Actors' Final Film Appearances

AMES DEAN – GIANT (1956)

The most notorious of careers cut short, James Dean starred in only three films – "East of Eden", "Rebel Without a Cause", and "Giant". Shortly after production wrapped on "Giant", Dean was driving to a motor racing event in Salinas, California, when he crashed into another vehicle. Dean was killed instantly.

Ironically, three weeks before his death, Dean took part in a TV interview and warned viewers to drive safe, "because the life you might save might be mine."
MARLON BRANDO – THE SCORE (2001)

Discounting his roles in the Michael Jackson music video "You Rock My World" and the videogame adaptation of "The Godfather", Brando's final appearance was alongside Robert De Niro and Edward Norton in the heist thriller "The Score", which I will defend to my dying day. Brando played the thieves' boss Max, but the actor reported clashed with the film's director Frank Oz, calling him "Miss Piggy" and forcing De Niro to direct some of his scenes via headset. Struggling with obesity and diabetes in his later years, Brando died of respiratory failure from pulmonary fibrosis with congestive heart failure in 2004.

Fun fact: Brando and De Niro are the only two actors to win Academy Awards for playing the same role -- Vito Corleone in "The Godfather" and "The Godfather: Part II", respectively.
GROUCHO MARX – SKIDOO (1968)

The last of the three brothers to pass away, Groucho Marx's final film role was that of God, a mob kingpin, in the Otto Preminger's psychedelic counterculture comedy "Skidoo". Groucho took LSD to "prepare" for the role and described his experience as moving and mostly pleasant – though he had meaner things to say about the film itself.
GENE HACKMAN - WELCOME TO MOOSEPORT (2004)

Hackman plays a former U.S. President who moves to a small town and runs for mayor against a local candidate (Ray Romano). Four years after the film's release, Hackman confirmed his retirement, making "Welcome to Mooseport" his final screen appearance, because God is dead.

[Gene was considered for the opening voiceover of The Wolf of Wall Street, but the role never came to be.]
PETER FINCH – NETWORK (1976)

The prescient news media satire "Network" was the final film for Australian actor and inspiration for my Wi-Fi network name Peter Finch, who plays unhinged news anchor Howard Beale. The film had just premiered and Finch had been nominated for an Academy Award when he suffered a heart attack in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel. Finch went on to win the Oscar posthumously, one of only two actors to do so (the other being Heath Ledger for "The Dark Knight"). "Network" remains as his swan song, an incomparable drama – though one that often feels eerily prophetic.
BRITTANY MURPHY – SOMETHING WICKED (2014)

Murphy died in 2009 from a combination of pneumonia, anemia, and drug intoxication; her death was ultimately ruled accidental, likely caused by an adverse reaction to over-the-counter medicine. But Murphy's final film wasn't released until 2014: the psychological thriller "Something Wicked" took five years to complete, and was released with a limited theatrical run early in the year.
BELA LUGOSI – PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1959)

Though the horror legend passed away in 1956, Bela Lugosi's last screen appearance came three years later, when director Ed Wood made the notoriously schlocky "Plan 9 From Outer Space". Lugosi appears in footage shot just before his death, but with no story in mind – Wood wrote the script to accommodate the footage he'd shot. Lugosi was doubled by Tom Mason, Wood's wife's chiropractor, who was significantly taller than Lugosi, and played the part with a cape covering his face.
JOHN CANDY – WAGONS EAST! (1994)

Candy had no interest in starring in the Western parody "Wagons East", but was contractually obliged to do so. Candy died of a heart attack late in the film's production; his few remaining scenes were either not filmed, filmed using a stand-in, or re-written not to involve him. The film was a box-office bomb and holds a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert called the film "a sad way to end John Candy's career".
KATHARINE HEPBURN – LOVE AFFAIR (1994)

At age 86, Hepburn ended her extraordinary film career with a supporting role in the forgettable "Love Affair", her first big screen appearance in ten years. The film was critically panned and ignored by audiences – though it does have one saving grace: Katharine Hepburn tells Warren Beatty to "fuck a duck", the only time the actress has ever uttered the F-word onscreen. Following "Love Affair", Hepburn retreated from the public eye, passing away in 2003.
BRUCE LEE – GAME OF DEATH (1978)

