‘Twilight Zone’ fatality recalled in court case

Press, 6 January 1987, Page 4

‘Twilight Zone’ fatality recalled in court case

NZPA Los Angeles The director of the film, “Twilight Zone,” Mr John Landis, has discounted warnings that special-effects blasts came too close to a helicopter in the scene before a fatal crash, a production worker testified.

But defence attorneys said Landis was only joking, and actually took the warnings seriously. “They (members of the movie’s helicopter crew) said that it was really close, it got really hot,” said Cynthia Nigh, who worked in the production office during filming of a

scene before the fatal sequence of “Twilight Zone: The Movie.” She testified that Landis responded, “You thought that was big? You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Landis and four associates are on trial for involuntary manslaughter in the 1982 deaths of the actor Vic Morrow, aged 53, and two children, Myca Dinh Lee, aged 7, and Renee Chen, aged 6.

The three died when a helicopter in which they were riding spun out of control and crashed during special-effects explosions on a set depicting a Vietnam village, decapitating Morrow and Myca and crushing Renee. The deputy prosecutor, Ms Lea Purwin D’Agostino called Ms Nigh to the stand as part of her attempt to prove that Landis, the associate producer, George Folsey and the three other defendants showed reckless disregard for the actors’ lives.

. Landis’s attorney, Mr James Sanders, said the prosecution had distorted a comment that had been made in jest. “Clearly she testified he was joking,” Mr Sanders, said outside the Court. “The prosecution took a joking comment and

sought to draw an inference from it that it knows is absolutely inaccurate.”

Mr Sanders said Landis later met the helicopter pilot and agreed to move the aircraft further away from the explosions in the subsequent scene. Defence attorneys contend the accident occurred because a special' effects technician set off the explosions prematurely.