St. John’s last film was released in 1952. From that time on until his death in 1963 in Lyons, Georgia, he made personal appearances at fairs and rodeos, and traveled with the Tommy Scott Wild West Show. Altogether, Al St. John acted in more than 300 movies, spanning five decades from 1912 to 1952. He was working with a traveling Wild West show in Georgia and was waiting to go on when he suffered a massive heart attack and died at age 70.

When Arbuckle formed his own production company, he brought St. John with him and recruited stage star Buster Keaton into his films, creating a formidable roughhouse trio. After Arbuckle was involved in a widely publicized scandal that prevented him from appearing in movies, he pseudonymously directed his nephew Al as a comic leading man in silent and sound films such as The Iron Mule (1925) and Bridge Wives (1932). Dozens of St. John’s early films were screened during the 56-film Arbuckle retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 2006.