Lee's star was on the rise when he collapsed during an ADR session for "Enter the Dragon". Diagnosed with cerebral edema, Lee suffered through headaches for the next two months, before taking a nap in July – from which he never woke up. Lee died at age 32, but had already filmed over one hundred minutes of footage for his next film "Game of Death". Six years later, the film was finished without him, using stand-ins, props, and even cardboard cutouts to disguise the missing star. Interestingly, in the film, Lee's character is shot with a prop gun that was secretly made to fire a real bullet. Twenty years later, Lee's son, Brandon Lee, was killed on the set of "The Crow" when a prop pistol accidentally shot him in the abdomen.
CHARLIE CHAPLIN - A COUNTESS FROM HONG KONG (1967)

Chaplin wrote and directed this 1967 comedy starring Marlon Brando and Sophia Loren, and cameoed briefly as an old steward aboard a luxury liner. But Chaplin's most memorable final appearance occurred five years later, when he made an emotional visit to the 1972 Academy Awards to receive an Honorary Oscar, earning a record-setting twelve-minute standing ovation. The appearance was an historic one: it was Chaplin's first trip to United States in twenty years, after being denied reentry in 1952 for his left-leaning views.
MARILYN MONROE – SOMETHING'S GOT TO GIVE (1962)

Monroe's final completed film was the Western drama "The Misfits", which cast the actress alongside Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift. Doctors were on call 24/7 to address Monroe's problems with alcohol and medical stimulants; production was even shut down for two weeks in August 1960 while Monroe went to hospital to detox. A year later, Monroe began filming the screwball comedy "Something's Got to Give", but was difficult to work with and appeared noticeably unwell during production. Producer Henry Weinstein noted, "Very few people experience terror. We all experience anxiety, unhappiness, heartbreaks, but that was sheer primal terror."

After thirty-five days of production and multiple postponements, Monroe was fired from the film. One month later, Monroe was found dead of an apparent suicide in her Brentwood home, cutting short a troubled life marred by internal and external demons. Production on "Something's Got to Give" was abandoned, and the film was never completed.
CHRIS FARLEY – DIRTY WORK (1998)

Following his death by drug overdose in 1997, Chris Farley appeared uncredited in fellow SNL player Norm MacDonald's "Dirty Work". Farley played Jimmy, a friend whose nose was bitten off by a Saigon prostitute and that's honestly all I remember about that movie. Before his death, Farley was originally cast as the voice of Shrek, and recorded 80-90% of the character's dialogue, but passed away just before recording was finished.
JOHN WAYNE – THE SHOOTIST (1976)

In "The Shootist", the legendary cowboy went out appropriately: Wayne's J.B. Books is gunned down in a saloon shootout. Wayne himself died of stomach cancer three years later following a lifelong cigarette habit, although rumors still circulate of a more unnatural cause of death. In 1956, Wayne filmed "The Conqueror" in Utah – downwind from the site of recent U.S. Government nuclear tests in the Nevada desert. 91 members of the 220-person cast and crew eventually developed some form of cancer, inspiring theories of nuclear fallout poisoning the film location. A scientist from the Pentagon's Defense Nuclear Agency reacted to the claims: "Please, God, don't let us have killed John Wayne."
ETHEL MERMAN – AIRPLANE! (1980)

After an impressive career in music, stage, and film, Ethel Merman's final film appearance was in the unparalleled comedy spoof "Airplane!" – as a shell-shocked soldier who thinks he's Ethel Merman.
GREGORY PECK – CAPE FEAR (1991)

Peck's final film appearance was in a remake of one of his earlier films: Martin Scorsese's "Cape Fear". The 1962 thriller starred Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum, while the remake stars Nick Nolte in Peck's role, and Robert De Niro in Mitchum's. Both Peck and Mitchum appear in the remake in smaller roles: Peck as the villain's attorney (a reference to his most famous role in "To Kill a Mockingbird"), and Mitchum as the local police lieutenant. Following "Cape Fear", Peck starred in two TV movies before passing away in 2003. Peck had been offered the role of Grandpa Joe in Tim Burton's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", but died before he could accept it.
JUDY GARLAND - I COULD GO ON SINGING (1963)

