

That's a myth. Ritchie died of cancer, but because that was so taboo the ostrich story stuck.

Among the reasons for the creation of the Screen Actors Guild: the firearms handlers were using standard "live" ammo. James Cagney and his peers understandably objected.

xp

I'm not disputing that he might have got a tickle, but electrocution.. no that's when it kills you!

Weird detail that I just came across: Francis Fisher being in the cast of Rust and tweeting about it.

calz, understood, just doing wikihumor

many xps Hunt For Red October is his best movie IIRC

I wonder how often he, Vincent D’Onofrio and Liev Schreiber compete for roles.

don't get the drive to blame baldwin for this, unless I'm misreading the comments above

Hunt For Red October is his best movie IIRC

you are misrecalling his best movie in 1990 alone

my vote for glengarry

Miami Blues
Glengarry Glen Ross
Malice
The Edge
The Shadow

all the producers, including Baldwin, deserve blame for responding to a crew walkout over safety practices by hiring scabs and continuing to shoot. many union crew members rely on uninterrupted set days to pay for the rest of their year, have pretty high risk tolerance, and tend to make excellent, well-informed technical assessments, so when they say shit is unsafe, shit is unsafe.

that he pulled the trigger on a gun that was called cold by the AD is significantly less relevant to his culpability than that

^

otm.

It’s what the media cares about though.

damned “the media”

A lot can be said about the Nicholas Cage vehicle Mandy, which was almost freakishly hyper-violent; however, I don't believe there was a single firearm in the film. Crossbow, hand-forged battleaxe, etc., but it didn't rely on guns. If we have a gun problem in this country (we do), then maybe Hollywood can start to leave them out of the picture, like cigarettes in every scene.

If you take away the guns from good actors, only the bad actors will carry guns

A lot of people are messaging me about yesterday's tragedy that was an on-set firearms death (because I am a film armorer, for those who don't know).

As both a human and a professional, it is extremely upsetting. My thoughts are with Halyna Hutchins' loved ones

— SL Huang 黄士芬 (@sl_huang) October 23, 2021

detailed thread with lots of info about gun safety on set

that was a great thread, thanks for that.

particularly the clarifications on how real guns are used vs props

Wow, very well done, thanks

supposedly an assistant director shouldn't be the one handing the gun to an actor. it makes sense. the armorer had three guns on a cart, who's to say if the assistant director merely picked up the wrong one.

also I imagine it should have been shown to the assistant director first by the armorer to prove it was not loaded.

even eerier is this movie is about an accidental killing. ick

That was a great thread. It does sort of broach a different debate, especially in the CG age: when or why should *anything* dangerous be done in a movie? Car or motorcycle stunts (which have injured or killed people), helicopter stunts (which have injured or killed people), horse stunts (which have injured or killed people), explosions, guns, and so on. I just learned about this, re: Sam Fuller's "Shark!:"

During production, one of the film's stuntmen, Jose Marco, was attacked and killed on camera by a white shark that broke through protective netting. The attack was captured on film and prompted a photo spread in Life magazine. The title was changed to Shark! to cash in on the controversy

Not only did they change the name to "Shark!" they allegedly moved the alleged scene to the start of the movie. I say "allege" because I also read this, which introduces several layers of questions:

Marco was allegedly a stunt double for Burt Reynolds who was brutally attacked by a shark in 1967 while shooting an underwater scene near Manzanillo, Mexico, for a film appropriately titled Shark. According to Life Magazine, which did a story in 1968 on the filming, Marco was in the water in scuba gear alongside a subdued bull shark when a great white managed to make it through the nets protecting the area from the rest of the sea. It charged at the camera crew before launching at Marco and disemboweling the actor where he swam. Crew members tried to steer the shark away from Marco with spears, but the animal was undeterred, and the stuntman's resulting injuries were so severe that he later died at a hospital. Producers allegedly used the footage of Marcos' death in the opening scene in the movie, along with publicizing the incident as a marketing push. Director Samuel Fuller unsuccessfully attempted to have his name removed from its credits because he was dissatisfied with the editing of the film. However, a detailed investigation revealed that there was no official record of the attack, no record of a stuntman named Jose Marco, and no hospital records of the incident, although Marco was allegedly in a hospital for two days before he died. LIFE magazine had no comment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil:_The_Final_Chapter#Stuntwoman_injury_and_crew_fatality

i love this movie and this still lurks in the back of my mind when i watch it

Exclusive reporting: Before the incident, a number of crew members had taken prop guns, including the gun that killed Hutchins to go “plinking" - shooting at beer cans with live ammo to pass the timehttps://t.co/TMYy00xZzv

— TheWrap (@TheWrap) October 25, 2021