Subscribe RSS
Comment RSSTop 10 Actors Who Died Before Seeing Their Final Movie
19.09.08 # 16:33 # Top Ten # 36 CommentsWhat makes celebrity deaths particularly eerie and poignant is that often their final work only comes to light after they have gone. In the case of movie stars, it’s their last film that’s released months after they are buried/cremated/blasted into space. Cinema provides a form of immortality, and watching these farewell movies really is like seeing a ghost on screen.
Heath Ledger and Bernie Mac were not the first. Here are Movie-Moron’s top ten actors who didn’t live to see their final movie, based on a scale of plain old bad luck.
10. John Candy: 1950 – 1994
A brilliant comedic actor with a sensitivity about his weight, John Candy was apparently taking steps to improve his health in his later years. But it was too little too late. At the age of 43, Candy fell asleep and never woke up again; he suffered a heart attack whilst on location filming Wagon’s East! on March 4th, 1994. A body double was used to finish the movie and it was released that summer. John Candy’s last completed film was Michael Moore’s Canadian Bacon, which came out the following year.
Posted by 
James Dean is the definition of live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse.
Brandon Lee was in “Showdown in Little Tokyo”, one of the best films I’ve ever seen. He says to Dolph Lundgren, “You have the biggest dick I’ve ever seen on a man.”
what about health ledger who died before two of his movies where released.
Heath Ledger is mentioned in the introduction, he was the inspiration to look back at others from the past.
Even to this day, it still breaks my heart about River Phoenix, because that guy could have gone on to make a huge impact in the world. Such a waste.
There was no mention of chris farley and his movie almost heroes
Brad Renfro who had the bad luck of dying from a heroin overdose only 2 days before Health Ledger and thus having his name knocked out of the news and his post partum rise to James Dean status killed by a “bigger celebrity death”
Ironic huh?
I know his character died in the movie Grumpier (and part 1. Grumpy)Old Men,but did’nt Burgess Meredith(original Penguin from Batman tv series)also die before the release of part 2?
Not to forget Oliver Reed, who died during the maiking of Gladiator. Once again his roll was completed with a body double and computer trickery. Though what think raises it to legendary status is like he lived, Oliver Reed died pissed as a fart drinking in a pub.
You omitted Bela Lugosi, who died during Plan 9 From Outer Space.
Mako was the voice of Splinter in the latest TMNT movie, and he died before it premiered, too.
Brandon Lee is a particularly strong case because the film he died shooting – The Crow – is so good. Terrific genre film. Also Oliver Reed in Gladiator is brilliantly creepy because he actually gives a dramatic impassioned speech about facing death with dignity! Amazing. Of course he didn’t face chat shows with much dignity, but then pints of vodka and dignity don’t really mix.
Has anyone seen that road safety advert that James Dean appeared in just months beofre his death in which he says into the camera the tagline “drive careful, ’cause the life you save might be mine”? Creepy!
You mean this eerie little number?