What celebrity deaths affected you the hardest?

[Madame Pandora]

I know it sounds dumb, but Jim Henson's death affected me deeply.

I know. He didn't cure cancer. He didn't discover a new land. But...he created something that I think is pricelessly wonderful for generations of people. He was a delightful person, and I think he left the world a little better than he found it.

As a child, I loved the muppets, and to be honest, as an adult, I still enjoy them (then again, I still hum “Interjection” from SHR on a daily basis, so I’m not saying all my tastes are the most mature). But, beyond that, I always perceived him as a very gentle man, and a truly kind soul.

I have a great affinity for people who think outside the box, especially when it is in a creative capacity. I know to some people it's just a bunch of socks with eyes sewn on, but when I was little, Kermit was real. As I got older, the shy wit within the silliness continued to keep me entertained.

If anyone else cares, the Muppet Official website maintains a memorial online: http://www.muppetcentral.com/tributes/index.htm

Life Magazine Tribute (This one continues to break my heart): http://www.muppetcentral.com/tributes/henson/hensonarticle6.htm

MP

 

[daryoon]

has to be Brandon Lee. A fan of his work and with the brilliant Crow just completed, it was the scariest and spookiest circumstances under which he died, the same curse that took his father. Had he been alive today, Brandon would have set the box office ablaze by now. Mother Thereza, a truly wonderful and giving woman, overshadowed by Diana who (sorry folks)though a tragic loss did no more charity work than any other royal, and whom had nothing else to do but charity work. Had non Brits seen the tabloid run up to her death, she was branded an unfit mother for running off on various holidays with her new lover whilst poor Harry and Wills were left and forgotten, your views might be slightly less rose tinted. A U-Turn of opinion methinx. Anyhoos thats my bit

 

[Juliangel]

Re: Re: *wow* The Challenger

I remember my mother being so excited b/c they had the first woman up in space...

Wasn't she the first private citizen in space? I didn't think she was the first woman in space, but I may be wrong.
Anybody know?

Valentina Tereshkova a Russian was the first woman in space, she went up in June of 1963.

Sally Ride was the first American woman in space, she went up in 1983, on Challenger, she went up in Challenger in 1984 also.

The Challenger explosion was in 1986.

 

[Chuckus]

The Challenger accident brings me back to where I was when it happened. I was working on a roof in East Central Florida (the East side of the Big O) and was watching the sky, seeing it go up........as it did I was amazed. The deal was though we saw the explosion and THEN felt the earth tremble and the roof shook. I just stood there with my jaw dropped and my head shaking......to this day I still remember it vividly. What a terrible thing to happen. I just remember sitting there afterwards with my head in hands and just stunned and in disbelief.

 

[Nobody Special's wife]

Re: Re: *wow* The Challenger

I remember my mother being so excited b/c they had the first woman up in space...

Wasn't she the first private citizen in space? I didn't think she was the first woman in space, but I may be wrong.

Anybody know?

Yes she was, She also was a teacher if I rember right.. because my 6th grade science teacher was in the top 10 from the choices to go up.. So I saw tragedy that day.

 

[Handy-Andy]

The death's of two people affected me , both bass player's and whom I had the chance to meet and talk to on a number of occasion's and I think that's the reason why it got to me cos I'd meet them and they were real , people who I'd shared a beer with only month,s before there death's.

Phil Lynott , 4th Jan 1986
Cliff Burton , 27th Sept 1986

 

[christo]

I was home sick from school when Challenger blew up. I was watching the launch live, and when it blew I knew something had gone terribly wrong. I remember how the newscasters kept saying that there had been an event, that they weren't sure what was going on, but after about 30 minutes you knew that something catastrophic happened. I guess they didn't want to come out and say something to get everyone hysterical, but I had this terrible sick feeling, and not from the flu. Just a sense of loss.

A sense I still feel every time I watch the Simpsons or NewsRadio and realize that Phil Hartman is really gone. One of the funniest actors of his generation, to die the way he did, murdered in his sleep...it was so senseless, so horrible...

 

[Madame Pandora]

A sense I still feel every time I watch the Simpsons or NewsRadio and realize that Phil Hartman is really gone. One of the funniest actors of his generation, to die the way he did, murdered in his sleep...it was so senseless, so horrible...

