George Carlin - I think he’s just the funniest and smartest comedian and I love how he critiques the culture without forgetting to be funny. I’ll miss his HBO specials. He’s turning 70 next year.
I mourned both Douglas Adams and Hunter S. Thompson, even though I had the latter in The Pool. Zappa hit me hard too.
Back to the OP: probably Kurt Vonnegut. It would be like having your conscience die. Most of the others I can think of are no older than me, so I don’t want to list them.
For me, I think David Attenborough. Seems like he’s been a wise-uncle-on-the-telly figure for all my life.
It might be Ann Colter. I am ready to find out if she is.
Karlheinz Stockhausen : there is no limit to those who think his music is pure noise, but I’ve followed his career since before I graduated from high school and his death would mean a great loss to sheer musical creativity.
I’ll admit to being wrong about Cobain, but not to Selena. She was HUGE, it’s just that non-Latinos (and Miami Cubans I guess) didn’t know who she was until she died.
Btw, I did know who Kurt Cobain was when he died. Knew his name, where he was from, who he was married to, a few other details. I assumed too much about other people though.
Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French.
Like my parents, they are in fact immortal and will never die. EVER. They’re not allowed to.
And to a lesser degree, Angelica Huston, Kathy Bates and Toni Collette. Oh, and while I don’t particularly care for her work, it’ll be sad when Elizabeth Taylor finally goes. She’s one of a kind.
I was watching a documentary special about his amazing life just last night - he started fronting shows in 1955, and before he was a avuncular wildlife presenter he was goddamn Action Man, trekking across the wilds of New Guinea, camera crew in tow, to hang out with tribes that had never seen white men before, happily stripping down to a bark thong to be allowed into a Solomon Islands meeting house, lassooing anteaters on the Argentine pampas to send back to zoos, catching Komodo dragons in rickety-looking wooden cages, meeting rampaging Papuan headhunters with an outstretched hand and a very British “Good afternoon”, being mistaken for the Duke of Edinburgh by Solomon Islanders, who carried him in his canoe and sang “God Save The Queen”.
Then he became high mucky-muck at the BBC at an impossibly young age, then gave it up because he just wanted to front wildlife programmes again. And he’s humble, and charming, and funny. Damn, he was a beautiful man, too: he looked like a cross between David Bowie and a young James Fox.
If I had heroes, he’d be one of them.
Neil Young. He’s the coolest guy in the universe.
mm
He’s one of mine. I’ve always thought family get-togethers would be fun: David, Richard and the not-famous but very wealthy car salesman John. He’s one of only three to be both Order of Merit and Companion of Honour which is pretty much the highest honour Britain can give to someone. Well deserved too, IMO.
PS looking at the OM list, that would be a hell of a dinner party…
Willie Nelson, but not because I’m a huge fan (I do enjoy some of his songs) but my father is a die-hard Willie Nelson fan. I can’t buy any of his CDs for my dad because he has them all, in triplicate, and he even got Willie to autograph a painting he did of him. He even goes to see movies where Willie only has a bit part (Wag the Dog, for instance).
So, for my dad, I think it will be a huge loss, and I have to be there for him.
I will mourn when more Star Trek actors die. DeForest and James, we hardly knew ye.
That’s a good shout too. Him and Lou Reed would be much mourned chez Struan.
Oh, and Stephen King. There will be a huge hole in the world when he finally passes through the blue into the black,
Christopher Plummer - I’ve always loved him as an actor, and I will really be upset when he dies.
Trent Reznor - his music has meant so much to me over the years, that I know I’ll have a hard time accepting it when the time comes when he won’t make more… though he really isn’t that old and there’s no real reason to think he’s going to die any time soon.
I was surprised at my reaction when John Ritter died. I wasn’t old enough to really have seen a lot of his work, although I love the episodes of Scrubs that he was in, and found 8 Simple Rules mildly entertaining. Maybe it was seeing the reactions of my parents (he was the same age as my mom), but I was really floored when I heard about his death. It just didn’t make sense.
I don’t know who else might shock/hurt/sadden me the most, but I have the feeling it will be someone I don’t really expect.
With her pale complexion and lack of soul, I assume that she died years ago. Has anyone seen her reflection in a mirror?
At my age (60), so many celebrities have come and gone; not to mention personal losses. I have a hard time coming up with a name that would evoke more than “oh, crap.”
But I can think of a few exceptions:
**Stephen Sondheim
Steven Spielberg
Barbra Streisand
Itzhak Perlman
**All of them have given me so much joy over the years, I can’t imagine a world in which they don’t exist. I actually met Sondheim and Streisand many years ago, and those memories will always be with me hugely.
Osama bin Laden’s death will also impact me immensely, but not exactly in the same way.
Okay, dammit, I have GOT to see that! I don’t suppose you remember the title? I am going to be madly mining the IMDB for the next hour, otherwise… 
Seriously, he is such an awesome guy. My kids love him, although they don’t know it. He narrates all the cool nature series.
Alan Alda - my childhood crush, my young adult crush, my middle-aged crush. I can’t imagine a world in which I won’t have Alan Alda to crush on.
As for pop culture figures whose deaths will bring on a full-on media circus, I think Madonna and Michael Jackson will fall into that category, although of course with Michael there will be a lot of controversy. The farther away you get from the point at which you were a huge celebrity, the less impact your death has.
I had never heard of Kurt Cobain before he died, but the enormous reaction to his death inspired me to write a song about the effect he had on people.
I saw it as an episode on a two DVD set called Attenborough In Paradise, which is a of compilation of documentaries recapping some of his personal favourite journeys over the years: the episode - presented by Michael Palin - was Life On Air.
A must-watch set: the episode in which he sets out to track down the origin of an Easter Island carving he picked up in an American auction room - via a museum in Saint Petersburg, Easter Island, a museum in Sydney, Tahiti, Kew Gardens, back to Saint Petersburg, and finally Easter Island again is absolutely astonishing viewing, and the provenance and history of this figurine - which he establishes through patient globe-trotting detective work - turns out to be almost unbelievable.
I was surprised at how much Johnny Carson’s death affected me.
As to the O.P., I’m hoping it will be many years from now but Roger Ebert’s passing would sadden me deeply.