Look at me, combining two thread trends into one tidy package.
The seven-page thread on Heath Ledger made me think of the only celebrity death to garner my tears. I did not cry for Kurt Cobain, although I knew a lot of people who did (I was in high school, after all!), but I did cry for another member of the grunge scene who died way too young. Alice in Chains was always my favorite band of the Seattle era, and Layne Staley was the biggest reason for that. I loved the vocal harmonies he created with Jerry Cantrell, and their music was one big slow spiral into darkness. He never kept his heroin addiction a secret, and never seemed to be too concerned with kicking the habit. Because of that, I’m not sure why I was so surprised when he ended up dead. Hell, I think I had his name in a death pool that year. That having been said, the circumstances of his death were…horrifying. He was dead in his apartment for TWO WEEKS before anyone found him. It just goes to show just how much addiction can take from you. The fact that nobody cared enough about him to check on him for weeks was frightening to me, and I cried to see such talent wasted, even though so much of what he chose to do with his talent revolved around telling his story of addiction and self-loathing.
In a massive coincidence, both Layne Staley and Kurt Cobain were estimated to have died on my birthday, April 5th, eight years apart.
So, seeing as I’ve started this downer of a thread, have any celebrity deaths actually provoked you to tears? If so, who?
While many of the celebrity deaths were events that certainly saddened me, most of these figures were too far removed on a personal level, too “iconic” if you will, to bring me to tears.
One that cut pretty deep since he wasw in our home every evening, a trusted confidant with a character I admired was Peter Jennings. Seeing him go really hurt.
Charles Schulz. I bawled like a baby. Probably didn’t help that I was nine months pregnant and miserably sick, but still.
I came pretty close to crying when I heard about Jim Henson.
I still can’t believe how much I cried when King Olav died - the same night Desert Storm started, and all I could think was, why do the good guys die, and the ahem anal apertures live on and on?
If you’re counting astronauts as celebrities, I also cried, with the rest of my trig class, when we heard the Challenger had exploded - but that may have been more shock than grief. After all these years I’m still not sure.
None really. I guess I was a little sad at the deaths of Dr. Suess and Charles Schulz because they were such a wonderful part of my youth. But I think I was mourning the passing of my youth as much as their passing.
I don’t understand the threads when a star dies and people all come to say how he will be missed by them. I didn’t know these people and while I don’t wish them ill, I don’t get upset when they pass. On my more cynical (or grumpy) days I sometimes think to myself: Yeah, he always sent the best Christmas cards, I’ll really miss him.
But they’re not hurting me either, so I just move on.
On the day they announced that George Harrison had died, I was sitting in my car at a stoplight waiting to turn left when “Here Comes the Sun” came on the radio. I could barely see through my tears to make it through the intersection.
I’ve never cried from a celebrity’s death, but I have been deeply saddened by several. The first I can think of was **Jim Henson’s ** death. If I remember right, **Sammy Davis, Jr ** died on the same day, which was kind of a double whammy.
**Cobain’s ** death affected me, but it didn’t surprise me… he’d just tried to kill himself in Europe a few months prior to that.
Other deaths that made me sad have been** John Candy**, Chris Farley, and Steve Irwin.
The one that affected me the most of all of them was Phil Hartman. That’s maybe the closest I’ve come to crying at a celebrity death. He seemed like such a cool guy and his death was so senseless.
Asimov.
Mr. Hooper. [I just watched yesterday the clip on YouTube that was mentioned here and I cried again.] Jim Henson was a shock but I don’t remember crying.
Diana. I cried like hell, surprised myself.
When Walter Payton died, it truly brought me to tears. How could such a beautiful strong, but gentle man waste away to nothing. It just wasn’t right. I still cry sometimes thinking about him being gone, and I’m not even a Chicago Bears fan.
In retrospect, I wonder if steroids or other performance enhancers might have affected him. He always seemed like an athelete who took care of what was going into his body, but back in the early 80’s no one really thought of those things as being bad in the long term. We’ll never know.
I was just coming back in here to say that I forgot Walter. I’m pretty sure I cried a little over this one…it was so sad. Growing up in Chicago in the 70s, he was such a hero to us kids. Never though about what you said about drugs…makes you wonder, doesn’t it. I hope that wasn’t the case, of course, but you never know.\
George Harrison, too, was one I got pretty choked up over.
Moderator’s Early Warning in Advance:
Please note that anyone who tries to make some nasty comment about how the death of someone not personally close to you should not cause tears: that will be viewed as thread-shitting. And more, since I’ve provided advance warning, it will also be viewed as ignoring a Moderator’s explicit instructions.
It is not up to you to decide what should cause another person to be moved, whether to joy or to sadness.
“Every man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in all mankind. … Therefore, send not to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” – John Donne
I teared up when Charles Schulz died as well, but that may have been due to the irony of his passing away on the day his last Peanuts strip ran.
I was surprised at how sad I was when Steve Irwin died. I remember thinking, “The world was more interesting with him in it” was an apt phrase for how it felt.