He died unexpectedly in 1945 while filming a serial called "The Royal Mounted Rides Again" for Universal Studios, after a fall from a horse at Canoga Park, California, in which he struck a tree. Some sources attribute his death to injuries sustained during the fall, which in those versions resulted from an attempt to recover a hat he had dropped, while others state that he suffered a fatal heart attack before falling. He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, in the Garden of Memory, near his older brother, Robert Livingston.