Terry Pratchett is the only individual person outside of personal friends and relatives who has, or is currently likely to, actually made me feel upset at their passing.
When I watch a “Mork & Mindy” rerun, I think to myself, “Damn him for taking his own life.”
I don’t sincerely believe this. I don’t believe in an afterlife, so I don’t believe people who commit suicide actually go to hell. Nor would I believe that they deserve it if there actually were a helI. I know he was physically ill and felt tormented to a degree I’ll never know. But I still feel an incredible amount of loss at his passing.
I went to high school and shared classes with the son of SRV’s manager. I had never heard of Vaughan before his death (I grew up listening to very different music), but my classmate showed up one day wearing a black armband. He was so distraught (particularly given the tragic manner of death) that I got sad about it. Still, it wasn’t until I was an adult that I ever listened to and appreciated his music.
Scott Weiland’s passing recently hit me pretty profoundly because I listened to a lot of STP in high school and college. They were my first live concert. I just really, really liked his music. I even liked Velvet Revolver.
Michael Jackson, for all his faults, was the most entertaining performer I’d ever seen. He was the artist of my childhood and I was stunned when I heard he died.
Terry Pratchett and David Bowie. Especially Bowie. Can’t remember having cried over the death of any celebrity - until today.
I am still profoundly bitter about the fact that Groucho Marx’s death was almost completely overshadowed by Elvis Presley’s, which had occurred three days earlier.
Philip Seymour Hoffman, James Gandolfini, Robin Williams, Christopher Hitchens, and now David Bowie; Their passing had a profound effect on me in the sense that the world seems somehow a poorer place now that they’re gone.
Few books have made me laugh while feeling anxiety and grief like Last Chance to See.
Only a few years before his untimely death, I had started to recognize Adams as a serious environmental advocate. It may just have been my imagination, but I was excited about my feeling that Adams would bring his fandom – which I perceived to be a huge mass of youngish, reasonably educated, imaginative people with money and a certain disregard for the stodgy status quo – with him to environmental issues and animal advocacy. Think of the possibilities!
Not to mention he was funny as hell.
And then it all ended, suddenly and horribly.
Jim Morrison. I liked him, and still think his moments of brilliance (however few) indicated potential yet to be realized.
George Harrison. My least favorite Beatle musician, but favorite Beatle person. The one I’d have wanted to meet.
Edward Abbey. Not my very favorite author, but his death saddened me.
Walt Disney when I was six and John Lennon when I was 19.
The deaths that have affected me most were John Lennon, Charles Schulz, and George Harrison.
I was born in 1960; I was in college when Lennon was killed, and being a big Beatles fan, that was like a body blow for me. The death of Elvis a few years before was shocking, but much less of a sensation than John’s assassination (for me, at least).
I was almost forty when Schulz died, and I was in tears or near-tears for a good part of the day. I idolized Schulz as a child, and loved his Peanuts strip. I owned all the books – read them religiously as a child and pre-teen – and still regret losing them to mold and mildew.
I was 42 when George died, and felt heartbroken that another Beatle had departed this world.
(When Stan Lee goes, I may be catatonic for a day or so…)
Jim Henson’s death hit me hard.
Harry Chapin also, but mostly because it was his own fault - I was angry at him.
Others may have saddened me, but these two stood out. Honestly, I never got into Bowie and apart from Space Oddity, I couldn’t name anything he did.
Robert A. Heinlein. Terry Pratchett. Martin Gardner.
Phillip Seymour Hoffman was the hardest for me. I had heard a few months before he died that he had gone into rehab for heroin and learned it was relapse of an old habit. Even with that in back of my mind, I was shocked to hear of his death.
Stan Rogers but in a different way because I only learned of him after his death. I still feel sad at all he could have done.
The only one that really affected me that much was Harry Caray (Chicago Cubs broadcaster) in 1998.
Joe Morello, drummer for Dave Brubeck, and probably the greatest jazz drummer who ever lived. It really upset me, and still does. This was a man who went blind and continued to teach drumming.
Freddy Mercury, he of the soaring and operatic voice, who alone among a group of very talented musicians at Live Aid could move an entire stadium to sing with him. In a band of extremely talented musicians and singers, he stood out.
Stevie Ray Vaughan, blues genius, mainly because I came late to his music and never got to hear him live. Gone before his creative sound was finished.
Dave Brubeck, a brilliant jazz musician and generous, patient man who always had time for fans like me who happened to cross paths with him.
People like Hendryx and Joplin: well, I was their contemporary and we sort of expected rock stars to die young back then, so it was sort of like ‘another one bites the dust’.
I’ve always known there were three celebrities whose deaths were really going to shake me: Terry Pratchett, Paul McCartney, and Bob Dylan. I can basically chart my life by what my favorite Discworld novel/Beatles song/Dylan song was (little kid: The Amazing Maurice, Yellow Submarine and Mr. Tambourine Man! Angsty teen: Small Gods, Eleanor Rigby, One Too Many Mornings! etc, etc).
The intellectual part of my brain knows it’s silly to get that upset over people you’ve never even met dying, but enjoying those three people’s art really has had a major impact on me through the years. Luckily, Sir Paul’s a vegan, so I don’t think another decade is too much to ask, and Dylan seems vital enough to do really embarrassing commercials (hey, to each his own). Even so, I really should get my butt to some concerts one of these days . . .
Kinda like when Orville Wright died on the same day as Mahatma Gandhi. Or Aldous Huxley, CS Lewis & President Kennedy all dying on the same day. (NOVEMBER 22, 1963).
His Majesty the Queen, Fredie.
I am surprised that Bowie’s death has affected me so much. I have just felt sick. I did like his music, and he has been a part of most of my life, but he wasn’t one of my favorites. He’s just been always been there. My roommate just played BlackStar for me two days ago and I liked it, but I didn’t really get it. Seeing the video and knowing what I know now it all makes sense and means a lot more.
Anyway . . . none have really ever affected me so much, but I’m sure if the boys from Rush don’t outlive me I will be devastated. I think Ozzy’s passing will be very sad, but not really so shocking. David Bowie did not look almost 70. Ozzy looks 170 already.