Jim Henson
Freddie Mercury
Douglas Adams
Stephen J. Gould
Not a death, but when Warren Zevon announced he was terminally ill, it hit me the same way.
The name the instantly popped into my mind when I saw this thread was Phil Hartman. God, but I am still mourning the loss of him. He was the sort of actor that could never be the star, but was always the pillar of the show he was in. I really, really miss him.
John Lennon for sure. Jim Henson too. I always loved the Muppets. Phil Hartman was a shock and so was Princess Diana. With her it wasn’t so much that I was a big fan or anything, it was just so…odd. She was so present in the media and it just seemed surreal. I did always have a special place for her because we shared a birthday and I always thought she was so damn cute.
Freddy Prinze. I was a big fan of Chico And The Man as a child. His death drove home the point to my young mind that the characters on TV were played by real people who had problems and were mortal just like everyone else.
SRV. Already covered, but for him to die when he finally got his life straightened out from something unrelated to his past problems was so shocking to me.
Spike Milligan. I was already in the middle of a deep depression at the time, and I felt like the world was losing one of its precious few odd bright lights. My “Groucho Marx in the world” I suppose. I remembered reading Puckoon in high school, and not feeling so alone in the world for once. I know he was old and had been ill for a long time, but I liked knowing he was out there to confound the “normal” people and thumb his nose at convention and propriety.
He’s only a local celebrity, but Jerry Dunphy’s death really upset me. I grew up seeing him on TV (“From the desert to the sea to all of Southern California” was his catch phrase). When I was very, very little, I thought he was my dad. (He and my dad had the same curly white hair and square-shaped head. I was like 3, OK? I thought my dad went to work inside the TV.)
We had a few threads here when Dunphy died. A lot of Los Angeles Dopers missed him, it wasn’t just me.
I agree about so many of these… I remember Jim Henson’s death happening right around the time Sammy Davis Jr. died; everybody knew Sammy was sick and it was inevitable, but then out of the blue my Grandma (I think) called me and told me about Jim Henson.
When Phil Hartman died, I was at the pre-ceremony reception for the Pulitzer Prizes… suddenly, somehow, the rumor starts going around that he’d been killed, and there we all were ignoring the mingling Pulitzer people and crowding around a friend with a cell phone as he called everybody he could think of to find out if it was true.
I think my most recent surprisingly strong reaction was when Aaliyah was killed last summer. I mean, I liked her fine, wasn’t a huge fan, but talk about wasted potential. To top it off, I ended up really liking some of the songs off of her last album, and now everytime I hear “More Than a Woman” it just feels very strange.
watsonwil, your question about people whose deaths would hit us hard in future reminded me of something. A few months ago a few of us were driving upstate for the day. The driver, in the course of a casual conversation about the LOTR movies, blithely informs me that Chritopher Lee had died (this is NOT TRUE, just so I don’t freak anybody out!). Ruined my day-- I asked him “Are you sure?! When?!” and he said he didn’t know when, but it sure was true, no doubt.
First thing I did when I got home was check via Google, and of course Mr. Lee is alive and well. Next time I see the guy who told me he was dead, I’m gonna give him such a look…
I have never reacteed the way I reacted when I heard the news of John Lennon’s death.
I was in college, and I set my clock-radio to go off just before the news on the hour. It was the classical music station, and usually some lovely Mozart or quiet Baroque music would wake me, then I’d listen to the news, then get my butt out of bed.
Well, the news opened with Lennon’s death. I was still half-asleep, relaxed in body, but my mind was focused on the news. Involuntarily, my whole body stiffened in reaction. I went from relaxed and just waking up to energized, wired, confused, wide awake in about 30 seconds. But I still just lay there listening.
Weird experience. I’ll never forget it.
A few that hit me particularly hard for their utter senselessness:
Dale Earnhardt - Exactly one year after finally winning the Daytona 500, he’s on the final lap and cruising in third. One of the most ferocious competitors in the history of the sport isn’t even trying to make a push for the front, just run-blocking for a teammate. Someone taps him, he hits the wall, and he’s killed almost instantly. Every time I go over the events in my mind, taking in to account Earnhardt’s tremendous skill and the hundreds of drivers who walked away from that kind of accident without a scratch, I have to ask myself, how the hell did this happen?
