For a show as sweet and positive as "Highway to Heaven," the specter of death haunted the series. The main character was technically a dead man named Arthur Thompson, now working as an angel with the pseudonym Jonathan Smith. Moreover, the show's main cast all died tragically, alarmingly, and in similar circumstances. In the Season 1 episode "One Winged Angels," Jonathan gets God to make it rain inside a car when Mark lights up a cigarette, suggesting that the deity is "not so anxious" for the man to die and wind up in Heaven. French was a smoker off-screen, and in 1989, just months after production on "Highway to Heaven" wrapped, he died of lung cancer at age 54, according to the Associated Press. Two years later, Landon, 54, died of pancreatic cancer, according to People. 

Apart from Landon and French, James Troesh appeared in more episodes than any other actor, playing the lawyer Scotty Wilson eight times in the series. According to Variety, Troesh died in 2011 at, like Landon and French, age 54.

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