daizeUK said:
That's interesting. We did primary school projects on Ben Hur back in the 80's and the death of the stuntman was common knowledge. Wiki says it's not true, too.
Just did another quick read-up. The rumour apparently started when one of the other stuntmen claimed that it happened in front of him, but this was later refuted.
BUT
"Ben Hur" was, according to Wiki at least, the first time in MGM's history, that the opening credits featured a silent Lion, rather than the traditional roaring lion.
This film was the 2nd remake of the film, the previous one was in 1925. The chariot race scene obviously had a lot of extras in the crowd. Amongst them were a young Joan Crawford, Douglas Fairbanks, Sam Goldwyn and Harold Lloyd.
Harold Lloyd was always my favourite silent movie star, we used to have his films shown on BBC2 just before dinner when I was young, and I enjoyed his films much more than either Chaplin or Keaton. I found out literally 2 minutes ago, when I was checking that the Harold Lloyd in the Ben Hur crowd scene was the same Harold Lloyd, that he died on the same day that I was born, 43 years ago next Saturday.