Len Bias - I never even saw him in action, mainly because he acted out his absolute worst macho impulses in the absolute worst way imaginable. Why does a budding NBA superstar who’s about to have everything a young man could ever want need cocaine? And why does an NBA-caliber athlete need to “prove his manhood?” Isn’t it already self-evident? Bill Laimbeer goes ballistic if he gets called for more than one foul per game and Dennis Rodman turns into a one-man freakshow, and it’s not a hundredth as insane as this.
Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed - Take away the keys. Tell him to wait. Tell him to sleep it out. Wrestle him to the ground. Give him the night off and get a replacement. Call a cab. Call a private bus. Walk. Crawl. Swim. Anything.
Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. - How distressing is it that some of the greatest, most courageous leaders we’ve ever had, who’ve dedicated their lives to imrpoving the lives of others, can be laid low by mindless fanatics that do nothing but kill and kill and kill.
Tupac Shakur - Shot dead on the street. Even more horrifying, the idea that he had it coming because of the kind of music he produced. I don’t care how inflammatory his message was, the idea that he could get murdered in this country just for having it is truly shocking.
The Columbine dead - Maybe now it’ll finally dawn on our education system and those in charge of it that enforcing discipline in our schools may actually be a good idea. Because, you know, eventually one of the victims won’t take the bullying and ostracizing and ridicule and contempt and generally being treated like dirt very well. Unless nine-eleven has completely destroyed their critical faculties, in which case some other bitter, angry kid with nothing to lose will have to create the horror all over again.
Payne Stewart.
Ayrton Senna Who was the finest F1 driver to grace this earth. The morning of his accident, there was a final exam at the university I was attending, and people were discussing Senna’s accident instead of last-minute cramming. I myself went through the exam in a daze and don’t know how I managed to pass it.
William S. Burroughs Even though he wasn’t exactly young anymore, it took me completely by surprise.
Timothy Leary What an incredible loss. And to think he spent so many years in jail… Incredibly disheartening.
One name worth mentioning alongside the others. All of whom were terrible losses.
The Great** Walter “Sweetness” Payton** he was poetry in motion and will be missed.
Peace
Michael Hedges. Such an incredible talent, and the one who inspired me to pick up a guitar. His first Grammy Award had to be presented posthumously to his family.
Too soon, too soon.
Randy Rhoads death still gets to me today. He inspired me to play guitar and for him to die so young and in such a stupid way still bothers me. He was just hitting his stride as a musician. I cannot imagine the impact he would have had on the guitar world if he had lived.
Slee
::::Damned…preview Slee PREVIEW!!!::::::
Slee
Princess Diana- what kinda pissed me off in the next two weeks was how critics contrasted the coverage & grief of her death to that of Mother Teresa’s. They wanted to make that look like a triumph of Celebrity over Sainthood- but I think most people realized that Mother Teresa’s death was a fitting & final conclusion leading to her Heavenly Reward while Di’s was a senseless tragedy.
Lennon & Harrison, of course.
Peg Phillips was sad as I thought- “there goes the better part of a NORTHERN EXPOSURE reunion movie”
and don’t laugh… Representative Larry P. MacDonald on the KAL 700 plane shot down by the Soviets- I was a young member of the John Birch Society & that was an act of war to me. (Btw, I’ve mellowed since my Birch days).
** Douglas Adams ** of course.
** Bill Hicks ** wasn’t unexpected but that was far too young for him to go.
** John Smith ** (leader of the UK Labour party immediately prior to Blair) hit hard. It seemed like the last best hope of finally defeating the Tories had died that day too.
Thor Heyerdahl, this past April. What a life, though.
And, of course, Douglas Adams.
Just so they’re not overlooked:
Sam Kinison
Roger Zelazny
Danny Kaye
Humphrey Bogart
Zsa Zsa Gabor. I just can’t picture a world without Gabors—when Eva, Mama Jolie and Magda died within a year or two of each other, I thought there was a Gabor serial killer on the loose . . . Somehow, with no Gabors, the world will go all black-and-white and less fluffy and glittery. Like Dorothy returning to Kansas.
Spike Milligan. He was my hero.