Not long ago I wrote a movie review about The Crow. And this gave me an idea for my next article, about actors who died way too soon. Because they deserve to be remembered.
Here are five other young deceased actors and their most famous film.
Brandon Lee – The Crow (1994)
Of course I was going to start with this one as I have seen it recently.
A year after he and his fiancée were murdered by a crow, a poetic guitarist Eric Draven is brought back to life. The crow leads him through the land of the living and leads him to his killers: knife thrower Tin-tin, drug addict Funboy, car fanatic T-Bird and the unsophisticated Skank. One by one Eric gives these thugs a taste of his own medicine.
Lee played the role of Eric Draven in The Crow (1994). He died on March 31, 1993 from a fatal gunshot wound after an accident on the set of The Crow. The crew had placed false, as they thought, dummy bullets in the gun. But apparantly a prop of real bullet was stuck in the gun. Because of the way the bullet was prepared, he actually fired with the same force as an ordinary bullet, hitting Lee in the abdomen and his wounds proved fatal. Honestly, something feels fishy here.
Brad Renfro – Apt Pupil (1998)
Neighborhood boy, Todd Bowden discovers that Arthur Denker, an old man living in his neighborhood, is a Nazi war criminal. Bowden confronts Denker and makes him a proposition: Bowden does not go to the police when Denker tells him stories about the concentration camps in the Second World War. Denker agrees and Bowden starts visiting him regularly. The more stories Bowden hears, the more it influences his personality
Renfro played the role of Todd Bowden. He was found dead on January 15, 2008 in his apartment in Los Angeles. He was 25 years old. On February 8, 2008, a coroner ruled that Renfro’s death was an accident and attributed it to acute heroin/morphine poisoning.
Jonathan Brandis – It (1990)
In 1960, a group of social outcasts bullied by a gang of greasers led by Henry Bowers is also tormented by an evil demon who can turn into a clown and feed on the fears of children and kill them. After defeating the demon clown as children, it reappears thirty years later and they have to finish it again as adults. Yes, this also the same story as the newly rebooted IT film.
Brandis played the role of young Bill Denbrough, the leader of the outsiders. On November 12, 2003, Brandis died at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in West Hollywood from injuries he sustained after hanging himself. He died when he was 27 years old.
Heather O’Rourke – Poltergeist (1982)
While living in an average family home in a pleasant neighborhood, the youngest daughter of the Freeling family, Carol Anne, seems to connect to the supernatural through a dead channel on television. It doesn’t take long before the mysterious creatures enter the walls of the house. At first they appear to be innocent spirits, they play games and entertain the family, but they take a nasty turn – they chase the family to death with angry trees and murderous dolls, and finally they kidnap Carol Anne to her bedroom closet, which seems to be the portal to another dimension.
O’Rourke played the role of Carol Anne. She died at the young age of 12 from a cardiac arrest and septic shock caused by a misdiagnosed intestinal stenosis in February 1988.
Corey Haim – The Lost Boys (1987)
Financial problems force a recently divorced woman and her teenage sons Mike and Sam to settle with her father in the city of Santa Carla, California. At first, Sam laughs away at the rumors he hears about vampires living in the town. But after Mike meets a beautiful girl at the local amusement park, he begins to show the classic signs of vampirism. Fearing for his own safety, Sam recruits two young vampire hunters to save his brother by finding and destroying the head vampire.
Haim played the role of Sam in the film. He died on March 10, 2010 at the age of 38 from an unintentional overdose of valium, paracetamol, muscle relaxants and anti-psychotics.
Topazzi World 