Thursday Thirteen # 27 - Thirteen Actors Who Died Before The Premiere Of Their Final Film

I went to see the latest Batman movie "The Dark Knight" and Heath Ledger’s performance was superb. His death puts him in a class occupied by an elite few, artists who died before the release of their last film. Their deaths caused most of these artists’ to remain forever young and some of them still make us wonder what might have been if they had lived. Here are thirteen stars that died before their final film was released. Can you think of actors that missed their premieres because of their untimely passing?

1. Aaliyah – Died in a 2001 plane crash before the release of vampire film “Queen of the Damned”

2.James Dean – “Rebel Without a Cause” was released one month after Dean was killed in a 1955 automobile accident.

3.Clark Gable – died at the age of 59 before the release of the 1960 film “The Misfits”

4.River Phoenix - died of a drug-induced heart attack four months before the film “Silent Tongue” was slated for release.

5.Jean Harlow – She was just 26 years old when she died of kidney failure just a month before the release of her 1937 film “Saratoga”

6.Marilyn Monroe – died of an alleged drug overdose (I have never quite believe this theory as an adult) while still filming “Something’s Got To Give”, which was later redone as “Move Over Darling”

7.Bruce Lee – Died at the age 32 from a cerebral edema, one month before the release of “Enter the Dragon”.

8.Brandon Lee – Son of Bruce Lee also died on the filming of “The Crow” in an on set mishap

9.Natalie Wood- drowned in 1981 just before the completion of the science fiction thriller “Brainstorm”

10.John Candy – Died during the filming of the motion picture “Wagons East”

11.. Tupac Shakur – The 25 year old rapper was killed in a 1996 Las Vegas drive by shooting after filming two films “Gridlock’d” and “Gang Related”, both of which were released the following year.

12.Phil Hartman – SNL star was shoot and killed by his wife in a 1998 murder-suicide, just two months before the release of “Small Soldiers”

13.Chris Farley – Died of a drug overdose in 1997 just a month before the release of “Beverly Hills Ninja”