Don't You Know That You Are a Shooting Star?

I’m super excited to have been invited to join a blog group alongside three talented bloggers.  Each week, one of us chooses a topic and we all post a blog entry on that topic, usually on Thursdays.   

Here are the links to the other fabulous blogs:

Merryland Girl

Froggie

Moma Rock           

This week, Moma Rock chose the topic, and she asked:  Robin Williams’ death has shocked the world.  What celebrity deaths have you found most shocking, and why?

            Funny enough, this very topic came up just moments after I learned Robin Williams had passed away.  I will never forget where I was when I heard the news:  it was Monday evening, and I was attending the 10’s Parent Night at her new school.  The 8 and I had stopped in the hallway to talk to Mr. Hill, the music teacher, and during our chat, I mentioned how I wasn’t sure when we had to return for the 8’s Parent Night.  Ever polite, Mr. Hill offered to look it up on his phone.  He pulled the device from his pocket and typed in his password.  And then he sort of recoiled. 

            “Oh.  Wow.  I didn’t expect that,” he said.  I shot him a puzzled look and he said, “A friend just texted me . . . Robin Williams is dead.” 

            I gasped.  Audibly.  “Oh my God!” I whisper yelled.  “Are you kidding??”  My voice truly carried multiple question marks and the trace of a soft exclamation.  I couldn’t believe it.  It seemed impossible.  I was standing in the hallway of my kids’ school on a regular, plain old Monday night.  How could Robin Williams be dead??  It wasn’t right.  He was supposed to be out there, somewhere, just being Robin Williams.  Being funny. Being happy.  Being alive.

            Politely, Mr. Hill put down his phone, and we began to talk about Robin.  How old was he, we wondered, not that old, right?  Didn’t he have a heart issue?  I thought I’d read something about that.  Maybe that killed him?  I couldn’t imagine anything taking down Robin Williams – what could possibly extinguish such energy and verve and spirit?  (David Letterman would later say Robin blew on stage like a hurricane while other comedians crept in like “morning dew.”)  I felt anxious.  I really wanted to know what had happened.  In my shock, I needed an explanation, but I’d left my phone at home so I couldn’t hit Google.  I felt rude asking Mr. Hill to do it, so I instead just stood in the hallway, bristling with curiosity.

            Maybe Mr. Hill felt it, because a few moments later he offered to look on the Internet for news.  He took out his phone, and as he looked, he turned a little pale.  I lowered my eyebrows into a “what’s wrong” shape.  Discomforted, he glanced down at the 8 and mouthed over her head, “Suicide.”

            I gasped again, literally clutched my throat like some Victorian era woman.  Mr. Hill shook his head.  It made no sense.  We simply could not process the news, not then.  Maybe still not yet.

            We kept talking, probably more to distract ourselves than anything.  We talked about other celebrity deaths that really “got” us.  He shared a few of his. 

I told him a couple of mine.  We shared our grief, and then I went home and watched the news coverage and checked the Internet and generally reeled from the news that one of my favorite actors and comedians had taken his own life. 

            And so that exchange in the hallway of Overall Creek Elementary School is forever burned into my brain, just like those of the handful of other celebrities whose deaths affected me in a profound, almost personal way.  I’ll share those here, in order of remembrance:

John Belushi:  When Mr. Belushi died of an overdose in 1982, I was in 8^th grade.  I heard the news during my birthday party sleepover (John died in March and my birthday is in February, meaning I got my horrible planning children birthday parties gene from my Mom).  I was crushed.  John Belushi changed television for my generation, and for me.  My parents allowed me to watch the show, and I did, faithfully, each and every week.  I loved John’s characters:  the Samurai, the Bumblebee, Joliet “Jake” Blues, Pete from the Billy Goat who yelled “Cheezebugger!  Cheezbugger!” at everyone, his spot-on impression of Joe Cocker.  John changed my perspective as to what was funny.  He pushed the boundaries – too far in the end, it seemed.  And when he died, I felt an inexplicable gap:  the loss of someone I’d never met but who’d come to feel like a friend.

