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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio, Hello, and Welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that honors the dead by sharing their stories

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Speaker 1: with the living. I'm Gay Bluesier, and in this episode,

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Speaker 1: we're looking at the shocking accidental death of John Eric Hexham,

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Speaker 1: an up and coming TV actor whose life was cut

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Speaker 1: short by an offhand joke gone wrong. The day was

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Speaker 1: October twelfth, four. TV star John Eric Hexham mistakenly shot

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Speaker 1: and killed himself after misfiring a prop gun on the

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Speaker 1: set of his show. The twenty six year old actor

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Speaker 1: had been filming a scene for the CBS by Adventure

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Speaker 1: series Cover Up, in which he played an undercover CIA

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Speaker 1: agent posing as a male model. Hexham was reportedly playing

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Speaker 1: around with a forty four magnum pistol loaded with blank

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Speaker 1: cartridges when he jokingly put the gun to his head

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Speaker 1: and pulled the trigger. He was rushed to the Beverly

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Speaker 1: Hills Medical Center, where he underwent five hours of brain surgery. Sadly,

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Speaker 1: the damage was too severe, and Hexham was declared brain

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Speaker 1: dead six days later. John Eric Hexham was born on

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Speaker 1: November fifth, nineteen fifty seven, in Englewood, New Jersey. He

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Speaker 1: showed interest in music at a young age and learned

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Speaker 1: to play both the violin and the French horn. He

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Speaker 1: later attended Michigan State University, where he majored in philosophy,

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Speaker 1: worked as a DJ, played football for the Spartans, and

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Speaker 1: most importantly, began acting in minor stage roles. Shortly after

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Speaker 1: graduating in nineteen eighty, Hexham moved to New York City

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Speaker 1: to pursue a career in acting. It was rough going

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Speaker 1: at first, and he had to take a job cleaning

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Speaker 1: up apartments just to make ends meet. Strangely enough, the

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Speaker 1: cleaning job actually gave Hexham the push he needed to

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Speaker 1: get serious about acting. That's because one of his clients

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Speaker 1: turned out to be Bob Lamont, a talent agent who

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Speaker 1: represented John Travolta, among many others. Lamond thought Hexham was

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Speaker 1: leading man material, so he encouraged the young actor to

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Speaker 1: move to Los Angeles and start auditioning for movies. Hexham

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Speaker 1: took his advice to heart and moved to Hollywood in

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Speaker 1: September of nine eight one. He lost out on several roles,

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Speaker 1: but was eventually cast as the lead actor on an

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Speaker 1: NBC sci fi show called Voyagers. The show was canceled

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Speaker 1: after just one season, but Hexham's performance as time traveler

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Speaker 1: Phineas Bogg earned him a major role in the TV

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Speaker 1: movie Making of a Male Model, alongside British star Joan Collins.

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Speaker 1: In four, Hexham guest starred on ABC's primetime drama Hotel,

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Speaker 1: and later that year, he played a terminally ill quarterback

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Speaker 1: in a film called The Bear, a tribute to University

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Speaker 1: of Alabama football coach Paul Bear Bryant, as portrayed by

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Speaker 1: Gary Busey. That role turned out to be Hexham's one

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Speaker 1: and only feature film credit, with the movie being released

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Speaker 1: just three weeks before his death. During the summer of four,

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Speaker 1: Hexham took on a lead role in the upcoming CBS

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Speaker 1: series cover Up. The show followed fashion photographer Danny Reynolds,

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Speaker 1: who learns that her recently deceased husband was actually an

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Speaker 1: undercover CIA agent. After learning that her husband was murdered,

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Speaker 1: she enlisted the help of Hexham's character, Mac Harper, a

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Speaker 1: former Green Beret who pretends to be one of Danny's models,

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Speaker 1: to help find her husband's killers. And yes, if you're

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Speaker 1: keeping track, that was Hexham's second time playing a male model.

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Speaker 1: He may have been typecast, but at least it was flattering.

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Speaker 1: Cover Up premiered on September twenty two, eighty four, and

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Speaker 1: on the day of Hexham's death three weeks later, the

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Speaker 1: crew was filming the seventh episode of the season, titled

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Speaker 1: Golden Opportunity. One of the scenes on the docket that

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Speaker 1: day required Hexam's character to load cartridges into a forty

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Speaker 1: four magnum handgun. The gun he was given was fully functional,

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Speaker 1: but the cartridges were blanks. In other words, they didn't

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Speaker 1: contain a projectile like a bullet or a pellet, but

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Speaker 1: still contained enough gunpowder to produce a muzzle flash and

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Speaker 1: an explosive sound. They also contained a bit of wadded

