By Paul Miller
This picture shows Audrey Hepburn receiving treatment after injuring four vertebrae. It was an injury that cost her insurer Fireman’s Fund $240,000.
Ms. Hepburn was injured after she fell from a horse whilst filming the 1960 movie The Unforgiven. The insurance money paid for all associated delays in filming.
A couple of years before that, in 1958, actress Jayne Mansfield took out a policy that would also cover her in case she injured her back when appearing in a Las Vegas revue with her husband Mickey Hargitay. He was crowned Mr. Universe and would demonstrate his strength by lifting Ms. Mansfield, before flinging her around the stage. Before the opening night, she was insured with a $1 million policy against the risk that he would drop her and injure her spine.
Celebrity back insurance had become quite common at Lloyd’s by this time and many actresses had previously purchased similar policies. For example, in 1936, German star Lil Dagover paid $847 for a $50,0000 policy that insured her back against “disfigurement caused by sunburn, artificial light, mauling crowds or any other cause beyond her control.” This brought much publicity her way and she became known as: “The actress with the $50,000 back”.
English silent-movie actress Kitty Gordon also insured her back in 1916. When she made the move from stage to screen, she heard that powerful studio lights caused injuries to the skin and so, took out a policy that covered her in case the lighting “impaired the snowy hue of the skin on her back”.
Another actress, Gertrude Niesen, took out a policy in 1937 as her back was deemed: “a definite necessity in her film work before the cameras”. The policy stated that: “Only that portion of the assured’s body commonly known as the back and defined as that portion of the body between the base of the skull and the lower end of the spine shall be insured. £10,000 shall be paid upon proof of any disfigurement of the assured’s back by reason of marring, mauling by crowds or affectionate friends, infections, sunburn, artificial light, scratches, burns, or any cause beyond the control of the assured.”
Of course, not all policy requests are approved. Acrobat Tilly Starfish was refused insurance by a Lloyd’s broker in the 1940s when she asked to insure not her back, but her back-teeth. She made her living performing an “ironjaw act” during which she would hang from a trapeze, gripping a leather bit in her mouth. She almost got a £25,000 policy but it was turned down at the last minute when it was discovered that her husband worked in the act with her and that the couple had frequent arguments. The insurance broker decided that she was an “ultra poor risk” because:
“Some day, they may have an argument while she is performing her ironjaw show.
