Does anyone remember Samantha Smith the child peace activist?

This is DL. No one, no matter how obscure, is no longer relevant.

She's the one the Golden Girls based an episode on isn't she??

Wow, how many mysterious transportation related deaths are connected to Robert Wagner?

I heard of the girl falling down the well but as for....

Ok, this is weird, but 3 hours ago I didn’t know who she was. But then I posted in the Debbie Gibson/Tiffany thread that they had a stalker in common, Robert Bardo, who went on to kill actress Rebecca Schaeffer. The thing is he was also stalking Samantha Smith and traveled to Maine to see her, but in a fluke was stopped by police and returned home. And then Susan died. OP, what made you bring her up here tonight?

I remember her, but didn’t know about her death. Sad.

I remember reading about her back when I frequented Soviet Union forums, circa 2010.

[quote] And now, she’s forgotten and no longer relevant.

Thirty-five years after the event that made them famous, most people are forgotten and irrelevant (except on DL).

As I recall, the plane crashed only hours after someone started a cute 80s nostalgia thread about her on DL. You truly are the kiss of death.

R5, I don’t know why, I guess I was thinking Trump and Russia and possible war.

I used to stalk Samantha Smith.

and then she died.

I was working part-time with an organization known as Children's Express during the time, and I recall telling those budding journalists to remember Samantha and to investigate her life and death when they grow up. I hope someone among them has accepted the challenge.

I cried with that same youth group the afternoon the Challenger exploded.

I remember. Thanks, OP.

“Dear Mr. Andropov,

My name is Samantha Smith. I am 10 years old. Congratulations on your new job. I have been worrying about Russia and the United States getting into a nuclear war. Are you going to vote to have a war or not? If you aren't please tell me how you are going to help to not have a war. This question you do not have to answer, but I would like it if you would. Why do you want to conquer the world or at least our country? God made the world for us to share and take care of. Not to fight over or have one group of people own it all. Please lets do what he wanted and have everybody be happy too.

Samantha Smith”

Was she as obnoxious as me?

It would be so obnoxious if Greta Thunberg died in a crash and she was remembered longer than Samantha Smith.

I will not die in a plane crash that's for sure

R16 yeah, she'll only die in a boat sinking or a balloon accident

Didnt that young girl from Poltergeist die?

R15 I think she has more potential of being done in by a stalker like what might of happened to Samantha except for some alert police officers. If the stalker had gotten to Samantha when he tried and was caught, Rebecca Schaffer might still be alive today resting on the laurels of her multiple Oscar wins. It’s not like fate had not already been sealed for Samantha and her acting career didn’t have as much potential, what was she going to learn from Robert Wagner, how to be wooden and humorless?

Ok, R12, spill it! What’s your theory about Samantha’s death? What did you think your student journalists would uncover? Was she done in by the Illuminati? Reagan? Robert Wagner?

I was sad when she died. At the time, I didn’t think her death got the attention it deserved. (Yeah, I’m putting on my tin hat....but it was an odd situation, even to a high schooler obsessed with celebrity deaths!)

R20 I grew up in a house where whenever I said tin foil I was corrected that it is aluminum foil and not to confuse my metals. It was a bad as calling margarine “butter” by accident.

She had a TV show called [italic]Lime Street[/italic] that aired on ABC directly opposite GG. Robert Wagner played her father. When she died in that plane crash, they ended it right then and there. The producer of that show, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, went on to create [italic]Designing Women[/italic].

She also got her own Disney Channel TV special back when they had high-quality shows for all members of the family, not just creepy tween junk.

Didn't Rose Nylund take her place later on?

Greta's future.

Is she the one whose mom kept saying she wasn’t sad about the death because the girl was “following her bliss”? I thought that was odd.

R25 That's what people who've lost someone say to keep themselves from jumping in front of a train. They convince themselves their loved one died happy so that they won't fly into a grief-fueled insanity.

That’s pretty morbid, R24, even for DL. Her future is as a trivia question, if that.

Yes r25, and I thought that was fucking weird at the time too.

Until I realized her parents were "new age hippie" types who didn't believe in spiritual death or something. Yes, her body is burned to a crisp, but don't worry, her "true self" is flying free now, or some such drivel.

I used to get her confused with Samantha Fox

R25, I think that was the young girl who flew planes and people suspected she was flying a plane that crashed with her father. I don't think they ever proved who was flying at the time of the accident but it was two different girls and several years apart.

[quote] It would be so obnoxious if Greta Thunberg died in a crash and she was remembered longer than Samantha Smith.

Why?