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Hollywood Studios Used to Own Their Actors and Actresses

Khalid Elhassan January 3, 2022 37 min

Clark Gable in 'Gone With the Wind'. Cultura Estadao

26. A Freak Fatal Accident

The Colorado Transcript of July 2^nd, 1914, described the freak incident: “Miss Grace McHugh of Golden … was drowned in the Arkansas River at Canon City yesterday afternoon, according to a message received from Canon City last night. The accident occurred at 1 o’clock, and up to the time of going to press, her body had not been recovered. Miss McHugh had been the leading lady for the Colorado Motion Picture company, and left Golden about three weeks ago to join the company.

The accident occurred while Miss McHugh and Owen Carter, a cameraman, were engaged in making a scene in a picture entitled ‘Across the Border’. She was fording the stream in a boat, and suddenly the watchers saw the boat capsize and Miss McHugh was plunged into the swollen stream. Carter, without hesitation, plunged into the river, and succeeded in getting Miss McHugh to a sandbar. They appeared to be safe, when suddenly, when suddenly both sank from view, and it is believed they were sucked down by quicksand.” Filming had already been completed by then, so both McHugh’s and Carter’s work was included in the final product released to the public.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.