You are not alone in this, christo. It is strange to me, how many people were hurt to lose him. Something seems to pull at us harder with the death of a person who truly made us laugh (alas, poor Yorrick syndrome I suppose).

A while back, I was at Disney World, I saw the "updated" Tiki Birds show. Phil Hartman's voice is in the little pre-show they do. It wasn't long after his death and there was this moment of real shock in the crowd, and several gasps. It made the hair on the back of my neck stick up and there was a very...morose vibe. I was not the only one teary-eyed.

Luckily the updated show sucked, so I haven't gone back to see if they've kept his voice. It was one of those...surreal things.

MP

 

[Celestiale]

Jimmy Stewart - I used to watch AMC all the time...LOVE old movies, and he was my very favorite actor of the times.

Definitely Jim Henson & Phil Hartman too...I grew up in adolescence with one and through my teens with the other...such sadness.

 

[Angelus]

I would have to say Brandon Lee... to have his life cut short was a pure tragedy and to have it happen that way just adds to it. Nobody should die because of a stupid accident like that.

I would also have to say that Walter Matthau's death affected me because one day I was watching a movie of his and I turned it over to see the news and heard of his death and thought that it was impossible.

[Edited by Angelius on 01-19-2001 at 01:19 AM]

 

[CRaZy]

Reading the Challenger comments is interesting. I don't recall people in Australia being so affected. When man first landed on the moon though (I was in grade 2) the whole school was taken to the school hall and we watched it all day. There is a recent Australian movie called "The Dish" which captures how closely the American and Australian consciences were connected at the time. By the time of Challenger, we had developed ties with a whole range of other countries, including those in Asia. The horror was therefore seen with distance as something that had happened in another country.

I was affected by the death of Di and I am staunchly in favour of an Australian republic. In the early '80s I was in the centre of Brisbane to go to the State library. I climbed onto a balcony to see why the whole city was congested. There just in front of me was Diana, a nervous young royal bride attending one of her first public street parades. Even then she exuded a charisma that I would never see again. I was a card carrying member of the Communist Party (we live and learn) so it was certainly not nationalistic fervour that gripped me. She was my age, yet faced challenges I could only imagine.

Both Mother Theresa and Diana were flawed "Saints". That's how we like them - removed from us but with the occasional reminder of their mortality. (Diana and her marriage/health problems). (Mother Theresa with a willingness to live in poverty but who refused economic measures which may have made the people she nursed and loved less poor in future generations and also accepted a pace maker, something her patients could never afford). Unfortunately Diana was also beautiful. A flawed, beautiful "Saint". The world could not resist.

[Edited by CRaZy on 01-19-2001 at 01:23 AM]

 

[Lost Soul]

This will be a strange one but Vic Morrow. I grew up watching Combat with my father every Tuesday night.

The show disappeared for along time (it is now on Encore) and I had forgotten it when I heard he was killed while filming a movie in 1982. It brought my youth back to me when I heard it on the news on the radio.

 

[GuyJD]

Redd Foxx (the only comedian whose sitcome still makes me laugh)
John Candy (the greatest comedian that ever lived)
Fred Mercury (though I hated his lifestyle, he was a great performer)
Sam Kinnelson

 

[HARDKOREBJ]

OWEN HART

owen harts death hit me hard.he was too young to go.i respected him.he fell from the rafters and died.he took chances that caught up with him.

 

[RonG]

Bob Marley - His death in 1981 came just before final exams of my freshman year in college. I was in such a funk that I tanked each and every one. Growing up in the mid 70's morass of Saturday Night Fever and political and social pointlessness to everything, the sheer decentness of the man made more sense to me than anyone else.

 

[Sonora]

Challenger and Princess Diana

Also to a much smaller measure, Karen Carpenter.

 

[miles]

The mental images from JFK's assassination will stay with me forever. A national day of mourning was declared the day of his funeral, and everything shut down. Everyone was in a state of shock. A military band played a funeral dirge in the procession and a caisso carried his flag draped casket. A foot soldier led a riderless horse whose saddle had a pair of black boots turned around backwards in the stirrups.