Orson Welles played a villainous planet in his latest film. Photo: NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal
We don't choose when we come into this world — nor when we leave it. And this is true both for great and kind people, and for a person from the street. While most actors would rather be remembered for their crowning work, the fact remains that even the biggest stars have to keep earning and many are still working when they take their final bow. Some go out to their biggest job. Others… not so much.
For every Chadwick Boseman or Paul Walker whose death on set was the most touching part of the posthumous releases of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Furious 7, there is Orson Welles cracking frozen peas.
In fact, Wells is ne plus ultra of this trend. The man who gave the world perhaps the greatest film of all time voiced a living planet in a film based on plastic robots with swinging arms. Yes: Wells' last film was the first Transformers movie, Transformers: The Movie. And yes, he hated it.
So, in a nod to Wells' dogged professionalism and the 100th Transformers movie currently in theaters, here are some other unlikely recent films from the brilliant cast:
Orson Welles, Transformers: Movie». (1986)This isn't the first time Hasbro has shown their line of transforming robots on screen. The 1986 film followed two seasons of the TV show, which first began airing in 1984.
But for the movie, the toy makers wanted to make a splash. And who better than Wells to play Unicron, the giant planet the Transformers' nemesis? However, Wells did not take his fall from Citizen Kane to cartoon infamy lightly.
In a promotional interview for the film, he couldn't remember his character's name and simply described the painting as «I'm playing a big toy that attacks a bunch of little toys.»
Perhaps, fortunately, he died in 1985 before that. like the movie was released so he didn't have to watch it explode at the box office.
Joan Crawford, Trog (1970) 
Joan Crawford in Trog Credit: United Archives
What happened to Baby Jane? may have resurrected Joan Crawford's career in 1962, but that didn't mean all of her subsequent roles were high-profile.
In this monster, she plays an anthropologist who discovers a troglodyte (played by Joe Cornelius in a monkey costume) living in a cave and tries to tame it.
Crawford didn't choose this bastard because she needed a job — she did it because she loved working with producer Herman Cohen on Berserk! so much so that she wanted to collaborate with him again.
Paul Newman, Cars (2006) 
He played a CGI machine in the latest game of the Cool Luke star, who mentors a brave young man named after his old contemporary: McQueen.
In fact, this was very suitable for Newman, who was a great car enthusiast and an experienced racer.
In fact, Newman himself considered his role as Doc Hudson his finest performance since 1982's The Verdict.
Unlike most animated films, Pixar heavily emphasized the star power of the voice. actors, and Cars became Newman's highest-grossing film.
Lauren Bacall, The Forger (2012)
The Big Sleep star and Hollywood Golden Age elder plays a former counterfeiter who adopts a runaway teenager in Lawrence Rock's direct-to-DVD drama filmed in just 24 days.
Josh Hutcherson and Bacall in The Forger
Despite star power in the form of Bacall, Alfred Molina and the then very hot Josh Hutcherson and Hayden Panettiere, The Forger received little publicity.
This is partly because the DVD release was very delayed, so it could have come out after Hutcherson appeared in The Hunger Games. This is partly due to the fact that this coming-of-age drama was positioned as a thriller. But that's mostly down to the fact that it never made it to theaters because it just wasn't very good.
However, Bacall's latest feature film may still be a better memorial to her than her most recent role as Evelyn, an older woman who befriends Peter Griffin, in Family Guy.
Marlon Brando, The Score (2001)
Director Frank Oz, of The Dark Crystal and Little Shop of Horrors fame, must have been thrilled when he directed Edward Norton, Robert De Niro and Marlon Brando in this first drama.
He soon regretted it. his luck. Although Brando was paid $3 million for three weeks of work, he hated being directed by Oz and refused to go on set when he was there. Robert De Niro had to mediate.
Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro at The Score Credit: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo
He also taunted the Muppets puppeteer by calling him «Miss Piggy» after the character Oz played on the show and said «I bet you wish I was a puppet so you could put your hand up my ass and make me do what you want.”
