Boris Sagal

He was killed early in the production of the TV film World War III (1982) in a helicopter accident in Oregon. He had just returned from filming aerial shots, his helicopter landing in the parking lot of the Timberline lodge on Mt. Hood (the exteriors location from The Shining (1980)). Preoccupied with his work, he inadvertently turned the wrong way upon getting out of the helicopter, walking directly into the rear rotor blade; he died of severe head and shoulder injuries after emergency surgery 60 miles away in Portland. Astonishingly, filming resumed the very next day with a new director.

He was a director and writer, known for The Omega Man (1971), The Name of the Game (1968) and Hauser's Memory (1970). He was married to Marge Champion and Sara Macon.

Directed one Oscar nominated performance: Nick Adams in Twilight of Honor (1963).

Coincidentally, his work includes the pilot episode of the TV series Combat! (1962), which starred Vic Morrow. Two decades after collaborating, Sagal and Morrow would die similarly (struck by a helicopter's rotor blade) within a year of each other, while shooting a movie on location. For Sagal, it was World War III (1982); for Morrow, it was Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983).

Having directed the pilot for Richard Chamberlain's hit series Dr. Kildare (1961), he was chosen to direct the actor in his first starring role in a movie, Twilight of Honor (1963).

In 1955 he staged a production of the Maxwell Anderson play, "Lost in the Stars" at the Ebony Showcase Theatre, operated by Nick Stewart. Al Freeman Jr. and William Schallert also participated in the production.

Boris Sagal was born on October 18, 1923 in Yekaterinoslav, Ukrainian SSR, USSR as Bernard Louis Sagal.