Dead Man Acting
Jan stared in shocked disbelief. Her fork suspended halfway between the plate and her mouth. “What?”
Sue repeated, “I saw your brother in a TV show last night.”
Anger took over. Jan’s lip curled into a sneer. Her head wagged back and forth. “Impossible. He’s dead. He died three months ago.”
“It was him,” Sue insisted. “Even had that little birthmark at the corner of his left eye.”
“Where? What show?”
“The Detectives.”
Jan followed Sue home because, of course, her friend had recorded the show. Ed Jones was mostly a corpse in the episode. There was a scene with him in a bar before he died during an armed robbery gone bad. The effect was uncanny. It seemed as if her brother Dan must’ve been alive to portray Ed Jones. Jan began to wonder if he had worked as an actor in that episode.
Over the next week, she made a careful study of her brother’s papers. Nothing suggested he had worked as an actor in the recent past. He certainly had not been paid for his participation in an installment of The Detectives. She engaged private eye Jim Reynolds to investigate.
The show had been filmed two to three weeks after Dan Byrnes died of heart failure at 38. The decision to use his body in the story was made the day after his death. The producer had been looking for someone to be the “vic” in his upcoming episode. He stopped by the hospital to cheer up a friend and spotted Byrnes’ body on a gurney in the hall. Inspiration struck and wouldn’t let go. He could use an actual corpse. He would have to use a plastic replica in some scenes and he would have to find a way to bring the man back to life for events leading up to the crime. But he could build on the remains of a man who had just died.
The producer tasked an assistant with contacting the morgue to get pictures of his new star and investigate the man’s background. A couple of surveillance cameras produced videos of Dan Byrnes walking around carrying groceries and stopping to chat with friends. That was enough material to create Ed Jones using a body actor and film magic. A 3D printer could use the pictures to produce a copy of Dan’s body.
Six months later, Jan filed a lawsuit charging that The Detectives had used her brother’s likeness without his permission or the permission of his estate. Six months after that, producers of the popular TV drama settled out of court. They agreed to pay a million dollars to cover legal costs and emotional distress. In addition, Jan would receive a royalty check every time the episode was aired.
