I recall the plot of a short story centered on the premise that one year no one died. A weird statistical anomaly where there were no accidents, no murders, no dying from disease or famine or anything.
Then, after a giddy year, as crowds gathered on New Year’s Eve to celebrate such a fortuitous year, thousands were killed by flying champagne corks, then slipping on ice, then horrendous auto accidents as people panicked — the story ending with the narrator hiding in his home determined not to leave it until the next New Year’s eve.
Ed MacMahon (6/23), Farrah Fawcett (6/25) , Michael Jackson (6/25) …
… now Billy Mays (6/28) and Fred Travalena (6/28)
I wouldn’t blame Hollywood for feeling a little nervous right about now.
Comment by Christine on 6/30 @ 3:58 am #
Should it be any wonder? These are the last days and… we all need to be ready.
Comment by Susan Keener on 6/30 @ 4:26 am #
Gale Storm, too.
Comment by serr8d on 6/30 @ 5:48 am #
I’ve spent 20 minutes trying to find the names of the 4 U.S. soldiers killed yesterday. I guess their names haven’t been released yet. There’s always a lag time.
(Oh. And Popular Culture, it really sucks, eh?)
Comment by Bob Reed on 6/30 @ 5:52 am #
Interesting story reference Darleen…
But, that couldn’t ever happen here for reals, ‘cuz, we have Chicago!
Still, it is arresting to see such a spate of celebrity deaths; but like us all they get old, and the boomer celebrities had many more vices than the old school ones, and a lot more money to service them…
And, maybe as Christine says, perhaps the end times are upon us and the quickening has begun…
I know I got my life right, and am ready to meet my maker anytime; an outlook I developed long ago in a different place…
But, as always, it could all just be coincidence…
Comment by N. O'Brain on 6/30 @ 6:13 am #
But, on the up side, Billy Mays’ coffin is going to be really, really shiny.
Comment by serr8d on 6/30 @ 6:34 am #
@6: send a keyboard, immediately, please.
DENOUNCED~!
Comment by TheGeezer on 6/30 @ 6:54 am #
No. 6: I also heard Billy’s was a good, clean death.
If you want to keep up on celebrity deaths, sign up for Celebrity Deathbeeper. By the way, Gale Storm, 1950s T.V. star, is also dead.
Comment by TheGeezer on 6/30 @ 6:56 am #
Did I get the URL right this time
Comment by Salt Lick on 6/30 @ 7:05 am #
But, on the up side, Billy Mays’ coffin is going to be really, really shiny.
Dude! Buy your tickets to Jacko’s funeral!
Hearse drawn by white horses, pallbearers wearing the new gold lame jockstraps by Nike, and Elton John singing, “Goodbye, Sculpted Nose.”
Comment by Joe on 6/30 @ 7:11 am #
Hollywood is narcisstic. Five deaths in a cluster like that is really not very unusual. The only one that is a statisically unusual is Jackson’s and that was self induced by an extremely unhealthy lifestyle. Of course those five above are not really Hollywood, but various celebrities.
Remember when entertainment was a little normal? When it was okay to be patriotic, to openly serve in the military and at a minimum to support the troops and not be hostile to the country? Ed McMahon was of that old school tradition (Travalena too). And that is not to slam Faucett, Mays, and Jackson, none of them were in the leftist activist mode, and Jackson for his craziness shared perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars to various causes, but celebrity has definitely become stranger over the years.
Comment by Swen Swenson on 6/30 @ 7:13 am #
Gale Storm, ’50s TV star, Sky Saxon, lead singer for the Seeds, talk show host Irv Homer, German actress Hanne Hiob, Broadway star Phil Gottlieb, and Bob Bogle, lead guitarist for The Ventures are also in the obits this week.
Comment by N. O'Brain on 6/30 @ 7:19 am #
“But wait, there’s more!”
Oh…..
Nevermind……
Comment by Salt Lick on 6/30 @ 7:34 am #
Frankly, I find Darleen’s omission of David Carradine an insult to Fake Chinese Americans and Autoeroticists everywhere.