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Speaker 1: up paper or plastic to act as a stopper, ensuring

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Speaker 1: that the gunpowder wouldn't fall out of the cartridge. There

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Speaker 1: were several delays in filming that day, and Hexam grew

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Speaker 1: increasingly frustrated with the process. He took a few naps

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Speaker 1: to pass the time, but when he learned there would

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Speaker 1: be even more delays, he decided to play a joke

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Speaker 1: to help lighten the mood. Imitating the maccab game of

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Speaker 1: Russian roulette, Hexam unload at all but one blank cartridge

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Speaker 1: from the handgun. He reportedly asked the crew, can you

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Speaker 1: believe this crap? Then he spun the chamber, placed the

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Speaker 1: barrel to his right temple, and squeezed the trigger. The

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Speaker 1: resulting blast discharged the wad of paper from the cartridge,

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Speaker 1: and although it wasn't powerful enough to penetrate his skull,

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Speaker 1: the impact caused a fracture and drove a bone fragment

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Speaker 1: the size of a quarter straight into his brain. The

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Speaker 1: actor suffered severe hemorrhaging and lost several pints of blood

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Speaker 1: on the way to the hospital. He underwent five hours

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Speaker 1: of emergency surgery and was then placed on life support.

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Speaker 1: He remained comatose for the next six days and was

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Speaker 1: pronounced brain dead on October eighth. Hexham was an organ donor,

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Speaker 1: and with his family's permission, his heart, eyes, kidneys, and

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Speaker 1: skin were donated to six different patients, saving some of

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Speaker 1: their lives in the process. The actor's body was cremated

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Speaker 1: in southern California, and his shoes were scattered in the

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Speaker 1: Pacific Ocean by his mother, Greta Hexham. The producers of

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Speaker 1: Cover Up carried on with the show, eventually writing out

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Speaker 1: Hexham and killing his character off screen. He was replaced

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Speaker 1: with British actor Anthony Hamilton's who played a different undercover

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Speaker 1: agent posing as a model. Despite the change, an air

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Speaker 1: of tragedy clung to the show, and it was ultimately

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Speaker 1: canceled after just one season. Hexham's death was ruled accidental,

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Speaker 1: but a few years later his mother received an undisclosed

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Speaker 1: out of court settlement from twentieth Century Fox Television and

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Speaker 1: Glen Larson Productions, the company that had produced Cover Up.

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Speaker 1: In the wake of Hexham's tragic passing, Hollywood made several

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Speaker 1: changes to the way weapons were used on film sets,

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Speaker 1: most notably, the position of weapons handler was created, a

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Speaker 1: crew member whose sole responsibility is to oversee the safe

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Speaker 1: and appropriate handling of all firearms used in a production.

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Speaker 1: Despite at addition, though there have still been several notable

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Speaker 1: gun deaths on movie sets. In Bruce Lee's son Brandon Lee,

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Speaker 1: was fatally wounded by a prop gun while filming the

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Speaker 1: movie The Crow, and in one cinematographer Halenia Hutchins was

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Speaker 1: killed on the set of Rust after Alec Baldwin accidentally

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Speaker 1: shot her by mishandling a prop gun. These incidents are

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Speaker 1: disturbingly similar and show that all these years later, there's

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Speaker 1: still a lot of room for improvement in Hollywood's use

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Speaker 1: of firearms. John Eric Hexham was a promising young talent

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Speaker 1: lost far too soon, and the same is true of

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Speaker 1: Brandon Lee and Halenya Hutchins. The best tribute to their

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Speaker 1: memory would be for the film industry to do better

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Speaker 1: and prevent more needless deaths like their's from ever happening again.

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Speaker 1: In the meantime, though, producer Glenn Larson offered his own

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Speaker 1: fitting memoriam. It appeared on screen at the end of

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Speaker 1: an episode of Cover Up that aired five weeks after

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Speaker 1: or Hexham's death. It said, quote when a star dies,

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Speaker 1: it's light continues to shine across the universe from millennia.

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Speaker 1: John Eric Hexham died in October of this year, but

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Speaker 1: the lives he touched will continue to be brightened by

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Speaker 1: his life forever and ever. I'm Gabe Lousier and hopefully

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Speaker 1: you now know a little more about history today than

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Speaker 1: you did yesterday. You can learn even more about history

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Speaker 1: by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at t

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Speaker 1: d I HC Show, and if you have any comments

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Speaker 1: or suggestions, you can always send them my way at

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Speaker 1: this day at i heeart media dot com. Thanks to

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Speaker 1: Chandler May's for producing the show, and thank you for listening.

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Speaker 1: I'll see you back here again tomorrow for another day

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Speaker 1: in history class