His last two films,
The Bamboo Prison (1954) and
The Long Gray Line (1955), were completed in March 1954 and May 1954, even though they were released several months later, meaning that, at the time of his death in July 1955, he had not worked in over a year since the completion of his last film. This is curious indeed, considering he had been voted one of Screen World's "Promising Personalities of 1954" and seemed to have been under exclusive contract to Columbia Pictures, which apparently failed to offer him further work after only four films.