Here are 12 actors who died tragically before their final films were released.
All their deaths were sudden and unexpected, leaving not only their friends, fans and families in shock, but also their collaborators.
In some cases, those colleagues had to decide whether to finish their films without these actors who died — and if so, how to do it.
May they rest in peace.
James Dean
James Dean was a huge fan of auto racing — so much so that Warner Bros., the studio behind Giant, barred him from racing during the shooting of the sweeping drama.
After he finished shooting his scenes, and the movie was in post-production, Dean decided to start racing again. He was driving in his Porsche 550 Spyder to a race in Salinas, California, when he was killed in a crash. He died on September 30, 1955, at the age of just 24.
Dean’s friend Nick Adams was enlisted for some voice dubbing of Dean on Giant, which was released in 1956 and was the last of Dean’s three films as a lead actor. It earned him a posthumous Oscar nomination.
Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood, who starred alongside James Dean in 1955’s Rebel Without a Cause and earned a supporting actress Oscar nomination for her performance, established herself as one of Hollywood’s greatest stars with films like The Searchers (1956), West Side Story (1961), Splendor in the Grass (1961) and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969).
She was on a break from production on her film Brainstorm (above) when she went on a Catalina Island boat trip with her husband, actor Robert Wagner, and her Brainstorm co-star, Christopher Walken, as well as the ship’s captain. She drowned on November 29, 1981, and investigators never determined exactly what happened. She was just 43.
Brainstorm was delayed, then eventually completed with the help of rewrites and Natalie Wood’s younger sister, Lana, taking her place in some scenes. Brainstorm was released in 1983 with the dedication, “to Natalie.”
Clark Gable
Gable earned the nickname “The King of Hollywood” by starring in films like It Happened One Night (1934) and Gone With the Wind (1939).
He had just wrapped shooting alongside Marilyn Monroe in The Misfits when he died of a heart attack in 1960 at the age of 59.
Gable had seen footage of the film, and agreed with people who said it was his best work to date. The film was released on February 1, 1961, on what would have been Gable’s 60th birthday.
It was initially a box office disappointment, but soon proved to a classic. Sadly, it was the final film not just for Gable, but also for Monroe, who died in 1962 at age 36.
Bruce Lee
The martial arts icon died at just 32 on June 20, 1973, while visiting Hong Kong.
Lee had been filming Game of Death in 1972 when he was offered the chance to star in Enter the Dragon, the first kung fu film to be released by a major Hollywood studio. He paused filming on Game of Death to shoot Enter the Dragon, but died soon after.
Enter the Dragon was released in Hong Kong just days after Lee’s death, and a month after it in the U.S., becoming the most successful martial arts film of all, and one of the most profitable films of all time.
Lee’s death inspired a wave of “Leesploitation” films starring inferior imitators, and Game of Death was completed using stand-ins. It was released in 1978, five years after Lee’s death.
Brandon Lee The Crow
In one of the greatest film tragedies, Bruce Lee’s son, Brandon Lee, also died young. He had followed in his father’s footsteps, studying many forms of martial arts, and was a rising action star in the late 1980s and early ’90s whose role in the comic book adaptation The Crow was expected to be his big breakthrough.
Sadly, he was killed in an on-set accident, and died on March 31, 1993, when he was just 28. Lee had neatly shot all of his scenes for The Crow, and after some rewriting, Lee’s stunt double, Chad Stahelski, was used as a stand-in, allowing the film to be completed.
Watching The Crow is a very sad and eerie experience, however, because Lee plays a character who has risen from the dead.
River Phoenix
River Phoenix starred in films from Stand By Me to Running on Empty to My Own Private Idaho, and had been filming Dark Blood in 1993 when he died of a heroin and cocaine overdose at the West Hollywood club The Viper Room.
The film was halted, and the version that was eventually completed was only shown at a few film festivals until its DVD release in Germany in 2018.
