- Shocking? Let's start and end with John Lennon.
- I was in college and stoned out of my gourd when I saw the Challenger blow up. What a bringdown, man.
- Klaus Nomi.
- Dominique Dunne
Rebecca Schaefer
- Are there any conspiracy theories about the Challenger? I mean that shit was piped into every school across the nation, live, due to Krista Macforgothowtospellhername. Reagan sainthood is in part due to his handling of it.
- If you're going for visuals, the Lockerbie bombing certainly has to be up there. That photo of the 747 cockpit half crushed on the ground was burned into everyone's brains.
Although the lasting horror or Lockerbie may be that Kim Cattrall changed her reservation at the last moment, took another flight, and unleashed the nightmare that is Sex in the City upon a helpless world.
- Ingrid Bergman died far too young.
- Jon-Erik Hexum
- [quote]Are there any conspiracy theories about the Challenger?
Just that the NASA managers knew that they were taking a risk, but went ahead with the launch so Regan could tout the US Space Program during his State of the Union speech.
Engineers had been leery of the O-Ring in cold temperature from Day 1, and argued furiously against the launch on such a cold morning.
- Indira Gandhi
- Vic Morrow and the two little kids getting killed in a dumb accident during the filming of the Twilight Zone movie.
- [quote]Just that the NASA managers knew that they were taking a risk, but went ahead with the launch so Regan could tout the US Space Program during his State of the Union speech.
I really hope that mother fucker is burning in hell right now.
- Vic Morrow's death is on youtube.
- Did that televised suicide in Pennsylvania happen in the 80s?
- Karen Carpenter was pretty damn shocking. People couldn't believe it.
- True R15 Her death basically educated everyone on what eating disorders were.
Jessica Savitch (sp?) was another shocking one. The manner in which she passed was just quite something.
- Rock Hudson
- Samantha Smith
- Rebecca Schaeffer
- Who the fuck was Indira Gandhi? Gandhi's wife?
- So are we saying that there were more sudden deaths of celebrities in the 80s vs the 00s?
- Andy Warhol!
End of an era.
- [quote]Who the fuck was Indira Gandhi? Gandhi's wife?
Indira Gandhi was prime minister of India. She was assassinated by Sikhs in the 1980s. She was Nehru's daughter, and, AFAIK, no kin to Mohandas Gandhi.
- Alice Ghostley
- Andy Gibb, 30 years old.
- Fucking Reagan insisted it go up that day, everyone on the groud knew it was too cold. Fucking Reagan. Wish he were burning in hell.
- If he is he probably doesn't remember.
- [quote]Who the fuck was Indira Gandhi? Gandhi's wife?
Please excuse the babygay... he can't help being embarrassingly ignorant and backward.
- Excuse me for not knowing some dead leader of a filthy Third World dump!
- There is NO EXCUSE for rank ignorance.
I think you should get, nay demand, your money back from your college for their obvious malpractice in the field of education.
- Nobody knows who Samantha Smith is.
Other than Linda Bloodworth-Thomason (Creator of Designing Women)
- "Andy Warhol! End of an era."
Thank God.
Carol Wayne's mysterious drowning.
- President James Garfield.
- 3 Soviet Premieres died in like 60 days, one after the other, before Gorbachev got in.
I may be exaggerating the 60 days, but it was very fast.
- "Excuse me for not knowing some dead leader of a filthy Third World dump!"
The woman who was the leader for years and years of the most populous democracy in he entire world? The anointed daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, the legendary father of that nation's country?
Shame on you for reveling in your own ignorance.
- Don't forget about me.
Jessica%20Savitch
- Jessica Savitch had a horrifying life. The movie Up Close and Personal should have been a proper biopic of her, because it would have secured Michelle Pfeiffer an Oscar and made To Die For look like Mary Poppins in comparison.
- John Belushi
- Savitch's notorious broadcast...
http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3Dlr8AExHciBE
- Savitch's tirade...
http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DGpVuxgSxFFE%26feature%3Drelated
- Marvin Gaye
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvpgFNdMbGY
- Disturbing.
http%3A//youtu.be/8ZLVSPDe9_I
- Heather O'Rourke
Sidewinder
- Pete Fardon ( The Pretenders )
Chris Wood ( Traffic )
John Belushi
- John Lennon
John Bonham
- Michael Bennett
One%21
- I just read the Wiki info on Savitch because I didn't know much about her. Wow, what a life for a network news anchor.
She got married twice in the last 3 years of her life, and the second husband was her closeted gay gynecologist. When he tried to kill himself, she had his baby aborted. This chick is a real piece of work.
And what is with that accent she uses on camera? That's not a Pennsylvania accent and neither of her sisters speak like her in that Current Affair story. Is it a learned speech for broadcasting?
http%3A//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Savitch
- Anwar Sadat
- Wayland Flowers
- Freddie Prinze. Yeah 80's were crazy. But not as crazy as 60's with all those political deaths. MLK RFK JFK.
