This is a crappy list of "bizarre" celebrity deaths - we can do better!

Let’s just say that that is far too unclear to be listed as a fact.

Randy California – guitarist for Spirit – died while rescuing his son (successfully) from a riptide. He was unable to escape it, and drowned.

Doug Kenney – founder of The National Lampoon and screenwriter for Animal House and Caddyshack – died after he fell off a cliff in Hawaii.

Vivian Stanshall of the Bonzo Dog Band died in an apartment fire. He may have been too drunk to realize what was happening.

A bizarre coincidence: Roger Bowen, who played Col. Henry Blake in the movie version of MAS*H and McLean Stevenson, who played the role on TV, died within 24 hours of each other. The news of Bowen’s death was not released to the media for a week, to avoid people confusing them. Both men died of heart attacks.

The way I read it, the jury of Roscoe’s last trial issued him a written apology, something I don’t think they would have done if they thought he was, um, culpable in any way.

Boy, you weren’t kiddin’, OP! That linked list was* weak!*

All the “celebrity” deaths I can think of aren’t bizarre enough for mention. Run of the mill air and car crashes.

Fun Fact: Sonny Bono died in Nevada, not California. I was there that day, by the way.

Dar Robinson.

The original lead singer of Norwegian black metal band Mayhem (ironically named “Dead”) killed himself with a shotgun blast to the head. What makes his death bizarre is that his creepy bandmates rearranged the body and took photographs (one of which famously ended up on a bootleg live album), crafted jewelry out of his skull fragments, and reportedly (though it was never proven) ate portions of his brain.

Jeff Porcaro, famous session drummer for Toto, Steely Dan, and countless other bands, fell ill and died shortly after spraying insecticide at his home. However, his official cause of death was attributed to cocaine intoxication, thus robbing him of the distinction of dying in a bizarre gardening accident.

Film director Alan J. Pakula died in a freak car accident – another vehicle kicked up a large chunk of metal, which smashed through his windshield and killed him instantly.

French president Felix Faure died while in the middle of some sex act with a much younger woman. There are many rumors as to what it might be, though a blowjob seems the most common explanation.

No shit?!? Did he choke on it or did it cause a blockage in his innards?

Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer got shot demanding $50 for a lost dog that was found.

I don’t think he invented it, I think he just owned the company. I could easily be wrong.

Either way that was one of the most laughable deaths I’ve ever heard of.

Good call.

Tony Scott’s suicide was pretty bizarre.

Yes, I think this is correct. Found dead…from autoerotic asphyxiation.

Choked to death.

He was dead when found. I think they just worded that sloppily.

But you mean David Carradine, no? Or is the whole Carradine clan traipsing over here to engage in auto-erotic asphyxiation? :eek:

I don’t know if Aeschylus qualifies as a celebrity but he did die in a bizarre way.

Eagles snatch up turtles and fly them up high and then drop them on rocks to crack open their shells so they can eat them.

Aeschylus was bald and supposedly he was standing outside one day and an eagle mistook his head for a rock and dropped a turtle on him.

So you’re saying he came and went at the same time?

Much like Terry Kath, original guitarist for the group Chicago, whose last words were reportedly “Don’t worry. It’s not loaded.”

Stone the Crows guitarist Leslie Harvey was electrocuted on stage when he grabbed an ungrounded microphone.

Chicago had recently releast the single Baby What a Big Surprise. Boy howdy!

Hmm, well whadayaknowabowtdat?

I’ve always loved Tennessee Williams’ plays - though I’ve never seen one done live - ever since I first read The Glass Menagerie.

I haven’t ever read any biography of him or anything - somewhat odd for me - so I really had no idea how he died.

How sad that such a brilliant man should suffer such an ignoble fate.

Almost like a Tennessee Williams play. :wink:

There’s been a controversy over the years whether Nelson Rockefeller died while having sex with a young aide named Megan Marshack. See here.

And speaking of the Rockefellers, Michael Rockefeller - youngest son of Nelson - disappeared while on an anthropological expedition in Papua, Indonesia, never to be heard or seen again. There is some speculation that he was eaten by cannibals.
Barbara Olsen was a right-wing political talking head (basically Ann Coulter) who was killed in the 9/11 attacks. She was a passenger on AA Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon. She was on her way to California to appear on Bill Maher’s politically incorrect TV show at the time. During the episodes she was to appear on, Maher and the producers left the chair she would have occupied vacant as a memorial to her.

By coincidence I was reading earlier today that Emmy-award-winning actress Beulah Bondi died after tripping over her cat.

Actors Sal Mineo and Bob Crane were both murdered

Actress Rebecca Schaeffer was murdered by an obsessed fan.