Heath Ledger - accidental drug interaction death. He was young and had a great future ahead of him.
David Bowie’s death hit me hard. He was a great talent and an incredible influence on modern music.
The suicides of the two Pete’s from Badfinger are quite sad.
Surprised we haven’t mentioned Adrienne Shelly yet.
John Candy hit me pretty hard back in the day. He was one of my favorites, and even though he was obviously never the picture of health, it still sucked ass at 44.
The suicide of the mother in “Muriel’s Wedding”.
Robbie Basho, out-there guitarist who died of a stroke caused by a chiropractic session gone wrong - he was 45.
Along those lines, John Ritter was personally devastating to me.
Lennon’s been mentioned - I still remember waking up to that news before school.
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Brandon Lee**'s death during the filming of the Crow -
He had a terrible family history. I think he had uncles, parents and grandparents all die of heart disease in their 30s.
For me, Patton Oswalts wife Michele McNamara was sad. I followed pattons career and he went from an angry, unmarried person who didn’t want kids to a happy family man. Then his wife died young.
Robin Williams was sad too. He couldn’t make himself happy. I know he had dementia but it was a loss.
Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe. Both had so many years ahead of them, and whose deaths were of ambiguous causes.
The world-renowned cellist Jacqueline Du Pré died of MS at the age of 42. In the years preceding her death, her husband, pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim had an affair and fathered two children with his mistress, while Du Pré was slowly dying. I refuse to buy any of his recordings.
Another tragic transportation mishap, Bessie Smith who died in 1937 age 43
I was in middle school band when I heard Chris Farley had died of an overdose, speedball, which I think is heroin and cocaine, the last person to see him alive was a hooker. The last movie he had a starring role in was Almost Heroes, and supposedly he was so out of shape and fat at the time he had to use an oxygen tank between takes. His idol was John Belishi and they basically died the same way at the same age at 33.
From stuff I read he had a lot of hang-ups, his sexlife was primarily hookers and he was scared that if he lost weight people wouldn’t think he was funny anymore, he was about to become something bigger in my opinion he wanted to to do a biopic of Fatty Arbuckle and he was supposed to be the original voice of Shrek and even recorded dialogue before he died.
I liked the way Norm MacDonald put it: something like he could make anyone laugh, smart people, dumb people, young people, old people, but he always had doubts himself that he was funny.
Harry Chapin’s death at age 38 (his VW Rabbit was rear ended by a semi-truck on the Long Island Expressway) was so utterly banal that it was a double shock.
When Michael Jackson died, everyone I knew had the same reaction. “What a waste of such an enormous talent.” How would you like to be remembered that way?
Another SNL alum–Phil Hartman. (ETA Not sure if he actually might be remembered from any movies, though.)
All these hit me hard too, plus Freddie Mercury. If Freddie had gotten sick just few years later than he did, he might still be with us today.
Masako Natsume, the woman who played the (male) priest Tripitaka in Monkey, and who died of acute leukemia at 27 years old.
Carrie Fisher’s death was the saddest for me personally, and obviously sad for her family and friends, and it came at a really bad time (creatively, I mean, apart from her being relatively young and still a lovely person), but I wouldn’t count it among these because it wasn’t exactly surprising in retrospect.
Agreed, Guillermo González Nova killed a woman and nearly killed a child just because he wanted to speed his boat wherever he wanted to go, then got a member of staff to take the fall rather than… admit what he did, not go to jail, and pay money he could easily afford, so it’s not like he would even have lost much by giving her family some closure.
Probably not possible to know but it wouldn’t be surprising.
John Belushi’s death was crappy for him and for all of us.
Likewise Phil Hartman, shot and killed by his wife who then killed herself.
Howdy, friend!
Ian Curtis. Epilepsy killed him even if it wasn’t a seizure.