Which celebrity death affected you the most?

I’d say better than MJ. Barring injury or death.

 

Would Stuart Scott count?

He spent time in Orlando and we cross paths a few times. Plus, we were the same age when he passed.

 

Tough question. Probably Bill Paxton. Been huge fan of his from childhood and his death was a total shock (and might have been due to malpractice).

Alan Rickman also comes to mind. Another one of my favorites. Had no idea he had cancer.

 

John Belushi hit me hard - I was 21 and still invincible and assumed my heroes were too. Robin Williams was a tough one.

I will say that Michael Jackson's death really affected me. I didn't mourn for the pedophile - it was for the young Michael whose pictures were on my bedroom wall.

 

The crew of Apollo 1. I've been to Launch Complex 34 and it is a very eerie place, with the "abandon in place" signs, the blockhouse with yellowed paper notices still hanging on the walls and the wind that seems to constantly whisper the names of Grissom, White and Chaffey through the concrete and steel.

 

JFK. I was 5, and yes, I knew who
JFK was.

My mother saw the first bulletins on CBS, ran three blocks to my kindergarten classroom, and took me out.

I remember she came to the classroom door, whispered something to my teacher, Mrs. Bailey, who said, "oh my god," and let me go.

On the way home, I kept asking, "what happened, what's going on?," and she just said, "I don't know, I don't know, but let's get home."

We got home and a couple minutes later, Walter Cronkite announced JFK was dead. Up until then, nobody knew for sure.

Next up was RFK. My dad woke me up as he left at 5:30 am for his morning shift on the news desk.

We had stayed up to the 11 o clock news the previous night; when we went to bed, it looked like Kennedy was probably (although not definitely) going to win the CA primary.

So I asked my dad, "what happened, did Kennedy win?"

"They shot him," he said.

Quickly he explained the details as known at that time: 1) the gunman had been caught; 2) Kennedy was alive but in critical condition; 3) he had won the primary. That's all anybody knew at the moment. Then he went to work.

After that: John Lennon.

I was working at Happy Jack's Natco station, getting out of work a couple hours earlier to trudge over to The Knight's Table, the shithole bar where we all drank beer by the bucket.

I was already working on a nice beer buzz -- not drunk, just a little tipsy -- and we were watching the bullshit MNF game between Miami and New England. The bar was semi-noisy, the jukebox was blaring Kenny Rogers or Journey or some such shit.

Howard Cosell comes on and starts talking about somebody getting shot in the back. We thought he was talking about some NFL player.

Second time through, they turned up the TV so you could hear what he was saying. John Lennon. I almost fell out of my chair. I don't think I said a word.

I walked out to my car and drove home to my parents house. I punched the radio station buttons; by now they were starting to pick up the news.

I got home, walked up to my room, and went straight to bed. In my clothes.

I had some final exams later that week in college. I was debating whether to skip them or not. I ended up going, but I didn't study one minute for any of them.

Amazingly I passed them all, even aced a couple of them, which came as an utter surprise to me -- I didn't remember a damn thing about taking the tests. I was on complete autopilot. If they had told me I zeroed them, I wouldn't have been surprised.

 

Scott Hutchinson's suicide this year wrecked me for a bunch of reasons. (He was the singer for Frightened Rabbit; I started a thread about it when it happened.) Knew nothing of him except his voice, and I sat at my table and cried surprisingly hard about it.

 

Agreed. I'm 33 and my generation grew up with him as our 'dad' - from Jumanji to Aladdin to Hook. It's one of the hardest to stomach because outwardly, he seemed completely ok but you never truly know what's happening in someone's head. That night, I watched The Birdcage and it was one of the only times I've ever just sobbed through the whole thing. Then a few nights later, Disney XD was playing Aladdin and had this at the end and that hit me right in the gut:

 

The ones that have always seemed most tragic were those that happened to performers right on the cusp of being huge. Imagine what Buddy Holly would have become, or Selena. For that matter Bobby Kennedy or Len Bias.
I've always wondered what the back half of Elvis' life would have been and I think it would have been more than a bit like Johnny Cash. In the 80s he still would have been big in Vegas, gone to rehab, done a few Love Boats and Murder She Wrotes, in the 90s reinvented himself as a country act, maybe been rediscovered with a great producer bringing new life to his music, and a supporting actor Oscar nomination in a Tarantino movie.

 

The ones that I recall exactly where I was when I heard about it (not saying these affected me the most - just happen to remember where I was):

Elvis Presley (Cold Springs, TN)
John Lennon (next day in English class)
Len Bias (Germantown, MD)
9/11 (at work) not exactly celebrity but there were several from the lacrosse community lost.
Michael Jackson (Chincoteague, VA)

Two top ones, but I don’t remember exactly where I was:

Ronald Reagan (went to the Capitol to see him lying in state in the Rotunda, only time I’ve done that)
Robin Williams

I have zero recall as to where I was when Prince passed.

 

Random note: I always feel bad for big time celebrities who die this time of year. They never make the Year in Deaths.

 

If you think knowing a rich white bigot is something to brag about, I don’t think you understand how the times are changing.