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Left to right: 006, Errol Partridge, Boromir, and John Ryder.

This is when an actor or actress appears in any number of movies, and there's a huge number in which their character doesn't live to see the end of the film. Of course, it doesn't have to be that; there can be a few Disney Deaths thrown in the mix, but the idea stands that these performers have a very unlucky habit of dying in loads and loads of movies. Almost inevitable if the actor is confined to villainous roles.

See also Vasquez Always Dies, when actresses that play Action Girls meet this fate, and Black Dude Dies First, when it's a black actor that gets offed more often than he likes.

See this site for a look into more actor deaths in movies and TV-series.

As a Death Trope, all Spoilers will be unmarked ahead. Beware. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Examples of Chronically-Killed Actor include:

Anime and Manga[]

Film[]

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 Parody Hitler: I should have known. Sean Bean... that guy is a two-legged spoiler!

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Live Action Television[]

Other[]

  • An odd case is Joe Buckley, an employee with Baen Books, who is frequently featured as a cameo within the books only to be killed off within the first few pages.
  • Lea Salonga always lands roles in Broadway where her character dies. Whether she's Fantine or Eponine on Les Misérables, or Kim in Miss Saigon.
  • Italian actor Giuseppe "Beppe" Fiorello, brother of far-more-known showman Rosario Fiorello, is infamous for this, so much that he dedicated — with his bro — an entire stand-up sketch to parody and lampshade this trope, when Rosario's holding a dying Beppe in his arms. And they milk death being overly dramatic for all it's worth.
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  • David Bowie could qualify as this if you just considered his musical output. The protagonist in "We Are Hungry Men" is eaten by those men, Ziggy Stardust dies at the hands of his own fans, his businessman in the "Jump They Say" video is Driven to Suicide, and one of his Loads and Loads of Roles in his Rock Opera 1. Outside is a murder victim. One of his first film roles was as a painting come to life—not for long—in the 1969 short The Image. From there his character dies in all of the following films and TV productions: Just a Gigolo, Baal, The Hunger (both the film and the TV anthology inspired by it, as two different characters!), Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, Gunslinger's Revenge, and Mr. Rice's Secret. His one major stage role was the title character in The Elephant Manhe perishes at the end. Amazingly, his two best-known film roles, Thomas in The Man Who Fell to Earth and Jareth in Labyrinth, do survive...but then again, neither of them has anything to live for anymore.
  1. Lance Henriksen (Bishop in Aliens) is the only other person to hold the distinction