Name famous people you'd never heard of until after their deaths

I'm hoping to hear all about Kanye West soon.

Michaelangelo, Hitler, Queen Elizabeth I, Titian, Washington, most anyone who died before 1965 or so.

r3 Are you sure you don't mean 1950 or so?

Selena

George Washington

Dale Earnhardt, Sr.

I had just moved to the South the year he died, and when it happened people acted like the President had died. I had no idea who he was.

Thank God I moved out of the South again.

[quote]Selena

Came here to say the same thing. I remember a friend of mine was visiting the weekend after she died and we kept hearing the story about her death on news updates. My friend finally looked at me and said "Are we supposed to have known this person?"

Elliott Smith. Then became a huge fan of his music.

Selena here also.

Nick Drake

Actually, nobody had heard of Nick Drake until after his death.

Corine Blakemore

(yes you haven't heard of her now but just wait until she goes!)

OP is 100 years old.

I might say Bill Hicks, but I was aware of him prior to his death (I'd seen him do a relatively innocuous set on an HBO Rodney Dangerfield special). I wasn't aware of his amazing mostly political work until just after he died, and that's always haunted me.

Kurt Cobain.

Seriously.

Eva Cassidy

DL fave Louise Rainer

Poor Jenni Rivera

Townes Van Zandt and Bill Hicks.

Michael Jackson

JonBenét Ramsey

River Phoenix

Aaliyah, Paul Walker. Tupac Shakur. Pretty much any rapper, hip hopper, and athlete.

Aaliyah, Paul Walker, Cole Tucker

Lefty "One Eye" Lopez.

Same here, R24.

Paul Walker

R24, You mean Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes.

Dick Van Patten. But then I'm not American.

Paul Walker, but I saw him in one of his early movies, and he was beautiful. I looked him up on IMDB and realized he was the guy the media made such a big deal about when he died. Still, he didn't leave a history of particularly good movies. Money-makers, yes, but not good movies.

[quote]Came here to say the same thing. I remember a friend of mine was visiting the weekend after she died and we kept hearing the story about her death on news updates. My friend finally looked at me and said "Are we supposed to have known this person?"

R4, R7, R9 are you guys white or black?

Selena was not known in the mainstream media, but she was a big deal in the Latin community. I'm Guatemalan, but came to the US (Massachusetts) as a kid and had a typical American upbringing. If it hadn't been for my older sister and her Puerto Rican boyfriend/friends, I probably wouldn't have heard of her, either. My sister also used to get magazines like Hispanic and Más, which were English-language magazines aimed at Latino-Americans. Anyway, they always featured established Latin stars and up-and-comers. Selena was pretty much established in the Latin American community by 1995, when she died. What she was trying to do was break into the American mainstream media, and she was being propositioned as the next big star, which was exciting for many of us Hispanic Americans, because, other than Gloria Estefan, there wasn't another viable Hispanic singer in the American market., certainly not female. But Estefan was nearing forty and had a niche market, and Selena at 23 was fresh blood and was expected to invigorate the Latino market in the US. She was called the 'Mexican Madonna' because she was expected to become as big as her. She had the voice like Whitney and Mariah and the dance moves like Madonna and Janet.

That's why her death was a big blow to the Latino community. Little did we know, that in death she would be an asset, anyway. After the issue of People which featured her death (and had FRIENDS on the cover) sold out, People Magazine decided to do a commemorative issue, which they had only done twice before -- for Audrey Hepburn in 1993 and Jackie O. in 1994. Those sold out like hot cakes, so People printed some more. When those sold out, too, they decided to start People en Español, which was launched the following year. Her death also got massive coverage, never before accorded a Hispanic star, never mind a heretofore unknown. Thousands from all over the country and Latin America passed by her casket. It was insane! Needless to say, Selena's death and massive coverage of her death helped to usher in the so-called Latin Explosion of the late 1990s (Enrique Iglesias, Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, Thalia, Shakira, Mark Anthony).

The movie of her life (released two years later) also set a milestone, when Jennifer Lopez (in her lead role debut) became the highest-paid Latina in Hollywood with $1 million, which was a big deal at the time. It's hard for people today to imagine, what with popular Latin singers like Selena Gomez and Ariana Grande and established actresses like Sofia Vergara, Eva Mendez, Eva Longoria, Michelle Rodriguez, Salma Hayek, how devoid of Latinos the American mainstream was. Heck, the year Selena died (1995), the movie THE PEREZ FAMILY was released with Italians Marisa Tomei and Chazz Palminteri and Scotch-Irish actress Anjelica Huston playing Cubans. Not to mention, in 1993, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Jeremy Irons, and Winona Ryder playing Latin Americans in THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS. Today, there would be an outrage!

Anyway, my point is that Selena wasn't just this random nobody whose death coverage was a fluke. She was already famous in the Latin American community and lit up a whole road of possibility for a generation. I know that sounds corny, but that's how we felt back then.

.

Ricardo Klement

Thank you for the information, R30. I learned a lot from what you wrote.

Great post, R30.