For the co-stars of actors who died,
showing up to work without the person you've been acting alongside for years can be tragic.
These actors were never quite the same after their co-stars died.
John Belushi's death in 1982 was a tragedy for his fans and the many people who had been
lucky enough to work with him — but none of his former co-stars took the loss harder than Dan
Aykroyd . Aykroyd and Belushi worked side by side for years, and, whether they were performing on
Saturday Night Live or making music as the Blues Brothers, the two were an unbeatable comedy duo.
Decades after Belushi's death, Aykroyd still wishes that somehow things had gone differently
for Belushi. Later in life, Aykroyd co-founded a chain of music venues called the House of Blues,
and Aykroyd has publicly wished that Belushi was still around to
be a part of it. Aykroyd said in an interview with The Guardian.
"I think about him every damn time I walk into a House of Blues.
Why aren't you here, man, to enjoy all this?"'
When Chadwick Boseman died at the age of 43 from colon cancer, his fans were stunned.
For Boseman's Black Panther costars, the loss was overwhelming. Michael B. Jordan,
who played Killmonger opposite Boseman's Black Panther, was deeply affected by Boseman's
death. During a 2020 interview with Vanity Fair. Jordan said when reflecting on what he'd learned:
Michael B. Jordan: “And you just always want to do the most that you can,
and get the most out of the time that you have. And make it count, you know?”
While there is a sequel to Black Panther in the works,
currently scheduled for release in 2022, it won't be the same without Boseman.
While starring in Luke Cage, Mike Colter had the opportunity to work alongside Reg E. Cathey , an
accomplished actor who was widely known for playing Norman Wilson in the critically
acclaimed drama The Wire. Cathey was diagnosed with lung cancer while they shot season two,
and he died in February 2018 before the season was released.
Although their time together on the show was short, Colter felt a genuine kinship with Cathey.
Colter said during a panel at Baltimore Comic-Con in 2018:
"Reg was great, I wish we got a chance to spend more time together it was like discovering a
friend you didn't get a chance to really hang out with. [...] I don't know how he did it,
coming on set physically being completely worn out but at the same time giving 100 percent."
In April 2020, the news broke that actor Sam Lloyd had died just over a year after
being diagnosed with a brain tumor and lung cancer. Best known for his role as
the nervous lawyer Ted on Scrubs, Lloyd had gotten married shortly before his diagnosis,
and he and his wife Vanessa had welcomed their first child.
Despite his serious diagnosis, Lloyd's loved ones and former co-stars hoped that he would
heal somehow. Not long before his death, Lloyd's fellow Scrubs cast member Zach Braff ran into him
and thought that he might be recovering. Braff said in an interview with Extra:
Zach Braff: "It was just a sad story because he was sick
just when he had found true love and had a baby. It was just such a sad story.”
In July 2020, the death of Naya Rivera shocked Glee fans, who fondly remembered Rivera for
playing the witty and ruthless cheerleader Santana Lopez in the musical comedy series.
Rivera drowned while swimming with her son Josey, and fans poured out their
condolences to her fellow Glee cast members, who were mourning her death.
Not only was Jane Lynch grieving over Rivera's death,
but she also stated that her niece Megan was close with Rivera as well,
leaving the two of them struggling to come to terms with what had happened. Months later,
Jane Lynch, who had played Sue Sylvester on the series, reflected on the loss to Access Hollywood:
"You could have no better friend than Naya Rivera."
The news of Robin Williams' death in 2014 shocked everyone. It was hard to believe that the man who
had spent decades making everyone laugh was gone. Matt Damon, who had worked with Williams
on the Academy Award-winning film Good Will Hunting, was particularly affected by the loss.
Damon said that he felt that he owed his success to Williams,
and there was no way for him to repay Williams for taking a chance on working with him and Ben
Affleck on Good Will Hunting. He was regretful that he had fallen out of touch with Williams in
the years leading up to his death. Damon said in an interview with Yahoo! News:
"I think everyone who wasn't there with him at the end feels bad that they didn't see it
coming. I hope I become better at checking in with my friends, and I hope that we as
a country get better at checking in with each other, to prevent this kind of thing."
