I don’t know about “favorite” (her career was far too short for that) but I always think of Heather O’Rourke when I think of actors dying young
Gene Eugene
Wolfgang Mozart (with honorable mention to Felix Mendelssohn and George Gershwin)
On further consideration, I’m going to revise my pick to Heath Ledger (28), and throw in River Phoenix (23) as another honorable mention. Both were incredible talents.
Franz Schubert (31). He could have surpassed Beethoven.
Sandy Denny
The 27s
Eva Cassidy
Samantha Smith.
In November 1982, when Smith was 10 years old, she wrote to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov, seeking to understand why the relations between the Soviet Union and the United States were so tense:
Dear Mr. Andropov,
My name is Samantha Smith. I am 10 years old. Congratulations on your new job. I have been worrying about Russia and the United States getting into a nuclear war. Are you going to vote to have a war or not? If you aren’t please tell me how you are going to help to not have a war. This question you do not have to answer, but I would like it if you would. Why do you want to conquer the world or at least our country? God made the world for us to share and take care of. Not to fight over or have one group of people own it all. Please lets do what he wanted and have everybody be happy too.
Samantha Smith[10]
He wrote back, she ended up visiting the USSR, they loved her, even put her on a postage stamp…worth a read if you don’t know the story.
In her speech at the symposium, she suggested that Soviet and American leaders exchange granddaughters for two weeks every year, arguing that a president “wouldn’t want to send a bomb to a country his granddaughter would be visiting”.[24]
@What_Exit may know why I linked these two (Rebecca and Samantha) together…
Her fame resulted in Smith becoming the subject of stalker Robert John Bardo, the man who would later go on to stalk and ultimately murder My Sister Sam actress Rebecca Schaeffer. Bardo traveled to Maine in an attempt to meet Smith, but was stopped by police and returned home.[32]
Jimi Hendrix
Jim Morrison
Janice Joplin
Tupac Shakur
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Steve Goodman
A lot of good people have been brought up so far. But the first person that sprang to mind before opening the thread:
Can’t believe I’m the 1st to mention John Bonham. (32)
Ok. This thread is depressing me way more than I thought it would.
Kirsty MacColl
Philip Seymour Hoffman
John Kennedy Toole (I thought he was the main character of his book.)
Steve Goodman x 2
but I came here to mention John Bellairs who had a twisted mind able to write fantasy novels that took all the silly ideas that mankind had come up with and weave them into a sort of rug you could sleep on and have disturbed but not too awful dreams.
Also John Prine who died too young at 73.
That’s an easy one: Charlotte Coleman. For she was Marmalade Atkins, and also Sue in Worzel Gummidge.
Another vote here for Mozart and Schubert - and Kirsty MacColl.
But also, among classical performers, Jacqueline du Pré and Kathleen Ferrier.
Frank Zappa died when he was 52.
Not nearly enough of his musical output is out there, but Peter Laughner, one of the original members of Pere Ubu, died of acute pancreatitis at 24. Lester Bangs’ essay eulogizing him is sad and terrifying. And oh yeah, Lester as well. Greatest rock critic ever, died at 33.
For music, it has to be Buddy Holly. I can easily imagine him slipping into the mold of a Brian Wilson-type genius in the studio. Not a musician, but in the field, a surviving Brian Epstein may have been the best hope of preventing the breakup of the Beatles.
I’m having a hard time thinking of a favorite young writer who died at the top of their game. Maybe Edgar Allen Poe?
He was 40 though. So doesn’t fit the Op.
Hey, my first choice was Stan Lee (95).
Bonzo is the first one that came to mind for me, as well.
Van Gogh
Egon Schiele
Jaco Pastorius