Trackback by Serr8d's Cutting Edge on 6/30 @ 7:38 am #
A new blog header, scraped together while looking…
..trying to find out the names of the four soldiers killed yesterday in Iraq; I guess that’s not released yet. But we sure know the names of the four or so Hollywood celebrities who died recently, now don’t we?…
Comment by Joe on 6/30 @ 7:57 am #
They come in threes, so if you discount the Seeds’ Saxon, Carradine makes it six. A sigh of relief…
Comment by geoffb on 6/30 @ 9:39 am #
Mostly we tend to start noticing “Stars” in our teen years. Those so noticed are 10 to 20 years older than the young teens celebrating them. The Stars of the teenage years of the post-WWII baby boom are now aged and dying off.
Expect it to get worse. As the baby boom was a large increase in the number of births, so now when those born in that boom (myself included) are hitting the “golden years” there will be a corresponding increase in deaths over the coming decades.
Comment by alppuccino on 6/30 @ 9:41 am #
I’m getting a strong Bob Barker vibe.
Comment by psycho... on 6/30 @ 9:48 am #
Odds-wise, it’s not odd. Not a fluke, either.
This time when there are tens of thousands of famous people, instead of a few hundred, started about fifty years ago. So they’re dying. Seems like a lot, but it’s…how many there are. The “cluster” will last as long as the culture does (plus about fifty years).
Jackson might seem to have gone early, and I suspect he took himself out, but it’s not mathematically strange for a black guy’s heart to go sideways on him at his age. Genes don’t bleach.
Comment by proudvastrightwingconspirator on 6/30 @ 11:12 am #
What about Danny Ganz and Dom DeLuise?
The celebs have been dropping so fast, it’s hard to figure out the 3-set groupings….
1)Ganz, Deluise, Carradine
2)McMahon, Fawcett, Jackson
3)Mays Travelina, Storm…..
Any chance we could we be lucky enough to get:
4)Flynt, Kennnedy, Asner?????
Comment by LTC John on 6/30 @ 11:23 am #
Ed Asner is still alive?
Comment by Fame on 6/30 @ 12:07 pm #
I see my power to distort perception is as strong as ever.
Comment by Veeshir on 6/30 @ 12:54 pm #
(stolen from A. Weasel in the comments at Doubleplusundead dot mee nu, and ignoring Fred Travalena)
Celebrity deaths come in threes….. leave it to Billy Mays to throw in a fourth for free.
Comment by Joe on 6/30 @ 3:01 pm #
Asner is still alive (he was the voice of the old guy in UP).
I am no fan of Asner’s politics, but Up was a very well made film. Asner was fine as the voice of the old guy.
Comment by The Monster on 6/30 @ 4:59 pm #
Only because people start over after three. I heard one person the other day had Fawcett as the 3rd of one set and Jackson the 1st of the next, even though they died the same day.
Comment by louchette on 6/30 @ 6:10 pm #
bob @ 4 that’s just silly. from mabel norman and thelma todd to stan getz and bob mitchum to the stones and the beatles to judy garland and billie holiday and charlie chaplin and… i think you get the point. today’s artists and entertainers and celebs are no more decadent and vice driven than those of any age. what the old timers had however was more discretion, and more controlling studios and record labels too. and even when the talent couldn’t be controlled (or it might have interfered with or lessened the quality of the work produced) they had better control over the tabloids and better cleaners and minders who kept their charges out of real trouble and cleaned up their messes before anyone could record or report on them.
sadly, your nostalgia is for an age which never existed except as a illusion carefully crafted by armies of PR men.
also, (apropos another comment) i once as a teenager saw ed asner in a speedo. even after 30 years i still cannot unsee that sight, am still scarred by it. D=
Comment by B Moe on 6/30 @ 7:44 pm #
They didn’t really have tabloids, lou, and the taboos on drugs weren’t as strong. Stars advertised cigarettes and liquor on television, and adults knew that musicians did drugs. Wasn’t no big deal until the kids started getting in on the act.
