Smallville Actors You Might Not Know Passed Away

Before "Arrow" created a connected universe of superhero TV shows featuring DC characters, there was "Smallville." The series chronicled the teenage and young adult years of Clark Kent prior to taking on the legendary moniker of Superman. It ran from 2001 to 2011 and featured a ton of supporting and guest characters. When a series runs for that long, the list of actors who have appeared on the show is bound to balloon to epic proportions.

Sadly, this also means the list of actors who have passed away since appearing on the show will only continue to increase as time goes on. We're taking a look at just some of those actors. A few of these you might remember because they had more prominent roles than others. Likewise, there will probably be a few you don't remember. Regardless of the size of the role, all of these actors were part of keeping this classic series running for 10 years.

Johnny Lewis played the troubled Gabriel Duncan in a Season 5 episode of Smallville called "Hidden." Like his father, Gabriel hated metahumans. When his father became one himself, he killed him and began plans to wipe out all life in Smallville. Of course, Clark put a stop to all that, and Gabriel was killed during a confrontation with Chloe, ending his potential reign of bigoted terrorism before it could officially begin.

Lewis was already a recognizable presence on television when he appeared on the series. During the early years of the 21st century, he appeared in "7th Heaven," "Malcolm in the Middle," "Boston Public," "Drake & Josh," and several other notable shows. After his role as Gabriel Duncan, he went on to appear in "The O.C.," "Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem," and "Sons of Anarchy."

While this young actor's future was full of promise, his personal life did not reflect this. In September of 2012, it was reported that Lewis, who struggled with mental health and chemical dependency, fell to his death after assaulting his landlady, who was 81 at the time, killing her. The horrific truth of his final moments deeply sour whatever impact he may have made in entertainment and serves as a bitter reminder of how important it is to seek professional help when battling such devastating and powerful personal demons.

In the Season 6 episode "Combat," it's revealed that an underground fight club is harboring a dangerous escapee from the Phantom Zone named Titan (played by Glenn Jacobs, aka Kane from WWE). One of the fighters in this club is a woman named Athena. When Lois Lane is trying to get photos of the club, Athena confronts her with a gun. We then get to see Lois hold her own and take down Athena, before being captured and forced to fight in an official match. Athena is played by professional wrestler and "Survivor: China" contestant Ashley Massaro. 

As reported by "People," the former WWE superstar joined the organization in 2005 after successfully winning the WWE Diva Search. She continued with the company for three years, parting ways in 2008. Massaro died in 2019, leaving behind her loving daughter, Alexa. At the time, no official cause of death was released. It was commonly believed and reported, however, that she died from suicide. 

The first season of "Smallville" follows a traditional "villain of the week" format thanks to the remains of Krypton crashing into Smallville in the form of a meteor shower. These cosmic boulders infected several people in the area, turning them into metahumans. Usually, the metahumans chose to use their powers in destructive ways. So, each episode saw Clark and friends discovering a new metahuman and stopping them from carrying out some violent act.

Not all metahumans were evil, though. Case in point: Cassandra Carver from the Season 1 episode "Hourglass." Her sight was taken from her during the meteor shower, but she also gained the power of precognition, meaning she caught glimpses of the future. The actress who played Cassandra was Jackie Burroughs. Her massive career began decades before "Smallville" and continued for several years after her episode. While you may recognize her from one of the 115 credits she has on IMDb (including a film about someone else with precognition called "The Dead Zone"), many of you will likely remember her best as Hetty King in the series "Road to Avonlea."

On September 22, 2010 at the age of 71, Jackie Burroughs died after battling gastric cancer. 

Although Lana Lang has been in the comics for years, she's only occasionally been included in various live-action adaptations. When she has appeared, it's been in smaller, supporting roles. In "Smallville," however, she was one of the primary characters on the series for much of its run, giving the writers plenty of opportunities to do more with the character than had been seen in previous adaptations.

One such instance of this was the Season 3 episode "Relic." In this episode, we find out that her great aunt Louise was killed by a stray bullet fired by Lex Luthor's grandfather. The bullet was intended for a mysterious man Louise had been involved with and who turned out to be Clark's biological father Jor-El.

The man convicted for Louise's death was her husband Dexter, played by another actor with a dizzying number of credits named Tom Heaton. From 1967 to 2018 he showed up in far too many film and television roles to list here, but a few of them include "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," the James Gunn film "Slither," "The Outer Limits," and "Shanghai Noon." Despite his array of roles, there isn't a lot of information out there regarding his death, except this snippet that details his accomplishments, including having a loving family.

As we've already seen, the "Smallville" crew had a talent for finding great, accomplished actors with mile-long resumes to show up as a guest stars. They may not have always had the largest role, but they did it with several decades worth of experience, giving their characters and the world they inhabit a heavy dose of credibility. One such actor was Donnelly Rhodes who played Milash, an antique dealer hired by Lex Luthor to decipher a cryptograph in the Season 7 episode "Quest."

Originally getting his start in theater, Rhodes began acting on screen in 1956. He then went on to appear in several film and television classics such as "Bonanza," "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," "Soap," "Cheers," "The X-Files," "Battlestar Galactica" and so much more. On January 8, 2018, the actor lost his battle with cancer while in hospice in Canada at the age of 80.

Clark may not have worn the classic Superman costume, or even go by the name Superman, but that didn't stop the show from diving deep into DC mythology to bring us heroes from their incredible pantheon of characters. We even got to see a proto-version of the Justice League. One of the members of the young superhero team was Victor Stone who, following a car accident that killed his family, later became Cyborg.

The actor chosen to portray Victor was Lee Thompson Young, who had a massive breakthrough role as the titular character on the Disney Channel's series "The Famous Jett Jackson." Prior to joining the cast of "Smallville," he could also be seen in the film "Friday Night Lights." During that same time period he showed up in "The Hills Have Eyes 2," "South Beach," "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles," and "Flashforward." Tragically, the actor, who struggled with bipolar disorder, took his own life in 2013. In his memory, his mother and sister founded the Lee Thompson Young Foundation with the goal of erasing the stigma around mental illness. 

If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, please contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.