10 Actors Who Didn't Realise They Were Seconds Away From Disaster

10. Eli Wallach, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly - Nearly Losing His Head

Eli Wallach's time shooting on Sergio Leone's legendary The Good, the Bad and the Ugly feature wasn't what you'd class as a dull affair by any stretch of the imagination.

If very nearly meeting his maker on the back of almost drinking acid on set wasn't bad enough, the actor drafted in to play Tuco was nearly left with a head very much separated from his body on the back of an ill-thought-out train stunt.

Instead of having a stunt performer execute the risky scene involving Tuco splitting a chain connecting him to a dead man thanks to an oncoming train, Wallach was brought in to do the scene himself. Only, no-one realised that said train had a pair of protruding steps attached to it, meaning that if Wallach's head had been in the wrong place, well, let's just say that trying to break free from some chains would've been the least of his problems.

Thankfully, Wallach survived the nutty stunt, and was also saved from an explosion during the shoot by Clint Eastwood. Someone really had it out for Wallach in this western, eh?