into the quadriga while the horses kept going. The long shot of Canutt's accident was cut together with a close-up of Heston climbing back aboard constitutes one of the race's most memorable moments. Boyd did all but two of his own stunts. For the sequence where Messala is dragged beneath a chariot's horses and trampled to near death, Boyd wore steel armor under his costume and acted out the close-up shot and the shot of him on his back, attempting to climb up into the horses' harness to escape injury. A dummy was used to obtain the trampling shot in this sequence. In all, the chariot scene took five weeks (spread over three months) to film at a total cost of $1 million and required more than of racing to complete. Two of the $100,000 70mm lenses were destroyed during the filming of the close-up shots. Once the "pageantry" and victory parade sequences of the race were finished, Wyler did not visit the chariot race set again. Marton asked the editors to put together a rough cut of the film, with temporary sound effects, and then asked Zimbalist to screen it for Wyler to get Wyler's approval for the sequence. Zimbalist said no. Wyler was tired, and might not fully appreciate the rough cut and demand that the whole race be refilmed. Zimbalist changed his mind however and showed the rough cut to Wyler several days later. According to Zimbalist, Wyler said "it's one of the greatest cinematic achievements" he had ever seen. Wyler did not see the final cut of the chariot race until the press screening of Ben-Hur. Myths Several urban legends exist regarding the chariot sequence. One states that a stuntman died during filming. Stuntman Nosher Powell says in his autobiography, "We had a stunt man killed in the third week, and it happened right in front of me. You saw it, too, because the cameras kept turning and it's in the movie." But film historian Monica Silveira Cyrino discounted this statement in 2005, and said there were no published accounts of any serious injuries or deaths during filming of the chariot race. Indeed, the only recorded death to occur during the filming was that of producer Sam Zimbalist, who died of a heart attack at the age of 57 on November 4, 1958, while on the set. MGM executives asked Wyler to take over the executive