Yup. I was a hyperactive, bored nine-year-old in some babes-in-toyland derivative, and got it in my head that I could while away the time backstage playing with the damn thing. Oops.
Then there was the time I yanked the stage door into my large toe, popping the nail off. But that was after my last scene, so I didn’t have to go back out except for curtain call, by which time the bleeding had stopped.
I was a regular klutz. I think I had at least one accident every play for the first four or so I was in. No ‘good luck’ wishes needed.
A well-known actor, very much the worse for wear, staggered onto stage on cue (probably having been pushed) and looked about him with a vacant stare.
The prompter stage-whispered, “Do you want the next line?”
Whereupon the actor said, “Next line, hell! What’s the play?”
A critic once reviewed a play and called actor Smith “the worst actor in the world”. Smith sued for libel and won. The next time the critic reviewed a play that Smith was in, he said, “As for Smith’s performance, it was not up to his usual standard.”