TV Shows Where The Main Character (in real life) Died

[cd637299]

@azumanga:

Actually Bea Benaderet was replaced on "The Flintstones" in 1964, her 2nd year of "Petticoat."  It had nothing to do with her health.

I had read that it was not a pretty separation.

http://yowpyowp.blogspot.com/search/label/Bea%20Benaderet

cd

[anotherguy]

As long as we are expanding the topic to included regulars or featured players, let's also include people who left a show because they were dying (and knew it): ...

Gary Moore - To Tell the Truth

I had to look it up, but according to Wikipedia's article on Garry Moore at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Moore, he left To Tell the Truth in 1978 and retired from TV because of finding out he had throat cancer, but he survived until 1993. So he retired possibly thinking the cancer was life threatening, but was able to survive for 15 more years, and the cause of death was actually listed as emphysema rather than cancer.

[mleach]

Larry Blyden-the Whats My Line host I believe waas doing dramas for PBS at the time of his 1975 death, such as the one he had done with Carol Burnett on alcoholics.

...Blyden had also emceed the successful pilot for the ABC game show Showoffs the week before he took a trip to Morocco, where he was killed in an auto mishap. Goodson-Todman, the producers of Showoffs, hurriedly replaced Blyden with Bobby Van less than a month before the series was to replace Password on the ABC schedule...

..and speaking of Bobby Van, I believe he had died of a brain tumor during the time he was the host of "Make Me Laugh". Now I am not sure if the show was still in production at the time of Van's July 1980 death but I do know that the show was still being seen in many markets such as Baltimore during the latter part of the summer of 1980, even after Bobby's death.

[Ultimajock]

...and, with all this talk about What's My Line?, I can't believe I missed these three until now:

What's My Line? (Fred Allen, Dorothy Kilgallen, Bennett Cerf)

[bpatrick]

Did anyone mention Frank McGee, when he was host of
the "Today" show?  He died of cancer in 1974.  Also,
Tim Russert, host of "Meet The Press," died of a heart
attack a couple of years ago.

[Ultimajock]

ABC World News Tonight (Frank Reynolds, Peter Jennings)

[BobbyNBC10]

Barton MacLane, who played General Martin Peterson on I Dream of Jeannie died on New Year's Day 1969 from pneumonia, and was replaced by Vinton Hayworth as General Winfield Schaefer for the res tof the shows' run. Hayworth died just after NBC canelled Jeannie.

[jwk1979]

As for other deaths, I wanted to include Victor French from NBC's Highway To Heaven. He passed away in 1989, but I'm not sure if the show was already done with or not. Of course, Michael Landon would die from pancreatic cancer in (I think) 1991.

According to Wikipedia, "Highway to Heaven" had already ceased production prior to Victor French's death. NBC had decided that the fifth season would be it's last season during the Summer of 1988. "Highway To Heaven" didn't appear on the 1988 NBC Fall schedule but was scheduled to be Mid Year replacement series and didn't return to NBC until the Spring 1989 and aired until August 1989. Even though Victor French died in June 1989, production had already wrapped up on "Highway To Heaven" several months prior to his death. 

[travisl5678]

Phil Hartman-Newsradio

[Robnoxious]

Robert "Budd" Dwyer - Action News (WPVI-Philly)