Hollywood legends’ depressing final roles

“It’s better to burn out than fade away,” or so the saying goes. Except knowing when to “burn out” isn’t all that easy, especially in Hollywood.

You see for most movie stars, performing is a life-long commitment – and few opt out of the limelight on an early high, instead acting all the way up to the afterlife.

But, just like all good movies, every star wants to end on an epic climax – a swan song to cement their thespian legacy. If only things worked out that way…

Here are the Hollywood greats, who sadly bowed out on a less-than-legendary performance.

[Ridiculous movie resurrections]

Jimmy Stewart
Career bests: ‘Mr. Smith Goes To Washington’, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’, ‘Rope’, ’‘Harvey’, ‘Rear Window’, ‘Vertigo’, the list goes on…
Depressing swan song: Genuine legend Jimmy retired from sixty years of acting with mousey Spielberg sequel ‘An American Tale: Fievel Goes West’. His voice definitely added a touch a charm to the average animation, but playing a talking dog called Wylie Burp isn’t exactly the send off you imagine.

Bette Davis
Career bests: ‘All About Eve’, ‘The Letter’, ‘Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?’, forging a reputation as Hollywood’s most formidable queen bitch and the first person to ever notch up 10 Oscar noms - bagging Best Actress twice, for ‘Dangerous’ and ‘Jezebel’. 
Depressing swan song: It’s fitting that Bette’s final role was chain smoking her way through ‘Wicked Stepmother’ – a title few others could better suit. Still, with the tagline “Which witch is which?” you know what kind of half baked adventure you’re in for, and Davis departed midway through production, pointing fingers at the script. She died eight months later.

Leslie Nielsen
Career bests: Classic sci-fi ‘Forbidden Planet’, comedy masterpiece ‘Airplane!’ and the forever-awesome ‘Naked Gun’ series. Critic Roger Ebert dubbed Nielsen “the Olivier of spoofs.”
Depressing swan song: Leslie’s final Frank Drebin-esque outing before his death was playing The Producer in direct-to-video ‘Stonerville’ (care to guess the underlying theme?). Released two months after Leslie’s death, it also featured a cameo from Pauly Shore, that’s how bad it was.

Orson Welles
Career bests: ‘Touch Of Evil’, infamous radio broadcast ‘The War Of The Worlds’ and producing, directing and starring in the little known masterpiece ‘Citizen Kane’.
Depressing swan song: Welles finished up his magnificent career lending his booming voice to colossal planet-devouring Decepticon, Unicron, in ‘The Transformers: The Movie’. Alright it’s a cult favourite, and some would argue its better than Michael Bay’s efforts, but it’s hardly ‘Citizen Kane’…

Anne Bancroft
Career bests: Five Oscars noms for Best Actress, including a win for ‘The Miracle Worker’, another five Golden Globe nods plus two wins, and a massive seven BAFTA nominations featuring three wins – genuinely unforgettable seducing Dustin Hoffman in ‘The Graduate’.
Depressing Swansong: Anne racked up an almost unbeatable career with the critics, but her last role, voicing Empress Sedessa in ‘Delgo’, is a sniggering smudge at the end of her CV. The 2005 animation netted just $915,840 from a $40 million budget. It held the record for worst ever opening (averaging just two viewers per screen) until 2012, and still ranks as the lowest-grossing CGI movie of all time. Shame.

Raul Julia
Career bests: Golden Globe nods for ‘The Tempest’ and ‘Kiss Of The Spider Woman’, a posthumous win for TV movie ‘The Burning Season’ and playing creepy charmer Gomez in ‘The Addams Family’ movies.
Depressing swan song: In early 1994 Raul was treated for stomach cancer, but still took a role in the now infamous ‘Street Fighter’ just to impress his children who were fans of the video game. Raul’s General M. Bison stood out as a highlight, but the movie was otherwise mauled by critics. He died two months before release.

[The movie stars who went straight to video]

Jack Lemmon
Career bests:

Oscars for Best Supporting Actor (‘Mister Roberts’) and Best Actor (‘Save The Tiger’), the brutal 'Glengarry Glen Ross', classic capers ‘The Apartment’ and ‘The Odd Couple’ and AFI’s “Greatest American Comedy of all time” ‘Some Like It Hot’.
Depressing swan song: After five decades as one of the most endearing folk in movies, Lemmon capped his award splashed career narrating an almost unforgivable film. On paper ‘The Legend Of Bagger Vance’ was prime Oscar bait, but the finished product was blasted for racial insensitivity – in particular Will Smith’s “magical-negro” character. Time called it the most “embarrassing” film of recent years.

Buster Keaton
Career bests: ‘Sherlock Jr.’, ‘The General’, ‘Steamboat Bill, Jr.’, and along with Chaplin, pioneering celluloid comedy in the silent era. He received an Honorary Academy Award in 1958.
Depressing swan song: After a lifetime of risking his life for laughs, an ageing Keaton appeared in perhaps the most ironic of all swan songs, 1966 Canadian short ‘The Scribe’ – a movie funded by the Construction Safety Association of Ontario. That’s right, it was a health and safety film…

Richard Harris
Career bests:

Earning a BAFTA for ‘This Sporting Life’, a Golden Globe for ‘Camelot’, an Oscar nom for ‘The Field’ and a reputation as one of Hollywood’s biggest-ever boozers. He also appeared in ’Gladiator’ and played Dumbledore in the first two ‘Harry Potter’ films.
Depressing swan song: With his health failing, Harris only appeared in ‘Harry Potter’ because his young granddaughter threatened to ignore him otherwise. But the hellraiser feared the movies, which could have been his last, would outshine the rest of his career. Instead, he ended up bowing out soon after redubbing forgotten (for good reasons) French-Canadian CGI flick ‘Kaena: The Prophecy’.

Gene Kelly
Career bests: Receiving an Oscar nom for ‘Anchors Aweigh’, a Golden Globe nod for ‘An American In Paris’ and finally an honorary Academy Award in 1952. He defined the Hollywood music with soggy dancing classic ‘Singin' In The Rain’ and was a pretty lovely chap too.
Depressing swan song: With a reputation as cinema’s greatest dancer, Kelly’s last ever musical role came in 1980 cringe-fest ‘Xanadu’. You can forgive Kelly’s sometimes sad efforts (roller-skating in your late 60s can’t be easy), but the movie itself? Not so much. ‘Xanadu’ met six nominations at the first-ever Golden Raspberry Awards, skulking away with Worst Director.