"LIVING PICTURE" TRAGEDY.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 251, 19 October 1912, Page 17

"LIVING PICTURE" TRAGEDY.

SCHOOLBOY'S DIVE TO DEATH.

Budapest dispatches give a remarkable Instance of the lengths to which cinematograph filmmakers will go in the pursuit of sensational pictures. As a result of a deal there a schoolboy, Dionys Kovalik, dived from the Franz Josef bridge into the Danube and was killed. Kovalik went to a cinematograph theatre and proposed to make a sensational leap from the bridge for 1,000 crowns (£SO), but afterwards accepted a quarter of that amount. In order to rnske the representation more thrilling Kovalik agreed to climb to the top of the highest column of the chain bridge and Induce the flre brigade to come to taka him down. He also undertook, when the firemen got near him, to jump into the river. Kovalik climbed to the top of the column and seated himself astride of a figure of an eagle. He undressed In the presence of a huge crowd and made speeches to attract still more people mit'l the flre brigade came on the scene with ladders and motor boats. Kovalik allowed tlie firemen to climb to a point near him and Men dived at an angle ol 45 degrees, turning a double somersault and striking the water on his back with terrible force. His body disappeared immediately below the waves. Kovalik's friends told the police the history of the affair \yith the cinematograph people, and the latter were arrested. They ore charged with being accessory to murder.