Last Movies of 9 Noteworthy Stars, 3-6

On this page you will find the continuation of our list of nine noteworthy stars and their final films, including two Saturday Night Live wild men who died too young.

3. Jayne Mansfield

Jayne Mansfield's career had taken a nosedive by the time she died at age 34. Her notoriety reached its peak in 1963 when she starred in Promises! Promises!, in which she appeared nude. The film was banned in some areas, but enjoyed box office success where it was shown. Once a highly sought-after actor, by the early 1960s the blonde bombshell had resorted to tacky roles that traded heavily on her sex appeal. But she gave an honest, clear-eyed performance in what would prove to be her last movie, Single Room Furnished, released in 1968 after her death. In the film, she portrays a woman who turns to prostitution after her husband and later her fiancé both desert her. Mansfield was killed on June 29, 1967, when the car she and three of her children were riding in crashed into a tractor-trailer. The children survived with minor injuries.

4. Christopher Reeve

Christopher Reeve is best remembered as Superman, both on screen and off, after portraying Clark Kent in the 1978 box-office smash Superman. After he was paralyzed during a horse-riding accident in 1995, his grace, courage, and devotion to furthering the cause of paralysis victims earned him worldwide respect and adoration. Reeve devoted the majority of his time after the accident to advocacy work, but he continued to focus on his acting career and dabbled in directing, as well. He appeared on several TV shows, including The Practice and Smallville, and directed a number of made-for-TV movies, including 1997's In the Gloaming, which was nominated for five Emmys. His final role was in Rear Window (1998), a remake of the Alfred Hitchcock classic, in which he portrayed a paralyzed architect who thinks he witnessed a murder from his apartment window. Reeve won a Screen Actors Guild Award for his performance. The courageous actor died in 2004 from cardiac arrest brought on by a reaction to antibiotics he had taken for an infection. He was 52 years old.

5. John Belushi

You'd think John Belushi's last role would be as some wild-eyed, ranting lunatic who scared the neighbors, or at least sent them on a frenetic car chase. Instead Belushi played the victim of a crazy neighbor in 1981's Neighbors, his third film with Saturday Night Live partner Dan Aykroyd. Belushi portrayed straight-laced Earl to Aykroyd's wacky Vic in the dark comedy about suburban life. Belushi's fame came on SNL and with Animal House in 1978. And when he left SNL in 1979, he quickly churned out 1941 and The Blues Brothers. Three months after Neighbors was released, he died of a cocaine and heroin overdose on March 5, 1982, at age 33.

6. Chris Farley

As a child, Chris Farley idolized comedian John Belushi. In his own career, Farley was known for playing portly misfits who'd stop at nothing for a laugh, and his last role was no exception. In 1998's Almost Heroes, Farley and Matthew Perry starred as two early American explorers who set out to beat Lewis and Clark. Offscreen, Farley, who got his start at Chicago's Second City and broke into Hollywood via Saturday Night Live, had battled drug and alcohol addiction and chronic obesity for years. Still, he completed a string of successful comedies, including Tommy Boy in 1995. But by the time he began work on Almost Heroes, his addictions were out of control, and filming reportedly had to be stopped several times while he was in rehab. Shortly after completing the movie, Farley died on December 18, 1997, ironically, of a cocaine and heroin overdose at age 33, just as his idol John Belushi had.

On the next page you will find the final three entries on our list of deceased stars and their final films.