The Untold Truth Of The Late Carl Weathers

Following “Predator,” Carl Weathers tried his hand at leading his own action movies, to mixed results. He had a good start with “Action Jackson” in 1988, one of the decade’s most underrated action movies, but his 1992 effort “Hurricane Smith” didn’t fare quite as well. There he played a similar gun-toting hero, but the failure of the film wasn’t just at the box office, because Weathers also suffered a serious mishap during production in Australia that shattered a tooth.

“In the final sequence, Hurricane Smith runs toward a helicopter fleeing with our heroine, and makes a grab for the skid,” said director Colin Budds, as relayed by FilmInk. “The steel skid was suspended from a crane, and Carl enthusiastically hurled himself upward, driving his front teeth into the unforgiving skid.” According to Budds, the hit smashed up at least one front tooth, snapping it cleanly in two. Budds described Weathers’ reaction to the incident as a “meltdown” and said he grew weary when Weathers wanted to head back to the U.S. for treatment. “He was immediately organizing flights back to a specialist in Los Angeles,” he said. “We had freeways, electricity, and spoke approximately the same language, but clearly we didn’t have advanced dental care.”

Reason eventually prevailed, however, and Budds was able to coax his star to stay in the country and see a local dentist Budds was familiar with. “About two hours later, and with that perfect smile restored,” he said, “he declared my dentist a genius.”