Cory Monteith's character on 'Glee' will not die of drug overdose

While the character Finn Hudson will die on the Fox musical-comedy series "Glee," he will not share the drug-overdose fate of Cory Monteith, the actor who played him.

Series co-creator Ryan Murphy Thursday told Deadline.com that even though he and his fellow producers "had considered" having the McKinley High graduate and former choir member die after an accidental drug overdose, they "decided that we're not going to have him pass from that."

"Basically, what we're doing in the episode is we are not telling you yet, or maybe not at all, how that character died," Murphy said. "The idea being, how somebody died is interesting and maybe morbid, but we say very early on in the episode, 'This episode is about a celebration of that character's life.' "

Murphy, 47, said he and co-creators Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan were nearly finished writing the memorial episode and that cast and crew would start filming it this week. It will be the third episode of the upcoming season, which premieres Sept. 26.

"I think it turned out to be a lovely tribute," Murphy said of the script, "and it's a very heartfelt look at how young people grieve. After that, we're going to take two weeks or three weeks down to get our heads together because it's been a really hard thing to write. We loved Cory and we loved Finn and it feels like a huge loss and a huge heartache not to have either of them around. We're trying to craft an episode that's not just about us grieving but about a lot of the young fans grieving."

Monteith was found dead in a Vancouver, B.C., hotel on July 13 of what a Canadian medical examiner confirmed as "a mixed drug toxicity, involving heroin and alcohol." He was 31.