It was fucken scary when I was a kid watching all those killings on tv
- I read a book on Savitch ages ago. It had interview with friends and family, but I cannot recall the title.
When she was at University she worked like a mad woman, when she was not working to pay for University, she would stay up for days on ed doing her schoolwork and things like that. Apparently she would crash and burn at the home of an older pal. There is something about that which makes me think she might have had Manic Depression and self medicated with the cocaine.
Her passing was far out. She and some fellow and their dog (I think) all downed in a car wreck. The fellow took a wrong turn of some sort.
That%20is%20all%20I%20remember
- R44, if you're going to list Pete Farndon you have to include James Honeyman-Scott. Within a year of each other, I think.
- As evil as Reagan was, the Challenger explosion wasn't his doing. And the idea that all the engineers were against launching is a bunch of hooey. It was just one engineer, a lone voice of reason. He was ignored. After the disaster he was shunned by his colleagues, a victim of workplace groupthink. He does public speaking on the topic now.
- The 60s were worse and as you notice, all democrates.
- Joey Heatherton drowned in a Holiday Inn swimming pool in Tulsa, Oklahoma. To this day, many people think she was pushed into the pool and held under by a leaf skimmer.
- Did Princess Diana die in the 80s?
What about Winston Churchill?
- Right, R52, Honeyman-Scott died first. I saw the original band about eight months or so before he died. I lost interest in the group afterwards. Hynde is a fine singer and songwriter, but The Pretenders never seemed like a real band again after Honeyman-Scott died.
- Winston Churchill died in the 1960s.
Freddie Prinze shot himself in Jan 1977.
Princess Diana died in an car accident in the summer of 1997.
Joey Heatherton is still alive!
- Jessica Savitch's death was such a bizarre, freak accident. And it was horrifying. Trapped in an upside-down car with the water pouring in and all the doors and windows sealed shut with mud. I actually had nightmares about that. She had a lot of problems, but she was very popular with the public. It wasn't until after her death that all the crazy stories came out.
- Sunny Van Blewlow
- Dack Rambo
- Sunny von Bloo Bloo Bloo Low?
- Most people didn't know my husband was going to shoot me.
Dorothy%20Stratten%2C%201980%20Playmate%20of%20the%20Year
- Harvey Milk
Richard Burton
Ian Charlson
Mary Queen of Scots
- [quote]As evil as Reagan was, the Challenger explosion wasn't his doing. And the idea that all the engineers were against launching is a bunch of hooey. It was just one engineer, a lone voice of reason. He was ignored. After the disaster he was shunned by his colleagues, a victim of workplace groupthink. He does public speaking on the topic now.
Do you know his name, please? I'm curious about this.
- Roger Boisjoly
- Thanks, R66.
- Regarding Freddie Prinze (as entered on Wikipedia):
"Prinze had a history of playing with guns, faking suicide attempts to frighten his friends for his amusement."
Who the fuck does something as cruel as that??
- Samantha Smith has been completely forgotten. She even inspired a Golden Girls episode.
- Am I the only one who doesn't really see how "off" Savitch is supposed to have been on that infamous broadcast? Yeah, she makes a couple mistakes but it certainly doesn't look like a trainwreck.
- Wow.
I found the "Current Affair" episode about Jessica Savitch on YouTube. I am linking to part one of three for everyone.
http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3D8ZLVSPDe9_I%26feature%3Drelated
- There was a Jessica Savitch thread on here years ago and one of the posters was a guy who knew her personally.
- Jessica Savitch & Sue Simmons lived openly together as a couple in the early 80s
- I didn't know that Joey Heatherton was supposedly murdered. Who do they think killed her?
- Q What is Claus von Bulow's favorite song?
A "When Sunny Gets Blue~
- Is there some sort of DL in-joke I am missing?Joey Heatherton is not dead.
- Joey H. is not dead.
I did not know her ex, Lance Rentzel formerly of the Dallas Cowboys is apparently gay -- never heard this.
- What r70 said.
- I agree with R70, too.
If anything, it sounds like she has a thick accent that is hard to understand in a few places.
- Bob Marley was only 36.
- Rock Hudson, fashion industry people like Gia, Willi Smith, Stephen Burrows, Patrick Kelly and others who died of AIDS during this decade. It really hit home for me. But Patrick did make it to New Year's Day 1990.
- [quote]Gia
But people didn't know she was dead for years...
- R70 Honestly, I think the teleprompter was screwy on that.
Now, the clip where she "goes off" is just where she is asserting her authority. That is all she was doing. If she lived, she would have beat both Diane Sawyer and Katie Couric with hosting the national news by a good fifteen years or so.
- Jessica was only 35 when she passed, she looked a decade older. I doubt that she would've surpassed Sawyer or Couric, in fact she would've probably gone back to local news sooner than later. Her career was on the decline.
