"Cursed" celebrities, movies and tv shows

Curse Schmurse! That sounds like good luck for Gregory Peck!

Jean-Claude Van Damme: Can't do a decent movie if his life depended on it.

- Fixxxer

It sure seems as if "someone" out there had it in for Lynyrd Skynyrd ...

Given that pictures employ - in the end, taking all aspects of production into account - probably thousands of people at one time or another, the law of averages would surely dictate that something bad's going to happen to at least SOME of them. Hell people died on Proof of Life and LOTR. Not a curse -- just life...

[/devil's advocate mode OFF]

Wait...how do you figure? You don't think they'd have made it without his cameo?

BTW, stick with the original on that one. No Juliette Lewis, for a start (always a plus), but also one of the scarier movie psychos of all time played perfectly by Robert Mitchum..his physical presence was intimidating, and the way he played it...chilling. Much better than DeNiro's, imho.

Bob Mitchum is also a pretty good psycho in "Night of the Hunter," which you should be lashed if you haven't seen.

But as for cursed movies--the 3 Men and a Baby thing is a myth...it was a cardboard standie someone left on the set. I think snopes.com has a thing about it. But has anyone mentioned Twilight Zone: the Movie?

Or it could just be that three kids found themselves in the spotlight of fame and couldn't take the pressure. That's not a curse - most child stars go off the rails.

Yep, this was a prop - acardboard standee of Ted Danson's actor character from the movie - which was visible through a window on set. Rumours soon circulated that it was the ghost of a boy who died in the apartment where the scene was shot - a rumour sadly foiled by the fact it was shot on a soundstage.

This is the only one that I would class as a "genuine" curse, rather than a series of coincidences and accidents. Legend has it that Bruce Lee offended Chinese martial arts masters by taking an American wife and worse, teaching martial arts to westerners. He was given the "Hand of Death", a secret fatal touch given by a Shaolin master, in which the touching hand vibrates at a frequency which disrupts the internal organs and results in death several days later. Or he may have been allergic to aspirin.

Actually there are movies that have a diproportionate amount of badness associated with it. For example, Poltergeist had a main actor die after each fim was shot. I've been on a few and was writing one that was surrounded by bad stuff during the periods that I wrote it. One of the "cursed" films that I worked on was Blackdog.
Kevin Sorbo had the aneurism
An extra had a heart atteck
One of the trucks almost broke in two
The camera truck was hit head on by someone running the roadblock.
Several people almost burned to death when an explosion went off in a truck prematurely with the fx guys still in the vehicle. They were badly burned.
It was quite freaky.

CURSE OF MACBETH

The "Curse of Macbeth" is the misfortune that happens during the production of the play.
The theory goes that Shakespeare included actual black magic spells in the incantations of the weird sisters. Those who appear in the play or those who mention the play's name within the confines of a theatre risk having these evils brought down on their heads.
The tragedy of Macbeth is considered so unlucky that it is hardly ever called by name inside the profession. People refer to the play as "that play”, “the unmentionable" or "the Scottish play." It is supposed to be bad luck to quote from the play or to use any sets, costumes, or props from a production.
The play partly acquired its evil reputation because of the weird sisters and partly because tradition traces a long line of disasters back to its premier on August 7, 1606.
The boy actor playing Lady Macbeth died back stage on opening night. In 1934, four actors played Macbeth in a single week. In 1937, Macbeth had to be postponed for three days after a change in directors and because of the death of Lilian Boylis.
In 1954, the portrait of Lilian Boylis crashed down on the bar on opening night.
The answer to the curse is lost in folklore, there are three main guesses to why the curse occurs.
The first guess is that there is something mystical about the weird sisters incantations.
The second guess is that the play has a history of bad luck.
The third guess is that the play's crowd-pleasing popularity made it the stand-by when a show was flopping.
There is a lot of fighting and physical action in Macbeth. It is inevitable that in the long run of the play someone is going to get hurt. After a few of these stories get around, you get the "Curse of Macbeth."
In one production of Macbeth, nothing went wrong until the fight scene between Macbeth and Macduff. Both actors had round "Celtic-style" shields strapped to their forearms of their left arms. The fight was very physical. The actor playing Macbeth made a violent move with his left arm and the shield left his arm and flew like a Frisbee for twenty feet across the stage.
The actor playing Macduff ducked instinctively and the shield hit the ground about sixteen inches from the front of the stage. Sitting in the front row, directly opposite the shield sat two nuns.
The superstition is not so much about doing the play as about naming it. You are not supposed to mention the title in a theatre.
The most interesting theory is that the play contains the devil in the form of the porter.
The most common remedy to get rid of the curse is that the offender must step outside, turn around three times, spit, and say the foulest word he/she can think of, and wait for permission to re-enter the theatre.

Ya mean Neil Young?

I was just thinking about the 3 men and a baby thing the other day. How in the hell did that get started? First of all, this was pre-internet, before goofy information had a means of being widely diseminated. And I could see if it was a horror or scifi movie, where it would have a cult of people who watch it over and over, but for 3M&aB, who would be obsessive enough to notice that in the first place?

NiveK wrote: Hogwash.

Let's squash the whole "no one dies on Disney property" thing once and for all.

You can't be officially pronounced dead until you arrive at the hospital. EMTs, once they begin emergency procedures, have to keep going until they reach the hospital. There are no hospitals on Disney properties. So yes, technically no one has even been declared dead on Disney property, but it's because of procedure, not because of some labyrinthian Disney plot.

It's a cardboard standee of Ted Danson. He plays an actor in the movie, and the standee was a prop from one of his scenes. It was stacked behind the set, but accidentally could be seen through one of the windows. Because of the distance, the distorting effect of the window and the fact that it's only visible for a few seconds it ended up looking like a shadowy human figure, and needless to say people seized on the "ghost" explanation - especially as the scene appears to take place in an apartment building, giving the impression the figure is floating in the air.

Seriously, why would Disney go to the trouble and expense of digitally altering a film to change something like that? Nobody died - it's a cardboard cutout.

Well, then, I retract my statement.

I saw the cast of THE EXORCIST on The Mike Douglas Show doing press for the film before it came out. I was a little kid but I can remember Eleen Burstyn saying there was a mysterious fire, a heart attack, cold spots would "appear", and so on...

The full story of the Three Men And A Baby rumor is here:
<a href="http://www.snopes.com/movies/films/3menbaby.htm" target="_blank">http://www.snopes.com/movies/films/3menbaby.htm</a>

There are many versions of the rumor, but no hard facts, like the name of the "dead" boy, his family, etc.

Here's a pic from the scene:
<img src="http://www.snopes.com/movies/graphics/ghost.jpg" alt="" />

I will admit that it's damn scary looking, but here's another shot of the cardboard stand-up here:
<img src="http://www.snopes.com/movies/graphics/danson.jpg" alt="" />

Here are some reported details about the making of the Exorcist, from <a href="http://us.imdb.com/Trivia?0070047" target="_blank">http://us.imdb.com/Trivia?0070047</a>