This week's best piece of obscure movie scholarship comes from Premiere.com: Which movie stars die the most on screen? Clint Eastwood (pictured) should be on this list, but isn't. Is it because in so many of his films (i.e., "Unforgiven," "Million Dollar Baby") he vanishes without our really knowing whether he's disappeared or dead?
During the so-called golden age of Hollywood, stars didn't die until the fade-out, usually because s/he was the antihero (Cagney at the end of "The Roaring Twenties" and "White Heat") or victim of disease (Bette Davis in "Dark Victory," Gary Cooper in "Pride of the Yankees"). This changed in 1950 with "Sunset Boulevard," in which William Holden plays the antihero who narrates the story that opens with his character floating dead in a Hollywood swimming pool. In 1960, one of the many shockers on "Psycho" was that Alfred Hitchcock killed off his leading lady, Janet Leigh, early on in the film. Before then, filmmakers didn't want to squander their most precious asset, the star.
Other examples of stars who die frequently? Besides Bette Davis, her modern reincarnation, Susan Sarandon ("Joe," "Stepmom", "Bernard and Doris," "Igby Goes Down") comes to mind. Do you think actors who die a lot on screen have a martyr complex? Which frequent-diers can you think of?
How about Kevin Spacey in American Beauty? Not sure whether he is a frequent dier, but he sure did a great job in that film. Wasn't it a flashback--and his character was already dead?— socialgrace- How about Kevin Spacey in American Beauty? Not sure whether he is a frequent dier, but he sure did a great job in that film. Wasn't it a flashback--and his character was already dead?— socialgrace
- oops--sorry about my twitchy trigger finger.— socialgrace
- robert shaw---and, as you've noted elsewhere, anyone playing a homosexual— bob ickes
- On the Star Wars II junket, Sam Jackson said he knew he'd die in the next chapter, and he hoped he'd get a good death scene. One of the reporters asked him why he said that, and I couldn't help blurting out, "because he's an actor." Actors love death scenes, probably because of their inherent emotional impact. This reminds me of the apocryphal quote from a famous actor (many have been credited) on his deathbed: "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard."— Bob Ross
- Bob, I think it was Sir Edmund Kean who made that crack, but it seems that Sir John Gielgud always gets credited with it, as I believe his Jeeves character says that while dying in "Arthur."— carrierickey
- had no idea! thanks--so appropriate.— bob ickes
- Errol Flynn died a surprising number of times in his prime: "The Charge of the Light Brigade," "The Dawn Patrol," "The Private Life of Elizabeth and Essex," "They Died With Their Boots On," and "Uncertain Glory." Surprising, in that our image of him focuses more on cheeky irreverence than somber mortality. And yet, his farewell scene with Olivia DeHavilland is probably his greatest moment as an actor. Hands down, though, the most frequent on-screen croaker was Spinal Tap's drummer. I thought Edmund Gwenn said the line about dying and comedy.— wwolfe
- Oops - this is what happens when I type too fast. That should read: "...his farewell scene with Olivia DeHavilland in 'They Died With Their Boots On...'." The scene is set on the morning that Flynn's George Armstrong Custer is leaving for what he knows is a doomed mission against the Sioux. Absent that info, what I wrote makes no sense. And I believe the confusion of Edmund Gwenn (comedy actor, for the most part) with Sir Edmund Kean (a tragedian) began when Peter O'Toole as a thinly veiled Errol Flynn atrributed the comedy/dying line to Kean in "My Favorite Year." I remember Stanley Kauffman in his New Republic review pointing out the error, and saying that the quote didn't make sense when spoken by a tragic actor like Kean, rather than a comic actor like Gwenn.— wwolfe
- Can't quite chase down the quote, but ... I remember reading once that Ethel Barrymore, during her stage days, was famous for her death scenes, and her fans would say "Let's go and see Ethel die!"— chris schneider
- OK, not familiar enough about his many, many movies to know how many he died in, but Slim Pickens comes to mind for two spectacular departures: "Dr. Strangelove" on the bomb, and "Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid," on a riverside, so moving with his wife reaching to him, the sunset, and Bob Dylan's "Knocking on Heaven's Door" playing.— MojoMama
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