A Guardian review said that director George Sluizer filled in scenes that couldn’t be shot, due to Phoenix’s death, by reading “descriptions of what is missing… a simple but surprisingly effective tactic.”
Chris Farley
One of the breakout Saturday Night Live stars of the early ’90s, Farley intensely committed to his characters, and like his idol, John Belushi, would happily careen into furniture to sell a joke. He starred with SNL castmate in 1995’s Tommy Boy (above) and the following year’s Black Sheep, and starred in his first solo film, Beverly Hills Ninja, in 1997.
Sadly, he also shared Belushi’s troubles with drugs, and like Belushi died of a drug overdose at 33. He passed on December 18, 1997.
His voice role in Shrek had to be recast — SNL castmate Mike Myers took over — but Farley had already completed Almost Heroes, released in May 1998, and a brief role in Dirty Work, released that June.
Tupac Shakur
Tupac Shakur was of course best known as a rapper, but had also established himself as a screen star with films like Juice and Poetic Justice before he died on September 13, 1996, from injuries suffered in a Las Vegas shooting. He was just 25.
He had just completed work on the film Gang Related, which costarred Jim Belushi. It was released in October 1997.
“Tupac was great to work with,” writer-director Jim Kouf said years later. “He really wanted acting to be his way out of the music world, which was controlling his life at the time. He was also going to score the movie, but was killed 10 days after we finished shooting. He was a great guy. We had a lot of fun on set. And Gang Related had one of the best casts I’ve ever worked with.”
Aaliyah
Aaliyah was known for hits including “If Your Girl Only Knew,” “4 Page Letter” and “Are You That Somebody” when she made her feature film debut in Romeo Must Die (for which she appears in a promotional photo, above).
She had been recording a music video for her song “Rock the Boat” in the Bahamas when she and eight others were killed in a private plane crash on August 25, 2001. She was just 22.
Her second and final film, the Anne Rice adaptation The Queen of the Damned, was released the year after her death. Like The Crow, it’s an eerie watch, because she plays a woman who is undead.
Heath Ledger
Heath Ledger starred in films including 10 Things I Hate About You, The Patriot and A Knight’s Tale before earning an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for his role in 2005’s Brokeback Mountain.
He earned a posthumous Oscar for his role as The Joker in The Dark Knight, released the summer after his accidental overdose death from medications on January 22, 2008, when he was only 28.
He died during production of Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (above), so Gilliam enlisted Colin Farrell, Johnny Depp and Jude Law to play physically transformed versions of Ledger’s character at different stages in his story. The film was released to acclaim in 2009.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman was born July 23, 1967 and died February 2, 2014 at only 46.
Known for his versatility and commitment, Hoffman stood out in films including Boogie Nights, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Mission: Impossible 3, the Hunger Games franchise, and Capote, for which he won the Best Actor Oscar in 2006.
He struggled with heroin addiction early in life, and successfully abstained from it for many years before relapsing. He died from mixed drug intoxication on February 2, 2014, at only 46. Heroin and other drugs were reportedly found in his home.
Hoffman had completed most of his scenes in The Hunger Games — Mockingjay Part II, though some of the film needed to be rewritten because of his passing. He’s in character above as Plutarch Heavensbee in The Hunger Games — Mockingjay Part I.
Carrie Fisher
An acclaimed actress and writer best known for playing Princess Leia in the Star Wars films, Carrie Fisher was returning from a book tour when she stopped breathing on a flight on December 21, 2016. She died on December 27, 2016, at the age of 60.
Fisher had recently reprised her Leia role in 2015’s The Force Awakens and had completed work on the next Star Wars film, The Last Jedi (above), which was released on December 15, 2017, and dedicated to her.
The final installment in the trilogy, The Rise of Skywalker, used repurposed footage of Fisher from The Force Awakens.
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Main image: Giant. Warner Bros
Editor’s Note: Corrects main image and credit.