Gunnar Hansen has passed away

Gunnar Hansen has passed away

One of the most legendary horror movie actors Gunnar Hansen has passed away. Everybody give him a big RIP!!! He's best known for his iconic role as Leatherface in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Here is a couple of things about the Texas Chainsaw Massacre I found :
(Sauce :: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072271/trivia)

1. The human skeleton in the house at the end of the movie was a real human skeleton. They used a real one because a human skeleton from India is far cheaper than a fake plastic skeleton.

2. A family was actually living in the house that served as the Sawyer family house in the later half of the movie. They rented out their house to the film crew and continued to stay there during the entire shoot. During filming, the crew discovered that one of the residents had been cultivating a marijuana field; fearful that production would be shut down if they were found near the plants, the filmmakers called the Sheriff, who never arrived to investigate.

3. When it was first released, the film was so horrifying that people actually walked out on sneak previews for it.

4. According to John Larroquette, his payment for doing the opening narration was a marijuana joint.

5. Marilyn Burns, whose character was chased by Leatherface through the undergrowth, actually cut herself on the branches quite badly, so a lot of the blood on her body and clothes is real.

6. Director Tobe Hooper claims to have got the idea for the film while standing in the hardware section of a crowded store. While thinking of a way to get out through the crowd, he spotted the chainsaws.

7. Tobe Hooper allowed Gunnar Hansen to develop Leatherface as he saw fit, under his supervision. Hansen decided that Leatherface was mentally retarded and never learned to talk properly, so he went to a school for the mentally challenged and watched how they moved and listened to them talk to get a feel for the character.

8. Leatherface had "lines" in the script that were gibberish with little side notes indicating what he was trying to say.

9. The soundtrack contains the sounds an animal would hear inside a slaughterhouse.

10. After getting into the old-age makeup, John Dugan decided that he did not ever want to go through the process again, meaning that all the scenes with him had to be filmed in the same session before he could take the makeup off. This entire process took about 36 hours (five of which which took to put the makeup on), during a brutal summer heat wave where the average temperature was over 100 degrees, with a large portion of it spent filming the dinner scene, with him wearing a heavy suit and necktie, sitting in a room filled with dead animals and rotting food with no air conditioning or electric fans. Everyone later recalled that the stench from the rotting food and people's body odor was so terrible that some crew members passed out or became sick from the smell. Edwin Neal who played the hitch-hiker claimed: "Filming that scene was the worst time of my life... and I had been in Vietnam, with people trying to kill me, so I guess that shows how bad it was."

11. Gunnar Hansen said that, during filming, he didn't get along very well with Paul A. Partain, who played Franklin. A few years later, Hanson met Partain again and realized that Partain, a method actor, had simply chosen to stay in character even when not filming. The two remained good friends up until Partain's death.

12. Even in his lift boots, Gunnar Hansen could run faster than Marilyn Burns, so he had to do random things when chasing her through the woods (you'll notice in one head-on shot that he starts slicing up tree branches in the background).

13. The close-up of Leatherface cutting his leg on the chainsaw was the very last shot to be filmed; the actor was wearing a metal plate over his leg, which was then covered with a piece of meat and a blood bag.

14. Tobe Hooper intended to make the movie for a "PG" rating, by keeping violence moderate and language mild, but despite cutting and repeated submissions, the Ratings Board insisted on the "R" rating for the effectiveness of what is onscreen and what is implied offscreen. Hooper had a similar ratings problem with the sequel.

15. Gunnar Hansen wore three-inch heels so that he was taller than the rest of the cast, but it meant that he had to duck to get through the doorways in the slaughterhouse.

16. Since the film's original release, the location used as the Sawyer family house has changed completely. It's now an open field, with no indication there had ever been a house there. The house itself has been relocated and fully restored. It is now operated as the Junction House Restaurant on the grounds of the Antlers Hotel complex at 1010 King Street in Kingsland, Texas.

17. The film's original distributor was Bryanston Distribution Company, in fact a Mafia front operated by Louis Peraino ("Butchie"), who used the movie to launder profits he made from Deep Throat (1972). In return, the production received only enough money to reimburse the investors and pay the cast and crew $405 a piece. The producers eventually discovered that Peraino had lied to them about the film's profits; after Peraino was arrested on obscenity charges when his role in Deep Throat was revealed, the cast and crew filed a suit against him and were awarded $25,000 each. New Line Cinema, which obtained the rights to "Chain Saw" from the bankrupt Bryanston, paid the cast and crew as part of the purchase agreement.

18. A still photo, taken during filming of the entire 'Sawyer' family posing outside the house as a gag, was found and stolen from the set by a visiting German reporter, who took it back to West Germany with him, and the image of the family eventually became the advertising poster for the first release of the movie in West Germany.

19. Tobe Hooper used a stunt double for Sally's leap through the window; all the same, Marilyn Burns actually hurt herself shooting the insert of her falling to the ground.

20. "Entertainment Weekly" magazine voted this the the second scariest film ever made, behind The Exorcist (1973)

There are about 15 to 20 more "Facts" about the movie included in the sauce if you find this sort of thing interesting. Sorry if the news of his death is a repost. I checked the imgurs and I didn't see it posted anywhere.