This is the astonishing story of a Hollywood leading man who killed himself playing Russian roulette on a TV show and whose heart saved the life of a Las Vegas pimp.

After a meteoric rise in the world of showbiz, Jon-Erik Hexum’s life was cut short on Oct. 18, 1984, when he put a .44 Magnum, which was loaded with blanks, to his head and pulled the trigger.

The 26-year-old actor had been filming a scene on his own television show, CBS spy adventure “Cover Up,” where he played an undercover CIA agent posing as a male model.

Hexum grew increasingly frustrated with delays in filming the scene and began playing with the gun, spinning the barrel like a game of Russian roulette.

In what has been described as a tragic accident, the actor playfully spun the barrel, which had one cartridge inside, placed the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger.

The gun discharged a wad of paper that shattered his skull, forcing a bone fragment the size of a small coin into the center of his brain.

After losing several pints of blood on the way to the hospital, the actor underwent five hours of surgery and was placed on life support.

Six days later, Hexum was declared brain-dead and his organs were harvested with the permission of his devastated family.

The New Jersey-born star’s heart was transplanted into the chest of Michael Washington, a Vietnam War hero who also owned an infamous escort service known as Swinging Suzy’s in Las Vegas.

Washington — who was twice awarded the Purple Heart, for those injured in battle — became obsessed with the actor toward the end of his life.

Speaking with the Sun Online, actor and Hexum archivist Doug Eames said Washington contacted him several times before the war hero died in 2002.

Eames said: “I asked Washington if he felt any kind of psychic or spiritual connection with Jon-Erik after having received his heart when we spoke.”

“Washington seemed a bit surprised by my question and said that he hadn’t had any supernatural experiences following the transplant, but that he just felt a great desire to find out everything he could about Jon-Erik and his life.”

Both Hexum and Washington were raised by single mothers after their fathers ran out on them at a young age.

Washington was interviewed on CBS news show “West 57th” in 1985 and said he felt “connected” to Hexum.

He said: “I’m alive because of him, so now I want to know about Jon-Erik Hexum.”

“So now I’m asking questions. I’m sending my mother to the store to buy books, to buy this, to buy that. I want to know about this guy now.”

Washington said that when he watched episodes of “Cover Up,” it would “bring a tear to my eye.”

He added: “Because of this man, I’m alive today — so it becomes real personal.”

Despite Washington’s insistence, Hexum’s mother, Gretha, and brother Gunnar declined to meet with him, claiming the experience would be “too painful.”

Washington said: “If the mother or the brother were here, I would feel like a part of their family.”

“It’s painful for me to know that I received the heart of a tragedy.”

Before “Cover Up,” Hexum appeared on NBC time travel show “Voyagers,” which was canceled in 1983 after just one season, and appeared in the TV movie “Making of a Male Model” alongside British star Joan Collins.

Hexum’s girlfriend Elizabeth Dailly told the Sun Online that the “frustrated” actor’s life was cut short by his own ambition, claiming he had been feeling “stressed out” about the direction of the TV show.

She said: “I remember it being a very strange few weeks. He was very stressed, more stressed than I remember him ever being.”

“He just wanted things to move so quickly. And he was in such a rush that he didn’t even get to enjoy his life.”

“The ambition itself is what actually killed him. Not taking care of himself around that ambition.”

Hexum reportedly had a “fascination” with guns, something which concerned his “Cover Up” co-star Jennifer O’Neill, who had also accidentally shot herself two years prior at her home in New York.

“Hexum’s fascination with them (guns) made her nervous, and she often asked him to be careful while handling weapons on set,” said author Douglas Snauffer.

The show’s executive producer Glen Larson claimed that Hexum insisted on using a .44 Magnum for the scene — a weapon which is still one of the most powerful handguns in the world.

Dailly said Hexum was playful while also confirming that he enjoyed fooling around with firearms.

She said: “Jon-Erik was very athletic and was always playing around like a little kid, with guns and jumping and tumbling.”

“He was very accident-prone anyway, he would get a cut or a scrape because he was so athletic.”

“He was such a big man. So when I heard he got hurt, I never thought it would have been life-threatening, in a million years.”

And in a case of what Dailly calls “divine intuition,” the then-23-year-old woman canceled lunch with her friend to visit Hexum on the set the day he died.

She said: “I felt like it was more important to visit him that day than to have lunch with my friend.”

“It was always a weird thing to me that I canceled that lunch meeting because I got to see him and thank God that I did because I got that moment with him that was so special.”

But within an hour of Dailly leaving the set, Hexum was in a coma and fighting for his life.

Aside from Washington, one of Hexum’s kidneys saved the life of a 5-year-old boy, while his skin was grafted onto a 3-year-old child who had suffered horrific burns.

Both of the 26-year-old’s eyes were donated — one went to a 66-year-old man while the other was given to a young girl.

Hexum’s former friend and roommate Nick Alan said he was with the actor when he signed up to become an organ donor.

Speaking with the Sun Online, Alan said: “When I was living with Jon-Erik, my little cousin needed a liver transplant — the donor was around 9 years old — and I said to Jon-Erik, ‘It’s amazing that some kid has to die to allow my cousin to live.'”

“And Jon-Erik, knowing that, called me up and said, ‘Meet me at the post office’ because back then you had to have a witness sign your driver’s license, and he decided to become an organ donor because of my little cousin.”

The producers of “Cover Up” decided to continue with the show after Hexum’s death and cast British-born actor Antony Hamilton as the new lead character.

But the action-adventure series never recovered from the tragedy and was canceled after one season.

Hamilton died in March 1995 from AIDS-related pneumonia.