“Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed” covers the painter’s final years in detail, including the death of his wife Jane from cancer in 1992, as well as Ross’ own lymphoma diagnosis, which came just weeks later, according to his son Steve. We get to see family and friends talk about how Ross wanted the proverbial show to go on for as long as it could — even as he was getting progressively sicker, he was still able to make an appearance on the children’s show “The Adventures of Elmer and Friends” in early 1995. However, it isn’t mentioned that he dealt with some serious health issues well before he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in the early ’90s.

According to The Daily Beast, Ross apparently had a lingering feeling that he was going to die young. A regular cigarette smoker, Ross suffered a heart attack in the mid-1980s. He had also survived cancer previously, though the second diagnosis proved to be fatal for the beloved painter, who died on July 4, 1995. Allegedly, this didn’t deter business partners Walt and Annette Kowalski, the former of whom sent Ross a six-page contract that sought control over his name and brand. (Steve Ross references this in the documentary, suggesting that the papers were presented while his father was on his deathbed.) The Daily Beast described the contract as a piece of literature that was “full of legalese and posturing,” a document that was “for all intents and purposes, a declaration of war.”