Oliver Reed died towards the end of the filming of Gladiator and I suspect they had to do some quick ending work with his character and bring in a stand in for him for a death scene.
Richard Harris died after doing Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and was replaced by the equally great Michael Gambon.
What other actor has died during some kind of series and was replaced by someone else?
Not sure if you’re looking for characters who continued on with the new actor, or were written off as having died but were “replaced” by a new character.
I could use some help with the actors’ names, but off the top of my head:
The oracle in the Matrix.
Coach became Woody (Harrelson) in Cheers.
Olivia Soprano was replaced by a horrendous CGI affront to all that is good.
By someone playing the same part, or just by someone else who filled the same fuction? for instance, in Cheers, Nicholas Colasante died early in the run, and Woody Harrelson replaced him as a similar character. TV series, though, have the luxury of writing in a character’s death, so they can just replace him like that.
Vic Morrow died during the filming of Twilight Zone: The Movie. I believe they used a stand-in for a few final scenes.
Brandon Lee died during filming of The Crow. The producers used outtakes, a double, and digital composition to finish the film.
Jean Harlowe died during the filming of Saratoga. They used her stand-in* to double for her and shot scenes so her face wasn’t seen.
*Hollywood stand-ins in the 30s and 40s were chosen because they had the same hair and skin coloring as the star, as well as being the same height and build.
Desmond Llewellyn was Q throughout much of the Bond series of films. When he died he was sort-of replaced by John Cleese.
Dominique Dunne was murdered during the filming of the mini-series V and except for one reverse angle shot her scenes were deleted and she was replaced by Blair Tefkin.
Perhaps most infamously, Bela Lugosi died before his scenes in Plan 9 From Outer Space were shot, so Ed Wood used some semi-random footage of Lugosi in some scenes and “doubled” him with Tom Mason, who looked nothing like Lugosi.
I came back to mention that. It is brilliant in a bad movie kinda way.
Natalie Woods’ death caused a lot of concern during the making of Brainstorm. They apparently debated not releasing the film. They eventually did, but they changed one of the sequences which suggested drowning, in order to not revive images of her drowning death.
“Harlow.” They used three “doubles”—one for long-shots, one for closeups (her face covered by a hat, and a third to do a very indifferent voice impression.
Charles Emmett Mack died while fipming The First Auto (in an auto accident, piquantly) and was written out of the last reel.
Lilyan Tashman died of cancer while filming Frankie & Johnnie, and her role was mostly cut.
Ormer Locklear died while filming a flying stunt for The Skywayman, which was released anyway, deadly stunt and all.
Promising starlet Clarine Seymour died while filming Way Down East and was repalced by Mary Hay.
John Candy died, I believe, during the filming of Wagons East
Peter Duel committed suicide while doing the show Alias Smith and Jones
Gary Holton died during the second series of Auf Weidersehen, Pet. He played Wayne. They used a double and some of his dialogue from earlier in the series cleverly to make it appear he was in the last couple of episodes.
When they made a third series, many years later, they had him as having died, but only as very recently.
Trinidad Silva was killed by a drunk driver before having filmed some of his scenes for “Weird Al” Yankovic’s UHF. The scenes he did film are in the movie and it is dedicated to his memory.
“Today, we’re teaching poodles how to fly!”
From what I understand, he was killed in a helicopter stunt accident (in the scene, Vic was carryingt a Vietnamese girl away from a US helicopter, I think, and it flew too low and crashed, in the process cutting of his head…)
Now, I have not seen the TW movie (well, I saw the one part with John Lithgow, but that’s it) but I was told that they used part/all of the footage from the crach in the movie. Is this true? If I look closely can I see Vic’s head flying through the reeds?
Jon-Erik Hexum committed suicide (er, accidentally shot himself while playing with a pistol) on the set of some cheesy movie or another.
River Phoenix’s death caused a movie (I forget the name…something about Blood?) to be shut down forever.
Not even remotely true. After the accident, they did use most of Morrow’s footage, but they eliminated the part with him saving the kids altogether, thus changing the ending of his segment completely. There’s no helicopter in the movie at all, let alone spooky helicopter footage.
Redd Foxx died while taping The Royal Family
John Ritter died while taping Eight Simple Rules
Barbara Colby was murdered after she filmed 3 episodes of Phyllis and was replaced by Liz Torres
Cleese had already been introduced when Llewellyn died. I think the long-term plan was for Llewellyn to retire and have Cleese in his place; the switchover just had to be moved up.
David Strickland committed suicide during season three of “Suddenly Susan” (Brooke Shields). In the season finale, the other characters find out that his character has been killed in an accident.
Night Court killed Selma Diamond and Florence Halop before the fearless Marsha Warfield took over the role and proved invulnerable.