Same here. I don’t get too upset about celebrity deaths but his passing will mess me right up.
Also any member of Duran Duran. They always will be my favourite band and seeing them in 2003 was the happiest moment of my life.
Jennifer Lawrence.
A young celebrity would hit me harder than one who has led a full rewarding life.
Though Angela Lansbury and Clint Eastwood leaving us would be a sad day.
The day this thread went up, Maya Plisetskaya died. She was the prima ballerina of the Bolshoi beginning in 1960, after only briefly working in the corps, and spending a long time as a soloist, second in the company only to Galina Ulanova. She was semi-retired, but still performing lead roles a few times a year when I saw her in 1977. She was 52. Most dancers have been retired for at least a decade by then, and may be teaching, but are not performing, unless it’s in small character roles. I saw her give a powerful performance as the lead in Anna Karenina. I was only 10, but she flipped some switch in my brain, and ballet stopped being just pretty, and became a powerful means of expression. I crossed some kind of event horizon.
She taught and continued to give master classes up until almost the very end, and lived to age 89.
People who had seen both dancers compared her to Pavlova. They were built differently, and had different styles, but she was the Bolshoi’s answer to Pavlova (who had danced for the Kirov). She was one of a handful of world-class dancers in the 20th century, and the only one I saw live (well, according to my mother, I saw Maria Tallchief dance as part of a lecture-demonstration when I was really little, but I don’t remember it). I’ve seen others, like Fonteyn on film lots of times, but only Plisetskaya live.
I’ll never forget it.
Our 15-1/2-year-old dog died last week too, so it’s been a bummer all around.
Oh, yeah, I forgot about Harrison Ford.
Also David Tennant. I didn’t pick him because he’s still young, but I would be very sad if he left us prematurely.
I can’t think of any celebs today whose passing will affect me as much as Jim Henson’s did. And I’m not sure why that shook me so much - it’s not like we were friends or anything. But his death really hit me hard.
Surprisingly, the one that really shook me was Steve Jobs. Partially because the spouse works for Apple, so I got to hear a lot of “Steve stories” (almost all of them secondhand, though he did actually meet him once). I’m not a rabid Apple fan (I love the iDevices, not so much the desktops) but I was sad to see all that lost potential, especially because it was so senseless (if he’d actually gotten himself treated by normal medical treatments instead of trusting hippie woo, he’d still be here. He had the extremely rare type of pancreatic cancer that’s curable).
Sir David Attenborough.
He IS the reason for the wide body of Natural History documentaries from the BBC. (Among other works…he even ran BBC2 for awhile)
Yeah, me too.
He commissioned Monty Python when he was running BBC2.
It’s even hard to type this, because putting it down on virtual paper is making it real. B B King is dying. He’s in hospice care.
Many many years ago, he reached out and touched the heart of a little pigtailed lily white elementary school girl in middle America with a music completely different from the classical I heard at home and the pop I heard on the radio. It was a eureka moment for me. One I’ve never forgotten. In the intervening years, I’ve played the blues, sung the blues, and lived the blues. I’ve seen Mr. King in concert many times and have always been entertained. I never saw him give anything but a quality show.
God speed, Mr. King. You will most definitely be missed.
I am still inordinately sad to think that Peter O’Toole and that magnificent diction is no longer with us.
:smack:
Of course I meant Rawhide. I don’t know how Wagon Train slipped in there.
I remember Clint on an episode of Mr. Ed, of all things. He was playing himself.
Him I will actually miss. For all the jokes in the Dead Pool as much as for his acting.
I can’t really think of a celebrity whose passing will affect me much other than maybe one of the folks from TSO. I’ve enjoyed their music since the Savatage days and their Christmas tour has been a tradition of ours since it started.
It’s weird – he’s been my all-time favorite for so many years, but I don’t think his death would make me as sad as others. Clarence Clemons dying made me sad, partly because of Bruce losing his friend.
If Barack Obama died tomorrow it would hit me pretty hard (Merriam-Webster Online defintion of “celebrity”: a famous or celebrated person.)
Many have mentioned these names, but I’ll throw in mine.
The one at the top will be Queen Elizabeth II. She’s been around forever and is such a class act.
Music/rock stars. Of course Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Where will the music world be when the last of the Beatles is gone? And to this I must add Tina Turner. Another class act who overcame some huge challenges.
Actors. Thanks for bringing up Clint Eastwood. A man’s man.
And will the King, Elvis ever die?
+1.
Vin is in his 63rd season as Dodger announcer and his 44th since I became a fan (at age 6). Mind-boggling to me.
And Paul McCartney.
And Steven Spielberg.
Robin Williams and John Ritter hit me like that. Mostly because, I think, I had never experienced a moment of my existence where they weren’t there. A moment that I remember, anyway. I was born in 1973, and some of my earliest memories are laughing at Mork & Mindy or Three’s Company.
From people that are still with us? Billy Joel will be tragic for me. He’s always been one of my favorite artists, and my go-to when I was unable to articulate a particular emotion. Especially as far as women were concerned.
Carl Reiner has had a long. and from what I know, pretty amazing life.
Nonetheless, his passing will be a sad day.
Likewise Dick Van Dyke and Bob Newhart. Lots of laughs.
Musicians - well, Bob Dylan passing is likely to hit me hard.
Good call - Reiner and Mel Brooks. Did you see Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee when they were eating their Chinese food on TV trays like they do every day?