John Buckler, aged 30, and his father, a well known British actor 'Hugh Buckler', aged 55, were drowned together on the night of Oct. 30, 1936 when their car skidded off the road during a rainstorm and overturned in the waters of Malibu Lake in California. The two men were trapped inside the car and were undiscovered until the following morning when residents saw the wheels of the car above the water's surface.

The younger Buckler, whose promising film career had just begun only two years before his untimely death, had been a member of the cast of the prestigious film, The Personal History, Adventures, Experience, & Observation of David Copperfield the Younger (1935) and had last appeared in Tarzan Escapes (1936) as a greedy explorer in the third in the series made by MGM detailing the adventures of Edgar Rice Burroughs iconic character, played by 'Johnny Weissmuller'. John Buckler first gained critics and audience attention when he appeared on Broadway in some of the most famous plays of the 1920s, including "The Green Hat," "The Letter," and "The Barretts of Wimpole Street."