Stand By Me is a classic '80s film, and the cast grew close
while filming — but after shooting wrapped, Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Cory Feldman,
and Jerry O'Connell went their own separate ways. Less than a decade after its release,
Phoenix died of a drug overdose, and many years later, Wheaton reflected:
"I didn't feel a real sense of loss at the time — the River I knew and loved
had been gone for a long time at that point — but I felt sad for his family
and angry at the people around him who didn't do more to help him help himself."
25 years after the release of Stand By Me, the cast reunited for a commemorative Blu-ray edition
of the movie. Wheaton said he finally felt the full impact of River's death at this reunion.
"That's what it took to make his death and his absence a real thing that I could feel,
instead of an event that I wasn't part of but am forced to talk about more often than I'd like."
But despite feeling intense grief, Wheaton was grateful for the reunion and the realizations
it brought to him — he just wished that River could have been there, too.
Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner worked side by side on Star Trek,
playing Spock and Captain Kirk. They were friends for many years, yet they eventually grew apart,
and the two actors even stopped speaking. But when Nimoy died in 2015, Shatner admitted that they'd
never mended their friendship. In an interview with The New York Daily News Shatner said:
"Until the day I die, I will still wonder what caused that rift, after all the years
we had spent together, after the bond, we had forged, what could I have done that was
so irreparable that he couldn't even talk to me about it? [...] I just don't know,
and it is sad and it is permanent. I don't know why he stopped talking to me."
When the news broke that Sopranos star James Gandolfini had died in
Rome after suffering a heart attack, his fellow cast members were devastated.
Tony Soprano is an iconic TV character, and nearly two decades after the finale aired,
there's no denying that The Sopranos has had a lasting influence on prestige TV.
After hearing about Gandolfini's death, his co-star Lorraine Bracco who played
Tony's therapist Dr. Melfi, felt like she needed to take this moment as a wake-up
call. She decided that she had to turn her life around and start practicing healthier habits.
Bracco connected with a friend who had similar goals, and the two embarked
on the journey together. She ended up writing a book about the experience titled To the Fullest:
The Clean Up Your Act Plan to Lose Weight, Rejuvenate and Be the Best You Can Be.
Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart were two of the biggest stars of the classic
Hollywood film era — it almost seemed like fate that they would eventually fall in love.
After working together on the film To Have and Have Not in 1944, sparks were flying — which
was somewhat complicated by the fact that Bogart was married at the time. Shortly after the film
premiered, Bogart divorced his wife and married Bacall just a few months later.
Sadly, after just over a decade of marriage with Bacall, Bogart died in 1957.
Both Bacall and Bogart famously had affairs while married to each other,
but their chemistry was still undeniable. Bacall did remarry a few years after Bogart's death,
yet her second husband, Jason Robards, still referred to her as:
"The Widow Bogart."
She never truly got over Bogart, and in her memoir, Be Myself, Bacall wrote:
"No one has ever written a romance better than we lived."
Beloved actor Philip Seymour Hoffman tragically overdosed and died in 2014. Among the countless
peers who mourned him was George Clooney, who worked with Hoffman on his film The Ides of March.
In an interview with ABC News, Clooney stated that the last time he saw Hoffman was a few months
before his death. The two had dinner together in Berlin, and Clooney noticed that Hoffman
wasn't quite acting like himself — but he didn't realize just how much his friend was struggling.
"He seemed to be having a tougher time, you know?
And there's no understanding what goes on in an individual's mind in their lives."
When Disney Channel star Cameron Boyce passed away after a fatal seizure,
it was a harrowing wake-up call for his co-stars.
Boyce died young — he was only 20, and he should have had an amazing life and career ahead of him.
His Descendants co-stars couldn't believe that he was gone. Dove Cameron, who played Mal and
considered Boyce a close friend, said that his death reminded the cast just how precious life is.
Cameron explained to Today:
"I think that's kind of how we're all feeling is... we want to make an effort,
it really reminds you how important everybody is, how important your one life is."
Cameron also got a tattoo to remember Boyce. She chose a design with a flower
coming out of a gun — an international symbol for peace and anti-war movements.
She stated that Boyce was working with an organization against gun violence before his
death, and she wanted to memorialize him as someone who cared deeply about peace.
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