Garland's final role was in this ironically-titled musical, whose story often seems to closely mirror Garland's own tragic life. The film was unfortunately panned as melodramatic and Garland turned to television and stage, while her health slowly deteriorated following a lifelong battle with drugs and alcohol. In 1969, Garland died in London of an accidental overdose of barbiturates.
RAUL JULIA – STREET FIGHTER (1994)

Three years after starring in "The Addams Family" as the best goddamn Gomez ever put on film, Julia appeared as General M. Bison in this adaptation of the best-selling video game. Julia was suffering from stomach cancer at the time and died two months before the film's release. The film is dedicated to his memory: "FOR RAUL - Vaya Con Dios".
STEVE MCQUEEN – THE HUNTER (1980)

After "The Towering Inferno", McQueen disappeared from screens for four years before planning his comeback with "An Enemy of the People", "Tom Horn", and "The Hunter". During filming of "The Hunter", McQueen was found desperately trying to catch his breath after a running sequence – the first signs of the illness that would soon claim his life. A month after filming wrapped, McQueen was diagnosed with mesothelioma and never appeared in another film. McQueen traveled to Mexico for unconventional treatment after doctors told him they could do nothing to prolong his life, and died of cardiac arrest in Juarez, three months after the film's release.
FRED ASTAIRE – GHOST STORY (1981)

No one could dance quite like Fred Astaire, but his final role didn't give him a chance: the low-budget ghost story "Ghost Story" cast Astaire as a business owner who loves telling scary stories to his pals (played by fellow acting legends Douglas Fairbanks Jr., John Houseman, and Melvyn Douglas). One of Astaire's lines in the film: "I can't dance." Astaire never made another film, and died of pneumonia in 1987.
ADRIENNE SHELLEY – WAITRESS (2007)

(Shelley, far left)

Shelley wrote, directed, and took a supporting role in the charming "Waitress", starring Keri Russell as a small-town server desperate to escape her unhappy marriage. Shortly after the film's completion, Shelley was murdered after catching a man robbing her apartment. "Waitress" was entered into the Sundance Film Festival, earning high critical praise, while Shelley's husband established the Adrienne Shelley foundation to award scholarships, production grants, finishing funds, and living stipends. The Women Film Critics Circle annually gives the Adrienne Shelly Award to the film that "most passionately opposes violence against women".
VINCENT PRICE - EDWARD SCISSORHANDS (1990)

Price's final live-action film role was that of the Inventor who creates the titular character, but dies before he can complete his work. The role was intented to be larger, but Price was very ill with emphysema and Parkinson's disease, so his scenes were cut to a minimum. The horror icon's last moment on screen, fittingly, is the Inventor's death.
ANNE BANCROFT – DELGO (2008)

Best known for her role as Mrs. Robinson in "The Graduate", Anne Bancroft died in 2005 after a lengthy career, but ended with a flat note. Bancroft lent her voice to "Delgo", an animated fantasy that took six years to make and was finally released to the lowest per-theater gross for an opening weekend of any wide release in American film history. "Delgo" earned a total of $690,000 on a $40,000,000 budget, and held the record until "The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure" stole it away with a $445,000 gross.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK – FAMILY PLOT (1976)

As expected, Hitchcock's last film role was a cameo in one of his own movies – his iconic silhouette seen in a door window, in "Family Plot", the famed director's final film.
GENE KELLY – XANADU (1980)

Kelly took a part in the musical fantasy "Xanadu" simply because the filming location was a short drive away from his home. Kelly played Danny McGuire, a former big band leader turned construction mogul yearning for his glory days. The film was critically panned and barely broke even at the box office, but its legacy lives on: "Xanadu" (along with the Village People biopic "Can't Stop the Music") inspired copywriter and publicist John Wilson to establish the Golden Raspberry Awards, aka the Razzies, awarded annually to the worst films of the year.