# 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:** 9
**Page:** 7
### Author:  [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2016, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/121 "2016-05-19T17:53:34Z")
Charleston Blue
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2016, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/122 "2016-05-19T17:55:44Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#):
>
> Charleston Blue
It would be really helpful if people mention the movie the character is from and the circumstances rather than just posting names.
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### Author:  [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2016, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/123 "2016-05-19T18:01:19Z")
> [@Colibri](#):
>
> It would be really helpful if people mention the movie the character is from and the circumstances rather than just posting names.
“Come Back Charleston Blue” with Godfrey Cambridge. Haven’t seen it in a long time. I can’t vouch for the technicals.
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### Author:  [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2016, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/124 "2016-05-19T18:28:59Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#):
>
> I’m looking for characters who are properly dead; corpses, with names, who are somehow involved in the plot.
Victoria Regina Phibes, deceased wife of _The Abominable Dr. Phibes_, is the motive for all the anti-hero’s actions, and is present throughout that 1971 UK horror film (as an embalmed corpse, shown at the end).
If the topic is ‘corpses present in the story and important in it,’ then all the plots in which the mystery of an off-camera death is solved should be disallowed–allowing those would inflate the list to thousands of movies.
I would guess that any finished list of movies-with-corpses-important-to-the-plot would lean heavily towards the camp, cult, and horror genres (and their overlaps). We humans tend to be a bit squeamish about corpses, and don’t tend to make or patronize ‘serious’ films in which they are major on-screen elements.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [May 24, 2016, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/125 "2016-05-24T02:01:17Z")
The late Dr. Abner Ravenwood’s earlier archeological research (to say nothing of his charming, spunky daughter Marion) is pretty important in _Raiders of the Lost Ark_.
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### Author:  [@OHS201](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OHS201)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2016, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/126 "2016-05-25T10:39:44Z")
Sir Charles Baskerville in the Hound of the Same Name is dead before the story begins. Many TV and movie versions, of course, show his final moments, so I don’t know if that counts.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2016, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/127 "2016-05-25T14:15:38Z")
> [@OHS201](#):
>
> Sir Charles Baskerville in the Hound of the Same Name is dead before the story begins. Many TV and movie versions, of course, show his final moments, so I don’t know if that counts.
See post 57.
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### Author:  [@ruh-roh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ruh-roh)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2016, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/128 "2016-05-25T22:21:59Z")
I don’t remember if he was shown alive in the movie, but otherwise I submit
Grand Theft Parsons
Based on one of the best real-life stories involving body snatching…
> **[What’s up with the strange end of country-rock pioneer Gram Parsons?](https://www.straightdope.com/21342211/what-s-up-with-the-strange-end-of-country-rock-pioneer-gram-parsons)**
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### Author:  [@Lok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lok)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2016, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/really-and-truly-dead-movie-characters/754961/129 "2016-05-28T21:19:32Z")
> [@Colibri](#):
>
> Bernie is alive at the start of the movie.
But I believe he is dead for the entirety of the sequel, Weekend At Bernie’s 2.
> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> They were alive in the beginning of the first movie (and in the first episode of the TV series), but sequels just showed them as ghosts.
>
> It’s the same for the Thin Man – he was shown alive in the first film, but was never shown again, despite being in the title of all the subsequent movies.
We are never shown him in the sequels because he was never in them and had nothing to do with them. Purely marketing to get people to go see the movies. Whereas with Topper, they were in the sequels/tv series, just always as ghosts.
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