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old hand
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OP
old hand
Joined: Jul 2002
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I am a subscriber to the snopes.com urban legends mailing list, and thought this might be of interest to at least one regular here:
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Chicago Sun-Times | 8 July 2003
Let's be real: Celebrity deaths yield to no pattern
BY RICHARD ROEPER SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
Let's be brutally and morbidly honest here. When a celebrity dies, your first instinct isn't to feel bad, light a candle and say a silent thank you to the star for whatever contributions were made to the pop culture treasure chest--it's to break the news to as many people as possible.
"Did you hear about Barry White?"
"No, what happened?"
"He's dead. Kidney failure or something."
"Oh man, that's too bad. What was he, in his 50s? I used to love all those songs of his. Remember when they'd dance to his stuff on 'Ally McBeal'? And then he did that Arby's commercial. . ."
Conversations like that no doubt took place at thousands of Fourth of July barbecues and parties last weekend. White, the basso profundo crooner who was the voice of such enduring hits as "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe," had died of kidney failure at 58 in the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where famous people go to die.
White's death no doubt also prompted a number of discussions about "deaths in threes," the longstanding belief that our most famous citizens depart this mortal coil in groups of three.
"Gregory Peck, Katharine Hepburn and Barry White," said a friend of mine. "These things always happen in threes."
Right. But what about Buddy Hackett? He died after Peck and Hepburn but before White. So does that mean celebrity deaths actually come in groups of four?
And then the news Monday that Buddy Ebsen was dead at 95. Other recent celebrity deaths include David Brinkley, 82; Hume Cronyn, 91; and Strom Thurmond, who was 100. Set aside the youngish Barry White, and the average age of the last seven famous obituary subjects was 90. That's the way we like our celebrity deaths! Old and non-tragic.
But as for the "deaths in threes" theory, a study I did in 1997 revealed no overwhelming pattern to back up the myth. For every Rock Hudson-Yul Brynner-Orson Welles trilogy (they died within a few days of one another in 1985), there are a dozen instances in which two famous people died, e.g., River Phoenix and Federico Fellini within hours of each other in October of 1993, but not a single death of public note on either side of the calendar for weeks.
My rule is, the celebrity deaths have to occur within 10 days--and at least two of the stars have to be fairly big names. If we count every supporting actor on a 30-year-old sitcom and we stretch the time limit past a week and a half, deaths are ALWAYS occurring in threes.
Although none of the recent deaths was particularly shocking--even White had been seriously ill for some time--we can actually divide them into two legitimate "deaths in threes." Brinkley, Peck and Cronyn died within 10 days of one another, as did Hepburn, Hackett and White. (As well as Ebsen, of course.)
That's the first celebrity-death triple-double in recent memory.
Since my 1997 column on this subject, there have been a few legitimate deaths-in-threes.
In late June and early July 2002, there was an awful concentration of high-profile deaths, with baseball player Darryl Kile and the great Ann Landers passing away on June 22; John Entwistle of the Who, dying on June 27; followed by the deaths of Rosemary Clooney (June 29) and Ted Williams (July 5)--who is of course not really dead but merely in a state of cryogenic suspension.
Dudley Moore, Milton Berle and Billy Wilder all died on the same day--March 27, 2002.
Arguably the only legitimate trilogy in 2001 was Carroll O'Connor (June 21), John Lee Hooker (June 21) and Jack Lemmon (June 27).
In 2000, there was something of a four-peat, with Doug Henning, Jim Varney, Tom Landry and Charles Schulz passing away within a five-day stretch.
It was a similar chain of events in March of 1999, with Dusty Springfield, Richard Kiley, Stanley Kubrick and Joe DiMaggio all leaving us between March 2 and March 8. (And Chicago's Del Close died March 4 of that year.)
In a three-day stretch in April 1998, we mourned an intriguing trio of musical names--Rob Pilatus, of the fake-duo Milli Vanilli; Tammy "Stand by Your Man" Wynette, and Wendy O. Williams of the punkers the Plasmatics.
(If some of these names aren't instantly familiar to you, it's further proof that the "deaths in threes" theory doesn't really hold up. If half the country hasn't heard of someone by the time of death, perhaps the deceased wasn't truly famous.)
A case could be made for a few other deaths-in-threes in those years, but it happens about twice a year. Hardly a phenomenon.
As for the next celebrity death--if you're the type who'd rather spread the news than receive it, you might consider signing up for CelebrityDeathBeeper.com. When someone famous dies--they e-mail you with the news.
Buddy and Barry, R.I.P.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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formerly known as etaoin...
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Joined: May 2000
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addict
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addict
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Oh, she was closely related to Mars Landers.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dear Rubrick: Ann Landers had a newspaper column in which she discussed problems readers wrote to her about. I didn't read it very often, but she was always very sensible, and deserved her very large readership.
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Joined: May 2000
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addict
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addict
Joined: May 2000
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I had an aunt who used to do something similar except her answers were far from sensible and were quite painful.
Indeed, you could say she was quite an agony aunt.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
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Rubrick, come here a minute--I have something for you...
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Damn, I try and I try, and this is all the thanks I get?
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