This was Brando's last film to be released. He also recorded three scenes of female beetle dialogue for the animated film Big Bug Man from his bed shortly before his death in 2004, but it never saw the light of day. Playing the role of the bug, Mrs. Sour, he apparently showed up for one day of taping in a wig, dress, white gloves, and full make-up. Trooper to the end.
Patrick Swayze, Blue Powder (2009)
Swayze played Velvet Larry, an eccentric wig-wearing gangster and nightclub owner alongside Ray Liotta as an ex-con with terminal cancer, just five months before Swayze himself was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. .
Patrick Swayze played Velvet Larry in Powder Blue.
The album film was filmed in Los Angeles and revolves around the misfits gathered at Larry's Club, Wild Velvet at Christmas, and a ridiculous snowfall in California at the drama's climax. perhaps the most ridiculous part. It also features Eddie Redmayne hitting a dog in a hearse and Jessica Biel as a cocaine-addicted stripper with her son in a coma.
AV Club The Onion wrote of the direct-to-DVD drama, «Powder Blue shoots art, but gets stymied by grim grime.» A non-luminous epitaph for an actor who died a few months later.
Groucho Marx, Skidoo (1968)
Groucho played a thug named God in this satirical exposé of the sixties counterculture.
In the film, Jackie Gleason's prisoner writes a letter to his wife on LSD-soaked office supplies, and soon the entire prison is in a state of severe acid poisoning.
Groucho Marx Credit & Copyright: Silver Screen Collection
To gain a better understanding of the subject, Marx prepared for his role by administering LSD to writer Paul Krassner, an experience he greatly enjoyed—as opposed to actually making the film.
In his 1976 book The Groucho Phile, he described his performance as God and the film itself as «God, terrible!».
It received almost universally negative reviews, but Marx was not overly concerned; he spent his twilight years hanging out with Alice Cooper.
After Marx's death in 1977, Cooper donated $27,777.77 to restore the iconic Hollywood sign in his memory, and the second «O» is dedicated to him.
Dennis Hopper, The Last Film Festival (2016)
In a strange coincidence, The Last Film Festival was the last film of the Easy Rider and Apocalypse Now star.
This low-budget comedy follows character-producer Hopper's desperate attempts to get his own indie film into the only film festival that hasn't rejected it yet, in a sleepy Ohio town. Remember the many jokes about Hollywood and the Midwest.
Dennis Hopper Posted by Julie Marquez
The last film festival itself was left on the shelf after it ended in 2009. , and was not released until 2016, six years after Hopper died of prostate cancer at the age of 74.
Peter Cushing, Biggles: Adventures in Time (1986)
Cushing's career has included such iconic roles as Frankenstein and Van Helsing with close friend Christopher Lee on The Hammer Dread and Sherlock Holmes. But his latest film, the ludicrous time-travel gamble Biggles: Adventures in Time, didn't do the character actor any favors.
But while this was the last feature film he actually starred in before his death in 1994, it wasn't the last film he appeared in. In Rogue One: A Star Wars story, he reappeared as Grand Moff Tarkin 20 years after his death. His scenes were performed by an understudy, then archival footage and CGI were used to overdub Cushing.
While it's debatable whether Cushing's resurrection was in good taste, it at least makes the ending more worthy than Biggles: An Adventure in Time.
Bob Hoskins, Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)
Bob Hoskins proved he could act in films with his stellar portrayals in the classics The Long Good Friday and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? so it's somewhat merciful that he was just a supporting actor in his failure of the final film, Disney's hard reboot of Snow White.
Ian McShane, Chris Hemsworth and Bob Hoskins in Snow White and the Huntsman. Photo: Alamy
Hoskins, like his co-star Ian McShane, was almost unrecognizable under heavy prosthetics. Meanwhile, the production was criticized for using CGI to shrink the actors rather than simply giving roles to small people, and overshadowed the romance between married director Rupert Sanders and his star Kristen Stewart.
Bela Lugosi, The Black Dream (1956) 
Bela Lugosi as Dracula
Bela Lugosi's classic role was Dracula, making full use of his native Hungarian accent. However, his voice was also his downfall. Because of his accent, Lugosi couldn't shake his role as a villain in the horror genre, as evidenced by his latest B-movie, The Black Dream.