John F. Kennedy, Jr.:  I’d always had a little “thing” for JFK Jr.; I mean, what red-blooded American woman didn’t?  I loved that he was easy on the eyes, and I loved that he did his own thing, dancing just along the edge of his seemingly cursed family.  I subscribed to his then cutting-edge George magazine and I looked forward to seeing where John John’s life took him or, more accurately, where he took his life.  And then he was gone, literally vanished out of thin air.  I checked the television coverage as they searched for his plane and, unfortunately, his body, silently hoping he’d somehow survived.  After the wreckage was found, I thought about why I missed him, and I realized that he was one of those people I’d wanted to watch grow old.  I wasn't alone; at John John’s funeral, his uncle, Sen. Ted Kennedy, said, “We dared to think that this John Kennedy would live to comb gray hair[.]”  But we would never have that opportunity.  This July marked the fifteenth anniversary of John F. Kennedy, Jr.’s death.  He would have been 53 had he lived.  I am left to wonder whether any of his hair would have been gray.

Phil Hartman:  I was driving back to law school in Ann Arbor, Michigan, when I heard the news report on the radio that Phil Hartman’s wife had shot him and then herself.  I’m sure I gasped.  Much like John Belushi, Phil’s talents shone on SNL, and I loved his characters:  the anal-retentive chef, Frank Sinatra, Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer, his hilarious Ed McMahon.  When he moved on to News Radio, I watched religiously just to see his droll-but-fabulous Bill McNeil.  He bordered on brilliant.  Of course, I’d no idea his personal life was so fragile, and the whole situation screamed of a total waste of talent and life, leaving me angry, confused, and more than a little sad.

Hunter S. Thompson:  I started reading HST in my thirties, and once I started, I couldn’t stop.  The first time I tried to watch Johnny Depp’s portrayal of the Doc in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I couldn’t do it – it seemed too over the top.  But then I saw some live interviews of HST and I soon realized Depp nailed it.  The real HST was, indeed, that over the top.  He lived life at a million miles an hour and managed to take copious notes as he sped along.  Gonzo had nine lives, and all of them were brilliantly talented and incredibly resilient.  And so the February morning that I got into the elevator at work and mindlessly stared at the in-elevator TV screen, I couldn’t expect to read the news that Hunter had taken his own life.  But I did.  And I gasped really loudly.  And the other occupant of the elevator, a man about my age, looked at me and said, simply, “I know.” 

I managed to make it to my office without crying.  But it took me years to understand the sensibility behind HST’s choice, to see that his shocking death really was the perfect dénouement for his shocking life.  But I still miss him, especially now when the world seems utterly cracked and crazy.  I’d love to read his perspective.

I’d love just one more sentence.

John Ritter:  This one is a little different in that John’s actual death – though upsetting – didn’t affect me as much as the timing. 

Just a few days before John’s passing, I’d gotten together with my family to celebrate my Mom’s birthday.  At dinner, we began talking about TV shows we watch, and my sister and Mom mentioned Eight Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter, John’s then-current sitcom.  I made a face and said, “I can’t watch that.  John Ritter doesn’t look good.  He’s all bloated.  He doesn’t look healthy.” 

Apparently, I was right because just a few short days later, John Ritter died.  Soon after I heard the news, I received an email from my sister that said:  “You killed John Ritter!”  I felt sad that he was gone, as I’d loved him as Jack Tripper on Three’s Company but, more than that, I felt just a bit weirded out that I’d inadvertently predicted his untimely passing. 

Ron Santo:  I came late to the Ron Santo bandwagon.  Chicagoans know him as Number 10, the Golden Gloved third basement of the famed ’69 Cubs.  I was much too young to appreciate him then, but he won my heart when he joined Pat Hughes in the broadcast booth where together they called the Cubs games on WGN radio.  Ron provided color:  the stories, the predictions of what pitch would come next, the humor.  Ron was funny, even when he didn’t mean to be.  Like the time he called Montreal “a pit,” or when he accidentally started his toupee on fire when he stood too close to a heat lamp.  More than once, Ron got so caught up in a story, he forgot to watch the game and had to ask Pat, “What just happened there?”  It was part of his charm. 

