Death in Hollywood

There is something utterly fascinating about the death of someone famous. What is it that lures us into believing single controversy that always seems to surround a celebrities death? Why does it always seem like there is a controversy? Well, not EVERY death, but there certainly are more than not. Bad publicity is good publicity, even in death? I don't get it. Just let them rest in peace. Yet, we can't for some reason. We all talk about how horrible the tabloids are, how they are just trash, untrue gossip, etc. Then we find ourselves reading them anyway, and making opinions judged on what we have read.

For example, River Phoenix died in 1993, on October 30^th of a mass drug overdose. Not only are their controversies surrounding who gave him the drugs, whether it was a close friend of his in a band, or whether it was just a stranger in the bathroom passing out "party favors", people still today, 14 years later, argue over who's fault his death was, his own?, the drug dealer? His friends for not following his every movement? The truth is, no one will ever know exactly what happened that night incident by incident, but River himself, and he has been gone a long time now. I don't think it's fair to blame River's family and friends, nor do I think it's realistic to blame a drug dealer. It's a very sad situation. He was an extremely talented actor, and earth and animal activist. He was taken away way to young.

Another horrible incident that happened following River's death, is that a photographer snuck into the house that River's coffin was resting in and snapped pictures of River's dead body. It is said that either the photo was distorted or the photographer arranged the body differently, in order to make it seem more Gothic and scary. That picture ended up in tabloids, and on TV. Not only is that photo on the Internet, but the 9-11 call that River's younger brother Joaquin made the night of River's death is on the Internet. I don't know about you, but that seems extremely disrespectful and horribly morbid. The fact remains though, that something being morbid does not stop someone from listening to that call, or searching for that picture, just to see what a dead body looks like. Very sad.

Jayne Mansfield and Marilyn Monroe were two of Hollywood's most famous blonde bombshells. Both were blonde, busty and considered major sexpots. Incidentally, they both died young. Jayne died in 1967, in a car accident. While there is no real controversy over her death, it was a rather gruesome one.

On June 29^th, 1967 she was traveling in the front seat of her car with Ronnie Harrsion and Lawyer Sam Brody, while her three children sat in the back. As the car turned a sharp and dark corner, they slammed into a slow semi. The children survived with minor injuries (Her daughter, Mariska Hargitey is on Law and Order SVU and supposedly has no memory of the incident, as she as only around three years old.) but the adults were killed on impact. The entire top front of the car was completely severed clean off, and there have always been rumors swirling around that Jayne's head was decapitated. However, what really happened was when the top of the car was ripped clean off, it scalped a little bit of Jayne's head and hair with it. That is extremely gruesome, and there are many pictures on the Internet that supposedly have bodies from the accident strewn about. What they really are, are pictures of the scene after the bodies have been removed from the car to examine the situation. They were not ejected from the car, they were jam packed in there. What people have thought was Jayne's head in pictures was really just a piece of one of the wigs that she was known to wear. There were also several small dogs riding with them. I'm not sure on how well the animals panned in the accident.

Here is the most gruesome part. Three adults are dead. Three children are left without a mother. People seem more fascinated by the state of the vehicle, and whether or not Jayne Mansfield's head was decapitated or not, then they do about the fact that it's just another sad death of someone who died way to young. In fact, a few people have owned the wrecked car that Jayne's accident occurred in and have put it on 'display'. Others have purchased upholstery from the car itself. Who are we to judge them for being morbid and weird though? All of us have passed a horrible accident scene on the highway and tried not to look. You always look, at least for a second. That morbid curiosity is there. How SICK are we? Maybe we are not sick at all. We all are fascinated by death, because we are scared. A lot of us, no matter how secure we are in our faiths, are still worried about what happens when we die. We don't want to be forgotten, and we don't want to be just 'worm food.'

There has always been a bit of controversy over Marilyn's death however. She was found dead and naked in bed, with an empty bottle of sleeping pills by her side. Dr's ruled it possible suicide. Perhaps by accident, perhaps on purpose. Others, however for years have believed the Kennedy's had something to do with her death. Supposedly she had been receiving threatening calls from Robert Kennedy and a female telling her to stay away from him. Some speculation indicates that Marilyn had talked to a few friends and her own psychologist that day who all claim she did not appear to be depressed or taking drugs. It is said that her death was known about long before the police were finally notified, and that the death scene looked to perfectly tidy to be a suicide. Odds are, we will never know what really happened to poor Marilyn. The 60's were not good to our blonde bombshells.

We will end with the scandal of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. Fatty Arbuckle was a very large early 1920s movie star. He was known for his "pie in the face" and chase scenes in silent film, as he was pretty agile for such a large framed man. He had worked with Buster Keaton on a film called "The Butcher Boy".

At the height of his success, he was earning $1 million a year with Paramount studios. On September 3, 1921, Arbuckle took a break from the his filming schedule and drove to San Francisco with two friends. They checked into the St Francis hotel and invited a few women up to their suite for a party. One of those women was Virginia Rappe. I'm not sure exactly what was going on in the room, but from the sounds of things it was probably some odd sexual encounters that we do not need to think about or discuss. During this time, Virginia became ill and was examined by a Dr. The Dr concluded she was probably just drunk.

Virginia died three days later of Peritonitis which was caused by her bladder being ruptured. When this information was released, one of the other girls at the party came forward and claimed that Arbuckle had pierced Virginia's bladder when he raped her, saying his size was the culprit. Fatty Arbuckle's trial was a giant media circus. When he was finally acquitted of all charges, it was to late. His career and personal life was ruined. Studio Moguls had ordered Arbuckle's silent film stars not to come to defense during the trial. It was a sad situation. Many of his films were banned. He later in life became an alcoholic.

What is it about these deaths and scandals that make for an interesting read? I mean, why do we really care? Maybe on a small level we want to believe that famous people are not perfect, and that when tragedy strikes them, it somehow makes us feel sad, but at the same time we get some small satisfaction knowing that our own lives seem better than we thought. The grass is not always greener, maybe? It's a sick way of thinking, but I think it's a very human way of thinking. In the end, we're all people. We often times forget that when dealing with the rich and famous. They are flesh and blood, not cash and cars. For other Hollywood Death Scandels, look up Natalie Wood, and Olive Thomas.