Lillian Gish? Died in Broken Blossoms, La Boheme, Duel in the Sun, A Wedding and probably a few others.
Cracked reports these examples:
http://www.cracked.com/funny-6301-michelle-rodriguez/#ixzz2LCIIVzYh
So we have six deaths each for Zhang Ziyi, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Michelle Rodriguez, assuming you count double deaths (Gellar in Buffy and Rodriguez in Resident Evil) or debatable deaths (Ziyi in Crouching Tiger and Hero).
Can anyone come up with more movies that those three actresses died in or other actresses that have had seven or more on-screen deaths.
Jenette Goldstein, best known as Vasquez in Aliens. This list has 8 on screen and 1 offscreen death.
http://www.cinemorgue.com/jenettegoldstein.html
Eta: you can look up actresses by name on the main site
Titanic and Terminator were both off-screen, according to that site. That still leaves her with seven deaths though, so she’s in the lead.
All righty, then:
Lucy Lawless: 11 deaths
Xena, Warrior Princess: 4 episodes
X-Files
Boogeyman (offscreen)
Battlestar Galactica: 3 episodes
Burn Notice
Angel of Death
Spartacus
Now that you mention it, her death in Aliens was also off-screen.
IIRC, she pulls a grenade pin and we see the explosion. I think that counts as essentially on-screen.
Relevent TV Tropes link: Chronically Killed Actor.
Meryl Streep. A noteworthy11 times, although eight of them are off-screen.
Wasn’t she dead and impaled on T1000’s metal finger on screen? Or was that a different character?
from what i can tell on this page - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharon_Valerii#Sharon_.22Boomer.22_Valerii, Grace Park dies at least about 10ish times onscreen for Battlestar Galactica alone, so the actual number may be more, not including other shows.
Sigourney Weaver has 9 onscreen, 1 dream sequence and a Saturday Night Live sketch.
No, she did the sword-arm impaling on Xander Berkeley, and Robert Patrick did the pointy-finger into Sarah Connor’s shoulder.
Oh right that’s why I was confused. She was the T1000 at that time.
Aren’t there a dozen clones of Ripley in Alien Resurrection, and don’t they all die? Would that count as multiple deaths?
Yeah, when you start getting into resurrections, cloning, time travel, etc. it kind of changes the game. Hell, Michelle Rodriguez has been killed 4 times in the Resident Evil series alone.
Off topic, but Xander Bereley has 19! One of which was after a fight with… Dabney Coleman.
Who loses a fight with Dabney Coleman? Xander Berkely, that’s who.
Sean Bean is the only female on this list.
Ironically, while Bruce Willis comes in at No. 2 (Robert De Niro is in first place), he does not die in any of the Die Hard films.