When terminally ill actors.....

[TJames03]

....get roles on television shows and don't disclose they're dying.

Two that I'm aware of: Alice Pierce and Diana Hyland.

AP lasted barely two seasons in "Bewitched" and DH lasted about four episodes on "Eight is Enough."

Bad business practices?

Any others come to mind?

 

[Emelee]

Rikard Wolff, in this year's Christmas calendar series (Sweden). He passed away before it started airing from some lung illness that he kept private until the very end.

 

[Alexis]

A nice cheery thread for the holidays.

 

[Daniel Avery]

Yes, I thought of Rock right away.

One of the issues many may not know is that the Screen Actors Guild (the actors' union) offers its members a good health insurance package with the only stipulation being that the actor has to earn a certain amount of money from "paying" acting gigs over time. If they don't work, they stand to lose their SAG health insurance. Oftentimes, friendly producers or casting agents who know their situation will purposely book an actor they know is ill and needing to stay on the SAG insurance plan. One such situation was when Lynn Marie Latham and Bernard Lechowick were producers/writers on The Young and the Restless a while back. They booked several well-known actors for cameo roles who later ended up dying of various illnesses (or just dying of old age); the roles were "invented" just to help the actors keep their insurance.

 

[TJames03]

Didn't Bonnie Franklin appear on Y&R while dying?

 

[TJames03]

Yeah, forgot about Hudson.

 

[TJames03]

I believe this is AP's final-ever scene

 

[Daniel Avery]

Didn't Bonnie Franklin appear on Y&R while dying?

I was never sure, but her short-term gig on Y&R was her final acting role. The same for Isabel Sanford, though Sanford's (final) role on Y&R was about ten years before Franklin, and I don't think the Lechowicks were in charge of Y&R during the time either actress was cast. Perhaps someone higher up at CBS arranged for it, since both actresses were high-profile moneymakers for the network back in the 1970s/1980s.

 

[TJames03]

Well, BF died in March of '13 and her last appearance on Y&R was the latter part of the summer of '12, so I am assuming that she had to have known she was ill when first cast because she s he only in the show for a brief time. I don't think her character was ever rendered to after her death.

 

[tommie]

Patrick Swayze got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a few weeks after filming the pilot for The Beast but continued on to do the show anyway. I'm pretty sure he knew his chances weren't good when he continued on to film the series a few months later.

 

[Jessie]

Charlie Murpy didn't tell his castmates he had Leukemia. He was on the television series "Power". He passed away April, 12, 2017.