Ross McWhirter (one of the compilers of The Guiness Book Of Records, and host of The Record Breakers TV show.)
There are some people who think that Pope John Paul I was assassinated, but it hasn’t been proven, and last I heard the mafia was the prime suspect.
In any case, I’d call that a political assassination.
That was because he had offered a large reward for information leading to IRA terrorists, and so would be more a political assassination than a celebrity assassination per se.
Regarding some of the others, I would exclude cases in which the victim and the perpetrator knew each other (Selena, for example, or Warhol) - the motivation for these seems to have been personal, rather than the simple fact that the victim was a celebrity. They are really just murders/attempted murders in which the victim happened to be a celebrity. There is some question, I think, over whether or not Versace knew his killer.
Probably felt she was entitled to 15 minutes of fame.
I seem to recall that she was basically insane, which is the same generalized diagnosis we would give to Mark David Chapman or the other assasins in this thread. She didn’t off because she caught him in bed with somebody.
Haven’t there been several rappers killed? Tupac
Only if insanity is the condition brought about through extended drug use. Brinn Hartman was a major addict/alcoholic (reportedly the reason for the fight which escalated to violence that morning) and as I recall, post mortem toxicology showed that she had cocaine and multiple prescription drugs (narcotics and psychoactives) on board at the time of the murder/suicide.
Murder by any other name is still murder!
I should think the Manson ‘Family’ victims straddle the discussed lines, depending on how we define ‘political’ in the intent.
If you list Tupac, the other bookend is the Notorious B.I.G. But this is virtually gang warfare, at which point we have to include the St. Valentines Day Massacre and Jimmy Hoffa and Chickenman Testa and…
I wouldn’t include Nicole Simpson, she was famous because of her killer, not before her murder on her own. How many of us knew or cared OJ was married (let alone to whom) before the murders?
There have been anti-actor and anti-artist riots in the 19th and early 20th centuries in which the mob wanted to at least harm if not kill the artist for their take on art.
Many, many political artists have been killed by the state, such as Victor Jara of Chile. Or in times of anti-culture revolution such as Stalinism or in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge many celebrities are targeted as decadent. Wildly popular Sinn Sisamouth and probably just about the whole recording industry of Cambodia were wiped out by the KR.
I am fully standing by my assertion that what I typed was exactly as meant. Maybe I can up my hillarity quotient that way.
Okay, I caved. It was completely unintentional, but still quite humorous.
True enough. But assassinations are the acts of assassins, and “assassin” has specific connotations that are different from, say, “serial killer,” “hit man,” “rage killer,” “vigilante,” “armed robber,” etc. Assassins differ from the others by meeting two specific criteria: Famous target, and elaborate premeditated steps to kill him. (A hit man may meet these criteria, but “hit man” specifically implies that the killer is a paid professional with no particular interest in the target beyond his payment; Sirhan Sirhan and Mark David Chapman don’t meet these criteria and the prevailing opinion is that neither did Lee Harvey Oswald).
Sal Mineo was murdered in 1976.
Barbara Colby was murdered in 1975 (just turned 35)
If you are wondering who she was, I think her most famous role was in the first “Columbo” television program. (2 pilots preceded the show). Anyway, she was ironically a murder victim on the show.
Trivia - she was Ethel Merman’s daughter-in-law.
Sal Mineo was killed by a mugger. Not really an assassination.
Alan Berg was apparently killed for his outspoken views, and this would count as an assassination. I remember it well because I was living in Denver at the time and it was front-page news there. Berg’s story was fictionalized as the basis for the movie Talk Radio. At least it looked that way to me when I saw the movie.
Eddie Waitkus was shot by a stalker, though he lived.
Most of the killers were nutjobs. Mark Chapman, who killed Lennon, was a nutjob. Hinckley, who tried to kill Reagan, was a nutjob.
I’ll let others decide if these are “assassinations,” plain old murders, or something else:
Soul singer Sam Cooke was shot to death by a motel manager
Soul singer Marvin Gaye was shot to death by his father
NFL quarterback Steve McNair was murdered by his mistress
Plenty of theories surrounding her killing, but no answers.
Dimebag Darrell, guitarist for Damageplan and the former Pantera was assassinated on stage during a performance in Columbus.
Rumor was that it was over Pantera’s break-up but the more likely explanation was over a “stolen” song.
Along the same lines, Dr. Hang S. Ngor, who won an Oscar for The Killing Fields, was murdered by an Asian street gang in California.