- Frank Reynolds, ABC anchorman. I remember being at some kid's house at a party and her father cried when this came on the news.
he had issues I think
- my career
Jill Clayburgh
- Gilda Radner
- Dennis Wilson.
Imagine that. A Beach Boy drowning.
Carnie
- Eva Cassidy
- KAL flight 007
DJ
- My musical career.
Dionne%20Warwicke
- Here you go r65
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXiQGs1QaIs
- Edith Bunker
Emma Greenway Horton
Phillip Chancellor III (or DID he?)
Coach (due to the death of Nick Colasanto)
- And, of course, Mr. Hooper
- Jenny Gardner Nelson, 1984
- Did anyone list William Holden? Bled to death as the result of a drunken fall in his home, and died just 17 days before Natalie Wood's drowning death. The star-struck L.A. coroner Thomas Noguchi enjoyed his 15+ minutes of fame during that month - November 1981.
Obie%20Juary
- Noguchi must have been the creepiest guy - he must have loved getting his hands on Marilyn, Natalie, Holden etc on the slab ... and how he loved all the publicity!
- Max Robinson - AIDS.
Married three times, had kids, denied being gay or bi. Struggled with alcoholism, in and out of re-hab. Was it IV drugs?
- Sir Alfred Hitchcock, who gave us such film classics as [italics]Shadow of a Doubt, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho, The Birds[/italics], et al. Died in 1980.
Mrs.%20Bates
- Jason Vorhees
- Ciji Dunne
Diana%20Fairgate
- Gilda Radner was truly shocking. Aside from a few shitty movies with husband Gene Wilder she basically disappeared in the 80s after leaving SNL. For someone with so much star power in the late 70s it was odd she basically stepped away from fame.
She managed to keep her illness a secret until pretty much the end. She had supposedly gone into remission and she was still so young I don't think people thought she could really go.
- Gilda's cancer wasn't a secret. After it went into remission, a frail Gilda appeared on Garry Shandling's show. I remember her raising her arms in a victory gesture. It was really moving. Unfortunately she was dead within a year or so.
I remember Steve Martin hosting SNL right after she died and tearily introducing that wonderful clip of them dancing on one of his previous appearances. She was so lovable.
- [quote]For someone with so much star power in the late 70s it was odd she basically stepped away from fame.
Her mistake was to pursue movies rather than TV after she left SNL. NBC desperately wanted to create a prime time comedy for her. Unfortunately she was persuaded by others to turn them down. She was too skinny and homely for films. If she had stated well she probably would have returned to television.
- About Karen Carpenter- after she died- there was soo much talk about aneroxia.... I remember in 7th grade- all of the teachers discussing her death..
anon
- I still remember the PEOPLE magazine cover story on Karen Carpenter when she died and the photo of her, emaciated in a yellow dress, holding a microphone. People were shocked by that cover because she looked like a concentration camp victim.
- 7 of Madonna's aborted fetuses died in the 80s.
- Chet Baker, but maybe that's more mysterious than shocking.
- Julianne Moore?
- Max Robertson was a homo as well as an AIDS boys. Back in the 80s you couldn't hide in the closet.
- Barry Robbins from "Bless the Beasts and the Children."
Stephen Stucker from "Airplane."
Robert Gordy -- whose 70s paintings were viewed in Brooklyn by pre-fame Keith Haring
Steve Tracy from Little House on the Prairie
Michael Bennett
Thomas Waddell -- founded the Gay Games
Handsome Casey Donovan (John Calvin)
Robert Joffrey
Leonard Matlovich, Sergeant, US Air Force (Ret.)
Colin Higgins -- wrote Harold and Maude
Leonard Frey -- Boys in the Band
Merritt\tButrick -- Square Pegs and Star Trek
Scott Ross -- harpsichordist
Steve Rubell -- Studio 54
Tim Richmond -- NASCAR
Amanda Blake
Rémi Laurent -- played the son in Au Cage Aux Folles
Shocking%20to%20me
- The Beirut Bombings that killed all those US Marines and French paratroopers...
- Stan Rogers, the Canadian folk singer, while trying to pull others out of a crashed plane.
- Dennis Wilson, when he went swimming off his boat and never came up.
- 47 sailors on the USS Stark.
http%3A//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Stark_%28FFG-31%29
- Philippine passenger ferry disaster.
In it, I saw America's future.
http%3A//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Do%C3%B1a_Paz
- No excuse for anyone not knowing Indira Gandhi. She was India's most controversial prime minister. Even worse, not only was Mrs. Gandhi assassinated, but so was her son, Rajiv, also prime minister. And her dad, Nehru was prime minister of India.
- Bud Dwyer.
I'll never forgive myself for watching the video of his death. Not an image you can ever undo.
- Nehru also popularized the so-called Nehru jacket, which was copied by The Beatles, The Monkees, and all the 1960s counterculture folk.
- The real Michael Jackson died from the Pepsi burns in 1984.
The new white Michael from the Bad era on was an imposter
Anonymous
- Mike Von Erich & David Von Erich
