When you watch a TV series for years, you become emotionally invested in the lives of
the characters.
So it can be a real shock for fans when their favorite characters are killed off.
Even more tragic, though, is when those characters are written out of a show because the actor
playing them actually passed away in real life.
Sadly, this has happened all too many times over the years.
Here's a look at some sad cases where TV characters were killed off because the actor passed away.
Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Doctor Who
Even if you haven't been following the show for the last 55 years, if you ever watched
Doctor Who even casually, you've probably heard of the Brigadier.
Played by British actor Nicholas Courtney, the character of Brigadier Alistair Gordon
Lethbridge-Stewart appeared in more than 100 episodes of the series, also showing up in
its various spin-offs, radio dramas, and comic books.
Sadly, Courtney died in 2011 after a long illness at the age of 81, three years after
his last appearance as the Brigadier on the Doctor Who spin-off show The Sarah Jane Adventures.
So how does a show about a guy who can travel anywhere in time deal with death?
With a surprising amount of pragmatism.
During the sixth series' finale, the Doctor calls the nursing home where Lethbridge-Stewart
had been living.
A nurse informs him that the Brigadier has passed away.
"Doctor, I'm so sorry.
We didn’t know how to contact you.
I’m afraid Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart passed away.”
Still, the character has been given several tributes over the years.
The Brigadier's daughter, Kate, later became a recurring character, filling the same basic
story role as the Brigadier.
And his ancestor even popped up at one point as well.
As long as there is Doctor Who, the Brigadier's legacy will live on.
"What's the name?"
"Lethbridge-Stewart.
Captain Archibald Hamish Lethbridge-Stewart.”
Sam Noonan, Gunsmoke
Classic Hollywood actor Glenn Strange was pretty prolific.
An accomplished singer, songwriter, and character actor, he worked in B-movies and television
for decades, but was perhaps best known for playing Frankenstein's monster in three different
films for Universal: House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, and Abbott and Costello
Meet Frankenstein.
In fact, his portrayal of the character became so iconic that, due to an editing error, his
face was printed next to Boris Karloff's obituary in newspapers across the country.
Never out of work for long, Strange found a home during his last 11 years playing Sam
Noonan, the bartender on TV's Gunsmoke, a show which ran for an astonishing 20 seasons.
Then, in 1973, he died of cancer at 74 years old.
He'd been on more than 200 episodes of Gunsmoke when he passed, and out of respect, his character
Sam was retired from the show.
The Master, Doctor Who
From the moment he walked out of a horse box in Doctor Who's Season 8 premiere, Roger Delgado
made a splash as the villainous Master.
He was sinister.
He was conniving.
He had an insatiable appetite for scenery and a hell of a goatee.
In short, he was good at being bad.
Delgado's Master didn't take long to become a staple of the Doctor Who rogues gallery.
Unfortunately, though, in 1973, the actor was shooting a picture in Turkey when he was
involved in a car crash and passed away.
He was 55.
The character of the Master also died.
But thanks to the show's conceit that the alien Time Lords could regenerate into new
bodies upon passing, the Master was later brought back, portrayed by other actors.
Still, Delgado's loss was deeply felt.
Not long after his passing, third Doctor Jon Pertwee left the program.
His reason?
In later interviews, he said it was in part because he missed his friend.
"Roger had been killed, and I was very upset about that.
And I wouldn’t want to, really, work with any other actor playing the Master."
George 'Gramps' Miller, Lassie
Losing a beloved grandparent is one of the most traumatic experiences a child can go
through.
In 1957, the producers of the classic TV show Lassie were suddenly forced to confront this
when George Cleveland, who had played Gramps on over 100 episodes, suffered a fatal heart
attack.
The makers of the show were at a loss.
No family show in television's short history had depicted the death of a main character
on screen before.
But despite there being no precedent, they decided to give it a shot.
They consulted child psychologists and fought the network and the sponsors to have Gramps
pass away within the show, even though they were told at one point that they couldn't
use the words "death" or "die" to refer to what had happened.
They persevered, and even took things to a crazy new level by actually writing out almost
the entire human cast of the show, as the family is so upset at the death of Gramps
that they sell the farm and move away, leaving only Lassie and little Timmy behind with the
new owners.
Talk about a shock twist!