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Dancing With The Stars Cast Members Who Sadly Died

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Four ballroom legends took their final bow off the dance floor, and their Dancing With The Stars runs are the last full-length performances many fans ever saw them give.

ABC’s long-running ballroom competition has put hundreds of celebrities through cha-chas, foxtrots, and paso dobles since 2005, and inevitably, given how many seasons have aired, some of those contestants are no longer with us. Florence Henderson, Valerie Harper, Cloris Leachman, and Mary Wilson each brought decades of stardom onto that dance floor before their deaths. Here’s what each of them did on the show, and how their stories ended.

• Florence Henderson, “The Brady Bunch” star, competed in Season 11 in 2010 with pro partner Corky Ballas and was the fifth contestant eliminated; she died of heart failure in November 2016 at age 82.
• Valerie Harper danced in Season 17 in 2013 with Tristan MacManus shortly after a terminal brain cancer diagnosis, finished as the third elimination, and lived until August 2019, passing at age 80.
• Cloris Leachman became the show’s oldest-ever contestant at 82 in Season 7 (2008), partnered with Corky Ballas, finished seventh, and died in January 2021 at 94; Mary Wilson of The Supremes competed in Season 28 (2019) with Brandon Armstrong, was the first eliminated, and died suddenly in February 2021 at 76.

Florence Henderson’s Season 11 Run

Florence Henderson was already a household name decades before she laced up her dance shoes, having played Carol Brady on “The Brady Bunch” from 1969 to 1974. When she signed on for Season 11 in 2010, she was paired with professional dancer Corky Ballas, and audiences who grew up on Friday-night reruns turned out to watch a beloved TV mom take on the cha-cha and the quickstep. She didn’t make it to the later rounds, exiting as the fifth contestant eliminated that season, but her run drew warm ratings and plenty of nostalgic press coverage. Henderson died of heart failure on November 24, 2016, at age 82, closing out a career that had made her one of television’s most recognizable faces for nearly half a century.

Valerie Harper’s Fight On The Floor

Valerie Harper’s Season 17 appearance in 2013 carried more weight than almost any other celebrity turn in the show’s history. The actress, famous for playing Rhoda Morgenstern on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and its spinoff “Rhoda,” joined the competition not long after doctors told her she had terminal brain cancer. Partnered with Tristan MacManus, Harper danced anyway, treating each week as a gift rather than a countdown. She was voted off as the third elimination of the season, but the diagnosis that was supposed to be a death sentence didn’t end her story on schedule — she lived for six more years, passing away in August 2019 at age 80.

Valerie Harper stepped onto the ballroom floor with a terminal diagnosis already in hand and still outlived the timeline doctors gave her by years.

Cloris Leachman, The Show’s Oldest Competitor

Cloris Leachman didn’t just compete on Dancing With The Stars — she rewrote the show’s age record. At 82 years old during Season 7 in 2008, Leachman became the oldest contestant ever to take the floor, pairing with Corky Ballas for a run that stretched all the way to seventh place, a remarkable finish for a woman old enough to be the grandmother of most of the cast. Leachman had already banked an Oscar for “The Last Picture Show” and multiple Emmys for “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Phyllis” by the time she signed on, and her willingness to poke fun at herself made her a fan favorite in the ballroom. She died in January 2021 at age 94, with natural causes and stroke complications cited as the causes.

Mary Wilson’s Final Curtain Call

Mary Wilson helped found The Supremes, the Motown act behind hits like “Where Did Our Love Go” and “Baby Love,” decades before she ever set foot on the Dancing With The Stars set. When she joined Season 28 in the fall of 2019 alongside pro Brandon Armstrong, it marked one of the last major television appearances of her career — she was voted off as the very first elimination of the season. Wilson’s death came suddenly in February 2021, just weeks before Leachman’s passing, from hypertensive heart disease. She was 76.

Between Henderson’s Brady Bunch fame, Harper’s Rhoda legacy, Leachman’s Oscar-winning résumé, and Wilson’s Motown catalog, the four represent a cross-section of American entertainment stretching back to the 1960s — and their ballroom appearances gave fans one more chance to see them perform live, on primetime, before the final credits rolled.