Shortly before beginning work on that film, Landis and his wife purchased a small palace of their own, the lofty mountaintop estate of the late Rock Hudson, for which they paid close to $3 million.Īs the contrasting fortunes of Landis and Wingo suggest, those who were mired in the “Twilight Zone” case have been affected in startlingly different ways. In the end, protected by a loyal retinue and blessed with everything money can buy, the potentate and his bride retreat to his fairy-tale kingdom and live happily ever after. In “Coming to America,” Eddie Murphy plays a sheltered young prince who embarks on a comic odyssey through the lower depths of New York. The swiftness with which Landis has emerged from the “Twilight Zone” imbroglio suggests just how much the destinies of some powerful Hollywood personalities have in common with the buoyant fables they conjure on-screen. At one point, Landis and two co-defendants offered to plead guilty to a felony charge of conspiring to violate the child labor laws if the more serious manslaughter charges were dropped the district attorney’s office declined the offer. They were working without the necessary permits and without the supervision of a licensed teacher-welfare worker.
#TWILIGHT ZONE ACCIDENT MOVIE#
Renee Chen and Myca Le, who had never before worked in a motion picture and whose parents were Asian immigrants unfamiliar with usual practices in the movie industry, had been hired illegally.
#TWILIGHT ZONE ACCIDENT TRIAL#
The trial raised serious, still unanswered questions about his professional judgment in surreptitiously recruiting two inexperienced children to perform in a hazardous scene that led to their deaths. Landis was the first Hollywood director ever indicted on criminal charges in connection with a fatality during filming. On May 29, 1987, Landis, Wingo and three co-defendants-associate producer George Folsey Jr., unit production manager Dan Allingham and special-effects coordinator Paul Stewart-were acquitted of involuntary manslaughter.
Landis’ box-office triumph comes a little more than a year after the conclusion of a costly, convoluted criminal trial. Despite overwhelmingly poor reviews, Landis’ new movie, “Coming to America,” enjoyed one of the most lucrative opening weeks in film history less than two months later, it had passed the $100-million mark. WHILE DORCEY Wingo struggles to rebuild his career, John Landis, the man who directed him in “Twilight Zone,” is flushed with success. “Fifteen minutes of fame would have been more than enough for me,” he says. “For five years, Wingo was probably the most famous helicopter pilot in the country,” noted one of his attorneys, William Gargaro, recently. During the long period of FAA appeals, his professional future has been under a cloud. Shortly afterward, Wingo faced criminal manslaughter charges, and the Federal Aviation Administration moved to revoke his pilot’s license. Wingo’s helicopter, hovering in the midst of a Vietnam War scene, was disabled by huge special-effects explosions and came crashing down, decapitating Morrow and Myca Dinh Le, 7, and crushing Renee Chen, 6. In the early morning hours of July 23, 1982, Wingo was flying in the climactic sequence of John Landis’ segment of the four-part “Twilight Zone” movie at the Indian Dunes park north of Los Angeles. Wingo survived an aviation disaster that generated far more publicity: the accident on the set of “Twilight Zone-The Movie” that killed actor Vic Morrow and two children. It received less than a dozen lines on an inside page of Daily Variety.
Scholl was killed in a crash while filming the spectacular aerial scenes in “Top Gun.” Although he was one of Hollywood’s most celebrated stunt pilots, the media all but overlooked the accident that claimed Scholl’s life. “That’s where Art Scholl was based,” he said, an unmistakable note of melancholy in his voice. He had piloted dozens of combat missions in Vietnam, and since that time, flying has been his life, as well as his livelihood.
Wingo stopped to stare at the light planes circling the adjacent airport and at the row of enormous helicopters parked on a nearby landing ramp. SEVERAL WEEKS after the “Twilight Zone” trial ended last year, one of the case’s five defend ants, helicopter pilot Dorcey Wingo, escorted a visitor through the dusty parking lot of the Western Helicopter Co.
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