Unfortunately, not the only one:
Johnny Ace
Johnny Ace, the famous 50s R&B singer, is reported to have killed himself in the same maner in 1955.
Brandon Lee
Brandon Bruce Lee, American actor, martial artist and son of Bruce Lee, died on March 31, 1993 after he was accidentally shot and killed in North Carolina while filming the movie - "The Crow". During a scene which required actor Michael Massee to fire a pistol at Lee, the blanks from a pistol propelled an earlier stuck bullet in the barrel that hit Lee in the abdomen, lodging in his spine - causing his death.
There was a similar, non-fatal case where a Civil War Reenactor (a visitor from France) fired a Colt replica with a blank load which dislodged a stuck ball, which struck someone. The French citizen was charged & found guilty of a minor charge. The weapon inspection was clearly deficient.
On October 2, 2010, David Birrell was appearing in Stephen Sondheim’s
Passion at the Donmar Warehouse in London. During a performance, one of the
blank-firing guns used apparently had a problem, and Birell sustained an injury to his right eye. He may lose his sight in it. According to a spokeswoman for the theater, “It appears that during the duel scene in ‘Passion,’ David Birrell’s licensed replica stage gun misfired causing some debris to enter his eye.” Further sources claim it was actually an antique flintlock gun.
On April 15, 2010, Darrell D’Silva, an actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company was rehearsing a scene with a prop gun. He
accidentally shot himself in the hand. It was during tech rehearsals for
Antony and Cleopatra. He underwent surgery and returned to rehearsals with his arm in a sling. Apparently when it was handed to him, he thought it was unloaded. It took a big chunk off of his finger and blood spurted everywhere. Here is an incident where the accident came not from bad or malfunctioning equipment, but from bad communication. The actor was not told the gun was loaded, but more importantly, he disobeyed the cardinal rule of stage guns: treat every gun like it is a loaded weapon.
November 15, 2008. Tucker Thayler, a 15 year old student at Desert Hills High School kills himself with a gun intended to be used as a sound effect for their production of
Oklahoma. Apparently it was a real
pistol with blanks. Apparently it was allowed as long as a parent was there to fire the gun. And I’m not sure how some schools still allow actual working firearms to be brought on campus. In most municipalities, you need a pyrotechnics license to fire blank ammunition for theatrical purposes; it is different than a standard gun license. After all, there are any number of firecracker and fireworks that average folk can use in their backyards legally in certain parts of the country, but once you want to fire them off inside a crowded theatre, the rules become much more stringent; the same is true of
blank-firing guns.
(source:
http://www.props.eric-hart.com/safety/blank-firing-guns/ )
Guns are dangerous, even with blanks, and our cannons large & small are specifically included.