Comment by Bob Reed on 6/30 @ 8:07 pm #
You know louchette, you make a good point…
I left out the word access to one sentance; I think today’s celebs have access to more vices than in the old days. But as you point out, vice is vice. It’s just a question of degree. It odes seem like celebs make a lot more dough these days on the whole than they did in years past. Oh sure, big stars made big bucks, but nothing like today’s…
in 1940 Cary Grant starred, and got top billing in “The Philadelphia Story”. He was paid 132,000 for that service, which he donated to British war relief…
My point? That figure represented about 75 times the average wage at that time ($1750)…
By that same scale he would be recieving 3.5 mil today for the same top billing starring role. Now maybe I’m a philistine, but I will certainly compare Cary Grant to Brad Pitt, George Clooney, or any of the other hawt leading men today; and tey recieve a heck of a lot more than any 3.5 mil for a starring role.
So while you are right about vice, and the media exposure, surely you agree that today’s stars have a lot more bank than the old school actors did…
I don’t even know where I’m goin’ with this. I fundamentally agree with you abou the human nature aspect, and the discretion of the past.
Have a lovely evening!
Comment by cynn on 6/30 @ 8:08 pm #
Ok, you’re getting lame now. This has become a bouutique blog.
Comment by cynn on 6/30 @ 8:12 pm #
OOps, subtract a “u” and you still get too many egos.
Comment by Bob Reed on 6/30 @ 8:14 pm #
C’mon Cynn,
Were talkin’ about the cause of celebrity deaths here!
Comment by louchette on 6/30 @ 8:19 pm #
BMoe — they didn’t have tabloids like today’s but they did have them. going all the way back to the silent era. they used more euphemisms and suggestion to describe things. but the stories were out there, like when chaplin married that child, or clara bow had an orgy with the entire USC football team. i cite those two in particular just to note that it’s not only the substance abuse issues that are not new. there’s nothing new under the sun. i think some bible dude said that like 3k years ago or something. =P
but yeah, the tabloids have grown more crude, like everything. and they aren’t pwned by the big movie and tv and music corps the way they used to be. and don’t discount the effects of better technology, from lenses to recording devices and of course communication tech. famous people’s peccadilloes were hidden better, and before anyone could get there with a camera, usually. but they existed.
and as for the money (an issue raised by bob,) the old time stars were insanely wealthy, some of them anyway. most people don’t know that mae west bailed out and kept the paramount studio running with her private fortune (mostly made in real estate she bought with her movie proceeds) through the worst years of the depression. she didn’t have michael jackson wealth, but she and some other early stars were quite wealthy indeed. and they could support some extraordinary vices and some super-peculiar habits, and their cover-ups too.
Comment by cynn on 6/30 @ 8:20 pm #
This place used to be razor-sharp, as I recall. Used to be a genuine forum in which general communication and the underlying language isssues were discussed and debated by thoughtful folk. Now it’s just another internet spitoon.
Comment by guinsPitoon on 6/30 @ 8:32 pm #
Yet here you are.
Comment by cynn on 6/30 @ 8:35 pm #
OK, Louchette proved me wrong. Good post.
Comment by Bob Reed on 6/30 @ 8:38 pm #
You just picked the wrong thread Cynn.
Try another, I promise no drunk Haiku tonight…
Comment by cynn on 6/30 @ 8:42 pm #
I think I am in the correct thread, interloper Reed. But thanks for your interest.
Comment by Big D on 6/30 @ 8:46 pm #
Cynn,
That is an insult to Darleen, who in my humble estimation has been doing yeoman’s work in Jeff’s absence.
Comment by Bob Reed on 6/30 @ 8:47 pm #
No offense meant Cynn
Comment by louchette on 6/30 @ 9:07 pm #
thank you cynn. *flattered*
and it’s funny, the line that’s been going round in my head since MJ’s demise was first announced is from billy wilder’s ’sunset boulevard,’ a film about a figure as tragic and grotesque and MJ transmogrified into.
indeed.
Comment by louchette on 6/30 @ 9:49 pm #
and = as
Comment by Swen Swenson on 7/1 @ 4:55 pm #
Karl Malden, dead at the ripe old age of 97.
Comment by B Moe on 7/1 @ 9:29 pm #
There can only be one Most Popular Death Ever.
Jesse and Al are already there, will Obama be able to pass up a (photo) opportunity like this?
Just keepin’ it real, dig?