Five Actors Whose Characters Were Killed Off Their Own Shows

So “The Connor’s” premiered last night. I think we all know the backstory. After some rather alarming remarks from Roseanne on Twitter she was fired and her show is continuing on without her. It really is sad what a mess the Roseanne reboot has turned into, what was originally just a fun idea between Sara Gilbert and John Goodman.

I am not going to argue whether or not Roseanne deserved to be fired, instead I want to talk about the way her character was written out. I don’t think it’s a big spoiler to say Roseanne Connor was killed off. The funny thing is, this isn’t the first time a TV show has killed off a main character after firing a star. Usually when a show does this the character just disappears. Like Delta Burke on Designing Women, Suzanne Somers on Three’s Company, Lisa Bonet on Cosby or Dana Plato on Diff’rent Strokes. But every so often the producers go the extra step and actually kill the character off. One recent example is like Erinn Hayes from last year’s awful “Kevin Can Wait”. The thing there was she had done nothing wrong, the creators were just trying to save a lousy series. In most cases, there is a little more to it than that.


Here are five show which killed off a character due to backstage tensions, even if they were the star of the show!





Charlie Sheen

Yeah this wasn’t that long ago and I’m pretty sure we all remember this story. Two and a Half Men was a pretty solid hit. Then Sheen had a well publicized breakdown following several rehab stints. Not to mention reports of domestic violence and rude comments. The character was killed off, oddly, and replaced with Aston Kutcher who must have worked since the shoe went on just fine. I wouldn’t know I didn’t watch.








Shannon Doherty

Ah, poor Shannon Doherty. If you are young enough to remember her time on 90210 was pretty tumultuous. In fact her fights with Aaron Spelling were almost legendary. And she ended up leaving and being replaced by Tiffani Amber Thiesen. So what does Aaron Spelling do? He hires Doherty for another show. Gee I wonder if the results will be the same? Pretty much as her feuding and drama finally led to her leaving again. But rather being “put on a bus” like 90210 in Charmed her character was killed off between seasons. How hard can it be to get along with Alyssa Milano? Even though it didn’t really jibe with the season finale, the creators didn’t care anymore and replaced her with Rose McGowan.







Jay Thomas

Cheating  a little since this was a recurring character. You may not be as familiar with his one. Jay Thomas played Carla’s husband Eddie LeBec in a recurring role. It was reported he made comments about how awful being on the show was and having to kiss Rhea Pearlman. These comments, allegedly, caused him to be fired and the creators killed Eddie off. It’s possible this all isn’t true and the creators just decided to get rid of the character, since Carla married doesn’t work really, but that’s the rumor. The manner of death was, silly to say the least.








Valerie Harper

It’s sad that the only real legacy this show has is that this is the show that screwed Valerie Harper. It’s not even Jason Bateman’s first role he was on two shows before this. Valerie was a nice little show with Harper as the mother, until the end of the second season. The story here is really long and kind of convoluted. It involves Valerie standing up for producers who had left regarding salaries. If you were a kid of the 80’s as I was and read any tabloids this was all over the place! Anyway very long story short, Harper was fired before Season 3 and Sandy Duncan was slipped in to replace her. Harper ended up suing, and winning, a lawsuit. I personally preferred the change, I just liked Duncan more and by then Jason Bateman was an older and better actor. I think the show was the better for it. But it’s still an ugly story which I just skimmed. The funny part was that they couldn’t decide what to call the show. It went from Valerie’s Family to The Hogans to The Hogan Family. Valerie was written off as being killed in a car accident








John Amos

It can be really hard when an up and coming star steals the thunder from you on your own show. Meredith Baxter almost walked on Family Ties when Michael J Fox was getting huge. Thankfully Fox is to damn nice a guy to allow that. On Good Tines, when Jimmie Walker was rising in fame it didn’t sit well with John Amos who played the father and husband of Esther Role’s Florence. He felt the show was losing focus and argued with producers over this. They finally fired him and his character was killed in a car accident. I give this show credit for dealing with u head on, rather than just skipping ahead a few weeks and suddenly he’s dead and buried. As I’ve said I was never a fan of the show but I did somehow catch the scene where the news is revealed and man it was well acted.






Believe it or not, “The Brady Bunch could have almost been here. Tensions were so high between Robert Reed and Sherwood Schwartz after five years of arguing that they were considering just killing Mike Brady off the next year. Thankfully that season never came to pass. It came up again in the 1990’s “The Brady’s” but again that was cancelled before it could become reality. Thank goodness.






As for “The Connor’s”, it was ok. “Roseanne” had done such a great job fleshing out those character that there’s no reason they can’t carry the show without Roseanne herself. But it still felt, odd. Though it was sure topical. And that opening recreation without Roseanne in it was very…wrong. I probably wont watch again but we’ll see. What did you guys think? Comment and let me know.