“He put what was some stage prop type pistol to his head as a big joke, pulled the trigger and killed himself.
Big joke.”
Yes, there have been a couple of those. The actors thought that a “blank” round would be harmless, but the wad from a “blank” at pointblank range, is deadly.
Death by concussion rather than penetration.
A sad story and a person considered the first Darwin Award winner was the genius behind the band Chicago, Terry Kath.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Kath