Top 10 Actors Who Died Before Seeing Their Final Movie - Part 2

5. Jean Harlow: 1911 – 1937

The Blonde Bombshell largely took roles that played on her sex symbol image (what do you mean you wouldn’t look at her twice?). Sadly, rapidly failing health during the filming of Saratoga – which turned out to be her final movie – prevented her from having the rich career she deserved. Kidney failure robbed Jean Harlow of her life on June 6th, 1937, at the age of 26. Saratoga, co-starring Clarke Gable was released a month later.




4. River Phoenix: 1970 – 1993

The mysterious River Phoenix was one of Hollywood’s biggest rising stars. The older brother of Joaquin Phoenix was only 23 when he died on Halloween 1993 of drug related heart failure – taking a combination of heroin and cocaine is never a good idea, right kids? It has been speculated that Phoenix’s growing depression and dependence on drugs was rooted in the years he spent with the Children of God cult as a child. Whatever the reasons behind it, drugs robbed this young actor of a long and promising career. His final completed movie, Silent Tongue, was released the following year. Phoenix was working on another film, Dark Blood, which was ninety per cent done before his death, but it never saw the light of day as several key scenes couldn’t be shot without him.

3. Bruce Lee: 1940 – 1973

A perfect example of how you can have the fittest, healthiest and strongest body possible, but there will always be one part of it which screws you over. What’s particularly sad about Lee’s death is that seemingly the dedicated martial arts action star was given painkillers by a friend to relieve a headache, and it was the ingredients in those pills that lead a fatal reaction in Lee’s brain. Imagine how bad that friend feels. In fact, details of Lee’s exact cause of death are shrouded in controversy, and some even believe it was a result of a curse placed on him and his family. We can confirm here for the first time that it WAS a curse. Not really. Lee’s last completed move, Enter the Dragon, was released just six days after he died. He was 32.

2. James Dean: 1931 – 1955

James Dean’s career only spanned four years, and he made just three films – but what an impact. Rumoured to have played the field on both sides of the fence, Dean was, and still is, a sexual icon for both women and men. He died in a car collision in 1955. His death at the young age of 24 guaranteed his name would never be forgotten, and cemented his role in Rebel Without A Cause, released one month after he was killed, as one of the most celebrated in film history. His final movie, Giant, was released the following year and earnt Dean the first posthumous Best Actor nomination in Academy Awards history.

1. Marilyn Monroe: 1926 - 1962

Norma Jeane Mortenson, but baptized Norma Jeane Baker, was an American actress, singer and model. After spending much of her childhood in foster homes, Monroe began a career as a model, which led to a film contract in 1946. The final years of Monroe's life were marked by illness, personal problems, and a reputation for being unreliable and difficult to work with. The circumstances of her death, from an overdose of barbiturates, have been the subject of conjecture. Though officially classified as a "probable suicide," the possibility of an accidental overdose, as well as the possibility of homicide, have not been ruled out. In 1999, Monroe was ranked as the sixth greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute.
Something's Got to Give is an unfinished 1962 American feature film, directed by George Cukor and starring Marilyn Monroe, Dean Martin and Cyd Charisse. A remake of My Favorite Wife (1940), a screwball comedy starring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne, it was Monroe's last work; from the beginning its production was disrupted by her personal troubles, and after her death on August 5, 1962 the film was abandoned. Most of its completed footage remained unseen for many years. Nine hours of largely unseen footage from the film remained in the vaults at 20th Century Fox until 1999, when it was digitally restored by Prometheus Entertainment and assembled into a 37-minute segment for the two-hour documentary, Marilyn: The Final Days. It first aired on American Movie Classics on June 1, 2001, which would have been Monroe's 75th birthday. It is available on DVD.