Jon-Erik Hexum
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| Jon-Erik Hexum | |
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| Birth name | Jon Eric Hexum |
| Born | November 5, 1957 Tenafly, New Jersey  United States |
| Died | October 18, 1984 Century City, California |
| Notable roles | Phineas Bogg on Voyagers! Mac Harper on Cover Up |
Jon-Erik Hexum (November 5, 1957–October 18, 1984) was an American actor and model.
Born to Norwegian immigrant parents, [1] [2] he was the star of the science fiction series Voyagers!, which aired on NBC during the 1982–83 television season. He also appeared in made for television movies The Bear and Making of a Male Model co-starring Joan Collins and Roxie Roker, and in an episode of Hotel. He had also received attention in tabloids for his relationships with Heather Thomas and Emma Samms. Eric Paulsen, journalist and news anchorman of WWL-TV in Louisiana, is Jon-Erik’s cousin.
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[edit] Biography
Jon-Erik Hexum was born in Englewood, New Jersey, to Gretha and Thorleif Hexum. He and his older brother, Gunnar, grew up in Tenafly, New Jersey. His parents split up when Jon-Erik was five years old. His mother had to work two jobs to earn enough money to support her children.
After graduating from high school, where he proved to be a versatile pianist, actor in school plays and the school’s first male cheerleader, Hexum went on to the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland in order to study biomedical engineering. However, he soon gave it up and switched to the Michigan State University in East Lansing, where he graduated in Philosophy.[1]
During that time, he worked as a radio disc jockey and actor in minor stage roles. He was also an accomplished diver. Only few days after graduation, he moved to New York in 1980 in order to pursue his acting career. While working cleaning venetian blinds in offices, he met Bob LeMond of LeMond/Zetter Management, the manager of John Travolta, who saw great potential in Hexum. LeMond asked him to move to Los Angeles in 1981 in order to audition for a movie called Summer Lovers, directed by Randal Kleiser. Even though Jon-Erik lost the part to Peter Gallagher, he was soon cast as the lead in the upcoming NBC TV show Voyagers!
Voyagers! only lasted one season, mainly because it was shown during the same time-slot as the popular television show 60 minutes. Nevertheless, the show was and still is popular among children and science fiction fans.
During his time in L.A., Hexum worked as a nightclub door man, cab driver and carpet cleaner to pay the bills. After a promotion tour which he financed himself, Jon-Erik was cast for the movie Making of a Male Model with Joan Collins in 1983. He played a ranchhand who is invited by a modeling agent (Collins) to move to New York and pursue a modeling career. The film was Hexum’s breakthrough, but it also labeled him as a hunk and sex symbol, much to his own dismay.
After being considered for various television projects he eventually accepted a leading role in the television show Cover Up, where he played an undercover CIA agent. He described the role as “part Indiana Jones, James Bond, Mr. Magoo and Superman”.[2]
During the weekends, he was promoting the movie The Bear about college football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant, in which he had a short, but well reviewed, part.
Being a perfectionist he wanted to play more meaningful roles. Among his favourite movies were Rocky, Ordinary People, The Big Chill and The Deer Hunter. He was especially impressed by the Russian roulette scenes in The Deer Hunter. A conversation about it with some of the crew members on the set of Cover Up is said to have led to the fatal joke with a revolver that injured Jon-Erik Hexum severely on October 12, 1984. He was declared dead six days later.[3]
[edit] Death
Hexum died after shooting himself in the head with a prop gun loaded with blanks on the set of the CBS series Cover Up, a program about a pair of fashion photographers/models who were actually secret agents. Hexum, who played a weapons expert, was said to constantly be playing with the guns as if they were toys and once angered Jennifer O'Neill so much that she chastised him on-set for his carelessness.[4]
On October 12, 1984, after finishing a scene in which he fired several blank rounds from a .44 Magnum revolver, Hexum's character was supposed to unload the gun and reload it with blanks, which was required for the next scene in the script—a procedure that Jon-Erik was not familiar with, and which was usually done by the prop masters. However, the shooting of the next scene was delayed several times. Hexum jokingly put the gun up to his temple and allegedly said,
- "Let's see if I get myself with this one."
Hexum apparently did not realize that blanks use paper or plastic wadding to seal gun powder into the shell, and that this wadding is propelled out of the barrel of the gun with enough force to cause severe injury or death if the weapon is fired at point-blank range. Although the paper wadding in the blank that Hexum discharged did not penetrate his head,[5] it struck him in the temple with enough force to propel a quarter-sized piece of his skull into his brain. However, even without the wadding, the explosion of the gunpowder created gasses rushing out of the gun barrel with huge force (sufficient to accelerate a metal bullet fast enough to travel more than a mile) and these out-rushing gasses at the end of the gun barrel or very near the end of the barrel pack potentially lethal force.
According to a crew member on the set:
- "Jon smiled and pulled the trigger. There was a loud bang and a bright flash, then black smoke. Jon screamed in agony, then looked kind of amazed as he slumped back onto the bed with blood streaming from a severe head wound. It was horrible."
Hexum's assistant ran to him and wrapped his head in a towel. An ambulance was called, but before it could arrive, Hexum slipped into a coma, prompting crew members to carry him to one of the studio's station wagons and drive him to Beverly Hills Medical Center. Hexum went into surgery as his family and girlfriend, actress Elizabeth Daily, were notified of his condition. Initially he was listed as being in "serious" condition, but after five hours of surgery, doctors changed the condition to "critical". Hexum was given a feeding tube and respirator, and lingered for six days before doctors pronounced him brain dead. With his mother's permission, Hexum was flown to San Francisco and taken off life support so that his organs could be donated.[6]
The same month that Hexum died, an issue of Playgirl magazine came out, featuring a photo shoot that Hexum had done shortly before his demise.
In 1999, Jennifer O'Neill was interviewed for the show Mysteries & Scandals, where she criticized the bad management at the set of Cover Up, which required the actors to stay at the set up to 18 hours a day. She described Hexum as overworked and tired at the time of his accident.
[edit] Filmography
[edit] Movies
- 1983: Making of a Male Model
- 1984: The Bear
[edit] Televison shows
[edit] Notes
- ^ http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/1744/Detour.html
- ^ http://pdhexum.tripod.com/id1.html
- ^ http://pdhexum.tripod.com/id1.html
- ^ Find a Death: Jon-Erik Hexum
- ^ The New York Times
- ^ http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/1744/LATimes.html