Ron suffered (and ultimately died from complications related to) Type I diabetes, and he helped raise millions of dollars for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.  He was known to call kids struggling with diabetes just to cheer them up.  He was a great ball player and a great man, and I couldn’t believe it when WGN announced his death early one morning in December of 2010.  I walked around my kitchen, completely stunned, muttering, “No!”  Soon enough, the texts and phone calls began, friends and family making sure I’d heard Ron had died. 

WGN-TV broadcast his funeral, and I watched, crying as Pat Hughes eulogized his friend and partner.  (Funny enough, the priest celebrating the mass had worked at my childhood church, and he, too, suffers from Type I diabetes.)  I miss Ron every baseball season.  I think I always will.  I wish he’d lived long enough to watch the Cubs win the World Series (I hope I live that long . . . ).

Jani Lane:  The former lead singer of Warrant died in August of 2011 at the losing end of a long battle with alcohol and drugs.  Jani left us at the end of a week where I’d attended back-to-back wakes/funerals:  one for the mom of my childhood best friend, the other for the uncle of my high school BFF.  It was also the week they dedicated the Ron Santo statue at Wrigley Field; my niece had surprised me with tickets and together we celebrated Ron’s legacy.  It was a week of loss and grief, and when I heard Jani passed, I burst into tears.  I had one single thought:  What a waste.  What an absolute waste.

I’d always felt a connection to Jani, both to his music and to him.  Jani was beautiful.  I first saw him when he was the blond, blue-eyed star of the Heaven video.  Of course, I loved him.  Not long after, I met him at Excalibur in Chicago after a concert, where he introduced me to his “future ex-wife” and called my friend’s boyfriend an idiot (he kind of was).  Later, he’d live around the corner from me in Sherman Oaks, California, and even though I didn’t see him, I knew he was there.  I liked that he was there.  I wish he still was.

Jon Bon Jovi:  Ok, yes, Jon is still alive, but thanks to some moron with access to the Internet, we had a scare where we thought maybe he wasn’t.  Boy, did my phone light up that afternoon.  Given my “affection” (ahem) for Jon, my reaction surprised me:  I simply didn’t believe it.  Call it denial, but I could not accept that Jon Bon Jovi had passed from this world. 

I don’t like to think about Jon dying, now or anytime in the future.  Hell, I wore black for a month when he got married, so I can’t even fathom how I’ll react should I outlive him.  But I’m fairly certain it won’t be pretty. 

                                                            *            *            *            *

            It’s hard to say why these deaths affected me more than the deaths of other celebrities.  I mean, it’s not like I personally knew any of them.  But I can surmise.  In the case of Robin Williams and even Phil Hartman, the men’s deaths not only took away entertainers I loved, they also shattered some long-held and obviously mistaken illusions.  I assumed both men led happy, fulfilling lives off screen.  Robin in particular was known to be warm and generous, a kind soul.  But he also battled depression and addiction and apparently the beginnings of Parkinson’s, and Phil lived in a very unhappy and unstable home.  I wouldn’t have wished either scenario on either man, and so I grieved not only their passings, but also their realities. 

            The deaths of Robin Williams and John Belushi were also a bit symbolic:  they took a piece of my childhood with them when they left.  I grew up watching SNL and Mork and Mindy, but after the comedians passed, neither could ever be again.  Similarly, I assumed I’d have the luxury of watching JFK Jr. move through life, maybe have kids, maybe run for office.  I took that fact for granted, and then the Universe changed his trajectory.  Of course, he was also so young, only 38 (eight years younger than his famed father).  I felt robbed of a good half century of John John.  I grieved that lost time.

            Jani Lane’s death hit home in another way.  Substance abuse has touched my family and friends, and I never underestimate its insidious power.  I’d known Jani struggled; I watched him on Celebrity Fit Club as he tried to sober up.  I guess in my heart I’d hoped he’d been winning the fight, but my heart was wrong.  Jani’s death reminded me that addiction is truly managed one day at a time.  The battle doesn’t ever end.  Except in death.

            I’m not one to believe in an afterlife, but should one exist, I wish all of these talented people peace.  I hope they rest well.  And I’m grateful they continue to live on in their work:  the movies, the CDs, the videos.  It makes them immortal, stars that have fallen from the sky but which somehow continue to shine.