Dude wrote strong, memorable melodies, that’s for sure.
Cleopatra
Derek Bentley
Timothy Evans
Ruth Ellis
Three controversial cases that helped abolish the death penalty in the UK. Bentley and Evans were innocent, and Ellis arguably should have received clemency.
She’s still one of the most recognizable images. That image has nothing to do with her death.
The ones where the person is only famous because of how they died don’t belong on the list. Garry Hoy, Kitty Genovese. This thread is about famous people who died. They weren’t famous.
Lisa Marie Presley just died of complications of weight loss surgery. That will define her, I think.
…and of course Gaius Julius “Ides of March” Caesar
Harvey Milk
Peter Gusenberg, Frank Gusenberg, Albert Kachellek, Adam Heyer, Albert Weinshank, Reinhardt Schwimmer, and John May. I was just watching a movie about the circumstances surrounding their deaths.
They were the victims of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. The first five were members of Bugs Moran’s North Side Gang.
I was going to say this, but on reflection, I don’t think so. She certainly had a famous death, but I think her fame in life surpasses it
These are famous people?
I’d say Buddy Holly is still more known as an artist than a crash victim. The other musicians on the plane however the Big Bopper and Richie Valens are definitely defined by the fact that they died on a plane with Buddy Holly.
I’d still say he’s better known as well Caesar (I mean its not like his literal name is used to mean someone who got stabbed), though being stabbed probably comes a close second.
Slightly more obscure but the Gracchi probably count as the OP
Emmett Till would have to qualify here.
Other recent victims of political assassinations probably count:
Salvador Allende
Patrice Lumumba
Mohammad Mosaddegh
I’d challenge you* to name any one of their political actions or policies other than their assassinations.
- by “you” I mean average person not on the Dope, your average doper could probably give a thesis on their political policies
[Moderating]
OK, that’s your reaction to the mod note? I wasn’t sure before, but I am now: This is an official Warning for unnecessary crudeness.
Great White guitarist Ty Longley is definitely more known as a victim of the Great White nightclub fire than a musician.
I dunno, when I think of Julius, the image that comes to my mind first is that of a gang of street thugs coming at a middle-aged man with shivs.
And when I think of Cleopatra, this image comes to mind.
Cleopatra, maybe. But my first association with ol’ Gaius is “Veni, vidi, vici”. Both the speech, and the conquests it was referencing. Next after that is probably the crossing of the Rubicon.
Michael Hutchence was the one discussed above, that was a suicide where his ex-girlfriend thought she could get some money from the press by concocting the autoerotic asphyxiation story. Almost the exact same thing happened with David Carridine. I’m sure there have been some cases of “people involved in weird sexual behaviors taking no precautions and hanging themselves from curtain rods instead of doing it in a safer way, accidentally killing themselves, and then having former girlfriends who coincidentally need money reveal for purely altruistic reasons that they had always been into autoerotic asphyxiation despite no one else ever hearing about it” but the vast majority of the time that’s not what it actually is.
The list of “people in denial about overdoses” is almost too long to count but two celebrities that come to mind are Brittany Murphy and her “toxic mold” problem and Mitch Hedberg and his “congenital heart defect.”
True, but the assassination of Caesar triggered civil wars that eventually led to the end of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire. A pretty momentous occasion.