History of the Nerd: The Top Five Strange Celebrity Deaths
This year had been a major year of famous people dying. Within one week Farah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Ed McMahon, and Billy Mayes all took the dirt-nap with the baby Jesus. When celebrities die it feels more personal and important. This is because they are more important than regular people cause they are famous. When real people die we tend to think, “Thank god that didn’t happen to me.” When Michael Jackson died, we get sad and say, “What a shame, that motherfucker made Thriller.” This feeling is even amplified more if the death was particularly strange. This is why today on the History of the Nerd I bring you the top five strange celebrity deaths in hopes I could make you feel just a little something in your cold, soulless heart.
5) George Reeves
In June 16, 1959 a man faster than a speeding bullet couldn’t escape the one fired from a gun aimed at his head. Superman laid dead in a pool of blood in is Hollywood home. At the age of 45 George Reeves committed suicide…or did he? Why would a man, an actor, kill himself right before his hit television show was about to be resurrected for the 1960 to 61 season from the depths of cancellation? Why would a man kill himself just three days before his wedding? Why would a man kill himself with his fiancé, Leonore Lemmon, and three friends, in the same house just one floor down below him? Reeve’s mother, who refused to believe that the death of her son was caused by suicide, hired the Nick Harris Detective Agency to investigate. The Agency found the following inconsistencies that were directly adverse to the theory of suicide:
· The gun used to kill Reeves had no fingerprints.
· Leonore and guest did not call the police for a half an hour to 45mins after his death.
· Bruises were found all over his body with no real explanation was presented on how he received them
· For most suicides where the gun falls is usually consistent. If the victim is laying down the gun usually falls by the head. George Reeves was believed to by lying in bed at the time of the incident but the gun was found at his feet.
· When a gun is held to the head as most suicide would there are powder burns on the wound. There were none found so the gun had to have been held several inches from his head.
· A spent bullet shell was found under the body which would be an impossible placement if he was lying down.
This information was never relayed to Reeve’s mother. She died before investigation could find any proof. Even more mysterious was that George Reeves was but a link in the chain of the Superman Curse, a well known urban legend about the actors that played the man of tomorrow. George Reeves died by suicide, Christopher Reeve was paralyzed and eventually died due to a horse riding accident and Brandon Routh’s career died at the hands of Bryan Singer.
4) Elvis Presley
Like Michael Jackson, during the King’s final years he became a grotesque caricature of his former self, unable to pull his shit together to complete a final tour. Like Michael Jackson he developed many health problems that led to the abuse of pharmaceutical drugs. Unlike Michael Jackson the hunk’a, hunk’a burn’n love was dropping a duce at the moment of his death. According to the medical investigator, Presley had “stumbled or crawled several feet before he died”, leaving behind a legacy largely unflushed on August 16, 1977.
3) Natalie Wood
On Nov. 29, 1981 Natalie Wood. Her husband Robert Wagner and friend Christopher Walken were obnoxiously and loudly getting shit-faced at the Harbor Reef Restaurant on Catalina Island. They were celebrating the success of shooting the movie Brainstorm. (Well, almost. Wood had another crucial, climactic scene for the movie, but what bad could possibly happen during a drunken celebration?) After the restaurant they returned to their dingy and back to their yacht, the Splendor where they went on a three-hour tour. Instead of being marooned on a deserted tropical island where wackiness ensued, Wood drowned.
Days after the death of is wife Robert Wagner claimed that she woke up to fix the banging of the dingy against the yacht that was annoying her. She apparently slipped off the rails and to the icy waters below. The Skipper of the ship, Dennis Davern had a decidedly juicer tale. He said that there had been a fight between Wagner and Walken over who was going to stick some wood in Wood. Wagner got a little pissed off when he thought Walken was sleeping with his wife. He broke a wine bottle and held it to the face of Walken and screamed, “Go ahead and fuck her if you want to so badly!” The fight upset Natalie so much she took off on the dingy to seek solace. Some people believe that Robert Wagner and Christopher Walken plotted and committed the murder of Natalie Wood. I, for one, say that this last accusation is false because if anyone had seen True Romance, The Prophecy or any of the movies Walken has been in now, they would know Walken would show up at my house and kill me with his bare hands. So was Natalie Wood’s death an accident, or a murder? No one will ever know because since the incident Wagner and Walken refuse to comment on the night which looks really, really bad. The case is still left open.
2) Bruce Lee/Brandon Lee
There was no bigger star than Bruce Lee when I was young, especially since I am Chinese; even though he was already dead by 1973, six years before I was born. My father used to tell me stories of a family curse the plagued the Lee family for centuries. He told me that the curse killed the first-born son of each generation. I never quite thought it was real until I found out years later that Bruce’s own father used to dress his son up in girls clothes to disguise him so the curse would not take his life. This is apparently a curse that never had a grade-school health class and didn’t know that boys had penises and that girls had vaginas. Clothes are what matter to ancient curses.
When Bruce’s father died, at the age of 64, Bruce had a premonition that he would only live to be half his father’s age – he died at the age of 32 of a brain aneurysm.
Brandon Lee, Bruce Lee’s son, also believed that a family curse claimed the life of his father. Unfortunately he would also fall victim to a tragic death at a young age. He died at the age of 28 on March 31, 1993, due to an accident while shooting the movie The Crow. A bullet that was believed to be a blank fired from actor Michael Massee’s (Fun-boy) gun. The bullet hit Lee in the abdomen and lodged in his spine.
Both deaths could be seen as coincidences, but I believe that if you had to choose between accounting for a deadly Chinese curse and a coincidence, you’d have to go with the deadly Chinese curse just to be on the safe side.
1) Sharon Tate
Sharon Tate died the most horrific of all celebrity deaths. On August 8, 1969, Sharon returned from dinner at her favorite restaurant El Coyote with her friends Sebring, Frykowski and Folger at about 10:30pm. That night they were murdered by members of Charles Manson’s Family. I’m not going to get into the actual details of the murders – enough has been written about them over the years. The thing about this death, which is unlike the others, was that this marked a major moment of change in the world. Before the murders of Sharon Tate and her friends, people kept their doors unlocked. People were only killed if they were involved in something that could lead to trouble. The thought that strangers could just break into your home at night and kill you without any reason were inconceivable. Now, in the modern age, fear controls every aspect of our lives. Doors are locked and bolted, strangers are possible murderers, and no one is safe.
I know that there are many more celebrity deaths, more than one person could possibly fit into the confines of a simple article, so it would be hard to even try. I hope that this list at least chips at the morbid and fascinating iceberg of famous people dying.
