Claim:   The ghostly image of a boy who died in the apartment where Three Men and a Baby was filmed can be seen in the finished movie. Status:   False. Origins:   The unusual image at a window appears when Jack Holden (Ted Danson) and his mother (Celeste Holm) are walking through the house Jack shares with his two buddies. As Mrs. Holden plays with the baby girl left who was left in the three men's care, a human figure can be glimpsed standing behind the curtains of a background window at the left-hand side of the screen. A rumor has persisted for several years that this figure is the eerie image of a boy who was killed in the house where this scene was filmed. The most common form of this rumor claims that a nine-year-old boy committed suicide with a shotgun in the Three Men and a Baby house. (A detail obviously inspired by the jagged black outline created as the curtains move away from in front of the figure's left-hand side. The black portions of the figure form an outline that does resemble a shotgun standing on its end, barrel down.) Other variations merely mention that a boy died in the house, without specifying how. The dead boy's despondent parents supposedly moved out after their son's death, and the house was rented or bought by a film studio, who allegedly used it for interior scenes of Three Men and a Baby. More detailed versions of the rumor have the boy's mother suing the film studio after they refuse her request to remove the image from the film, and/or making the rounds of television talk shows (Oprah, Geraldo, 60 Minutes) to repeat her strange tale of woe. Even wilder versions have the mother spotting her dead son, dressed in his burial clothes, in the film. In stock folkloric fashion, the mother immediately goes insane and has to be confined to a mental institution, where she has remained ever since. As usual, the truth is much more mundane. The figure behind the curtains is a "standee" (a stand-up cardboard cutout used for advertising displays) of Ted Danson, dressed in a top hat, white shirt, and tails. The standee prop was created as part of a story line involving a dog food commercial in which Danson's character (an actor) appears, but references to the figure were cut from the finished version of the film. (The standee shows up once more in the film: Ted Danson is standing next to it when the baby's mother comes to reclaim her child.) The figure was accidentally left in front of a window on the set by a propman and thereby "sneaked" into the background of one scene. Additionally, all indoor scenes were shot on a Toronto soundstage -- no real structures were used for interior filming. As with most rumors involving strange or hidden images in popular films (such as The Wizard of Oz and The Lion King), this wild tale originated after Three Men and a Baby was released on home video. The rumor first gained widespread notoriety in August 1990 and spread like wildfile in the media and on the Internet in the following months, just as the film's sequel (Three Men and a Little Lady) was about to hit the theaters. The cynical among us might wonder whether the studio itself had something to do with the creation and/or propagation of this rumor, as the combination of supernatural mystery and the boost of a sequel propelled Three Men and a Little Lady to a new record for video rentals. Last updated:   2 June 1997

 

Sources:

    Beck, Ken.   "Mighty Regis Was Once Frogman of the Pacific."

    The Tennessean.   30 June 1996   (p. S43).

    Ebert, Roger.   "Of Pierced Ears and Plastic Fish."

    Chicago Sun-Times.   6 December 1992   (p. 3).

    Manning, Anita.   "Spreading Legends on a Global Scale."

    USA Today.   16 November 1990   (p. D1).

    Terry, Carol Burton.   "TV Line."

    Newsday.   2 December 1990   (TV, p. 57).

    People.   "A Nation Hits the Pause Button . . ."

    24 December 1990   (p. 89).