# Really and truly dead movie characters
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [May 17, 2016, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961 "2016-05-17T03:41:41Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 6
### Author:  [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2016, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/101 "2016-05-18T16:40:32Z")
Who killed Laura Palmer? Or is she too active throughout the movie and show?
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2016, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/102 "2016-05-18T17:06:19Z")
In the top-grossing movie of all time, didn’t the top-billed actor play a dead body?
(I’m talking about Sam Worthington as Tom Sully in AVATAR; sure, he also plays Tom’s wheelchair-bound twin brother Jake Sully – but how is that relevant?)
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2016, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/103 "2016-05-18T19:27:08Z")
> [@Zsofia](#):
>
> Who killed Laura Palmer? Or is she too active throughout the movie and show?
Yes, we see Laura, through flashbacks, as she was in life. And that was a TV show, not a movie.
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2016, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/104 "2016-05-18T19:39:07Z")
We never see Henry Gyrich alive in X-MEN; we learn that his body has been mauled as if by a bear, after Magneto crisply explains that _“Mr. Gyrich has been dead for quite some time, Senator”_ – but before that, back when it looked like Gyrich was just a blandly handsome guy still doing his job, it was only ever Mystique posing as him.
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### Author:  [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2016, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/105 "2016-05-18T20:05:25Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#):
>
> We never see Henry Gyrich alive in X-MEN; we learn that his body has been mauled as if by a bear, after Magneto crisply explains that _“Mr. Gyrich has been dead for quite some time, Senator”_ – but before that, back when it looked like Gyrich was just a blandly handsome guy still doing his job, it was only ever Mystique posing as him.
I still want to know where that phone went…
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### Author:  [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2016, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/106 "2016-05-18T23:03:48Z")
Does Ben Gardner’s head in Jaws count?
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMFyoBf0CWI)
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2016, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/107 "2016-05-19T01:22:20Z")
In _The Fellowship of the Ring_, the fellowship is looking for Balin’s colony in the mines of Moria when they find his tomb. (Balin appears alive in _The Hobbit_ but those are separate movies.)
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### Author:  [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2016, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/108 "2016-05-19T01:34:17Z")
[quote=“Eddie The Horrible, post:106, topic:754961”]
Does Ben Gardner’s head in Jaws count?
[/QUOTE]
Nah, Ben was alive and well earlier in the film–when the “armada” went bounty hunting, he was the one hollering over everyone else. [I FOUND THE CLIP](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiRPWO-sg6o).
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2016, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/109 "2016-05-19T01:50:51Z")
I can tell you a great deal about Mrs. White’s second husband, in **Clue** : he was a scientist – nuclear physics – and always a rather stupidly optimistic man; it came as a great shock to him when he died. You see, his head had been cut off, and so had his, ah, _you know_. Anyhow, she’d claimed to have been out all evening at the movies, but she’d killed him because she was jealous that he was schtupping Yvette, whom she hated SO much; it, it, the, fee, it, flames, FLAMES, flames, on the SIDE of my face, breathing, breathle- HEAVING breaths, HEAVING…
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2016, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/110 "2016-05-19T03:55:00Z")
_Jeremiah Johnson_ gets the rifle he uses as a posthumous bequest from the frozen mountain man [Hatchet Jack.](http://www.destgulch.com/movies/johnson/john03.jpg)
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2016, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/111 "2016-05-19T03:57:52Z")
Say, how about Hans Delbrück?
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### Author:  [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2016, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/112 "2016-05-19T04:06:10Z")
> [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](#):
>
> Nah, Ben was alive and well earlier in the film–when the “armada” went bounty hunting, he was the one hollering over everyone else. [I FOUND THE CLIP](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiRPWO-sg6o).
Interesting - I don’t even recall that scene.
One of the most execrable, Richard-Kind-quality films ever made, “Harold”\* (not the one from a couple years back with the freaky bald kid, but the one from the 70’s), featured a dead title character, but lived on in a painting that overlooked a living room, casting evil doom on all his petty relatives. They eventually die off whenever the painting comes alive, as Harold’s googly eyes roll all over the fucking place (well, still in the sockets, but something awful goofy).
\*maybe the first time ever I haven’t been able to locate a film through google - if anyone is Nobel Prize-brilliant enough to locate this is any way shape or form - you win the rotisserie.
I’m hoping Ben Carson gets into acting so that in his films you can say he plays, well, at least _seemingly_ dead characters.
Fucking sleepier-than-shit ones, anyway.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2016, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/113 "2016-05-19T04:20:17Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#):
>
> Say, how about Hans Delbrück?
What movie? What circumstances?
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2016, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/114 "2016-05-19T04:24:38Z")
> [@Colibri](#):
>
> What movie? What circumstances?
In YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, his brain is the one that the patchwork creature is to be built around – only Igor fumbles it, and instead of the brain of that deceased scientist and saint, we get a brain marked, uh, Abby? Yeah, that was it: Abby Something. May have been Abby Normal, if Igor’s remembering it right.
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### Author:  [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2016, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/115 "2016-05-19T04:46:57Z")
The first we see of Troy the pill dealer in _The Chumscrubber_ is his feet at eye level when Dean bumps into them. The character does take part in the movie briefly, but it is in Dean’s hallucination/dream, which I feel is more appropriate to the topic than ghosts or flashbacks.
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2016, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/116 "2016-05-19T11:20:21Z")
Say, can we count movies like BREWSTER’S MILLIONS or IRON MAN 2 or whatever, where the deceased never really appears alive on screen – but does appear alive on screen on screen? That is, the audience doesn’t later get to see the guy in a flashback or anything; we just get to see the still-living protagonist watch a grainy videotaped message about how If You’re Watching This Then I’m Already Dead?
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### Author:  [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2016, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/117 "2016-05-19T11:22:56Z")
> [@Zsofia](#):
>
> Who killed Laura Palmer? Or is she too active throughout the movie and show?
BOB, an evil spirit that controlled the body of her father.
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### Author:  [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2016, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/118 "2016-05-19T11:29:56Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#):
>
> BOB, an evil spirit that controlled the body of her father.
[BOB?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOdfNwD9cEA) 😕
(Sorry, I can’t see the name “Bob” anymore without hearing it in the voice of Rowan Atkinson.)
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### Author:  [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2016, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/119 "2016-05-19T14:30:32Z")
Charles Lampert may or may not already be dead at the beginning of _Charade._
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### Author:  [@misling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/misling)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2016, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/120 "2016-05-19T17:49:03Z")
another near miss: The character Hugo, whose body (and suitcase of money) drive the action in ‘Shallow Grave’.
He shows up for a short while, becomes the main character’s mysterious roommate, then dies.
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