He was very disappointed to find that his role was silent and pestered director Reginald Le Borg for lines. Some of these were eventually filmed but never used, resulting in Lugosi being silenced in the last film he made before his death from a heart attack in 1956. he filmed for Ed Wood, saw him resurrect in Plan 9 from Outer Space three years after he died.
Gene Hackman, «Welcome to Musport» (2004) >Unlike most people on this list, Hackman is alive.
The French Connection star has announced his retirement from The Larry King Show after starring as the former US president in this small town comedy.
He stepped into the role at the last minute after his Runaway Jury co-star — and former roommate — Dustin Hoffman left.
This is the third U.S. President that Hackman has played, given the the fact that Lex Luthor, portrayed by Hackman in the first two Superman films, went on to become president in the original comics. (The other was in Absolute Power.)
John Cazale, The Deer Hunter (1978)
Cazale was only able to show his last performance thanks to the support of his Deer Hunter co-stars and director Michael Cimino. Still enjoying the success of Dog Day, Cazale had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer and the studio wanted to fire him, but Cimino and Meryl Streep, whom he was dating at the time, said they would leave if Cazale was fired. .
Meryl Streep with John Cazale in The Deer Hunter. Photo: Mondadori Portfolio
De Niro, with whom he starred in the first two Godfather films, paid for his expensive insurance to stay. Cimino was the first to shoot scenes with Casale dying, and he passed away before he could see the film. Streep received her first Oscar nomination for a role she threatened to turn down for him.
Heath Ledger, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009) Alamy Stock Photography
Ledger's untimely death at age 28 happened halfway through the making of this Terry Gilliam fantasy, but the nature of the film meant it could have been remade .
The Magic Mirror of the Imaginarium turned his character into various incarnations played by Jude Law, Colin Farrell and Johnny Depp who interfered due to their previous friendship with Ledger and gave their earnings to his daughter Matilda.
Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, Cannonball 2 (1984) 
Cannonball Cast 2″: (left to right) Burt Reynolds, Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine, Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra. Photo: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy Stock Photo
This Wacky Racers-style stunt was the last movie for the top three members of the Rat Pack and the last movie outing for Martin and Sinatra.
Although Martin and Davis Jr. both played fictional characters, they still managed to sneak in snippets from their biggest hits, The Candyman and Everyone Loves Somebody Sometimes.
Sinatra was added later, allegedly because he heard his friends talking about how much fun they had making the film. Despite playing himself and filming only two scenes, Sinatra's star power meant that he received second billing behind Burt Reynolds.
Gene Kelly, Xanadu (1980) 
Gene Kelly in Xanadu. Photo: United Archives GmbH/Alamy Stock Photo
The star of «Singing in the Rain» and «An American in Paris» was the epitome of charm, captivating audiences throughout the 1950s as a true triple threat.
But fashion changes, and as the musical went out of fashion, the work began to dry up. When Xanadu — a wild postmodern slant on the genre centered around the titular Los Angeles nightclub — came along then it must have seemed like destiny.
Alas, Robert Greenwald's rollerblade fantasy proved to be life-changing in another way, becoming one of the most infamous films of the decade. Trade newspaper Variety described Xanadu as an «incredibly bad film,» and screenwriter John J. B. Wilson was so taken aback by its irrelevance that he created the infamous Golden Raspberry, or Razi, award to recognize the worst achievements in cinema. in any form. given year.
Ethel Merman, Airplane! (1980) 
There's nothing shameful about this final appearance, but it should mark one of the most witty self-reposts of any star.
Among the charms of this spoof of disaster and the top contender for Funniest Movie Ever Made — I'll have no objection — this is a cameo from a Broadway titan that you'll miss. .
She plays a traumatized soldier who «thinks she's Ethel Man». CUT TO: Merman is sweeping out of bed and rapturously shouting his hit «Everything's Coming Up Roses» from the Sondheim musical Gypsy.
«War is hell,» pilot Ted Stryker remarks after the performance. Maybe, but Merman proves that a celluloid afterlife can be a lot of fun too.
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