Five Television Celebrity Deaths from Surgical Complications

Deaths resulting from surgical complications are always tragic, and there have been quite a few celebrities who have passed away in this manner. Five television personalities that died from surgical complications include a beloved TV western actor that died way too young, the man who brought us horror every week from "another dimension", the tall creepy butler from the "Addams Family", a woman whose face and voice was familiar to many if not her name, and another actors who achieved fame for his role in commercials, as a lonely repairman with nothing to do.

Dan Blocker was a six-foot-three, three hundred pound actor that portrayed the middle of the three Cartwright sons on the television Western "Bonanza". His first name in the series was actually Eric, but millions knew him as "Hoss." Blocker was a Korean War veteran and had a Master's degree in dramatic arts. Blocker weighed a mind-boggling fourteen pounds at birth, but despite his great size he was always a gentle giant. He played a peacemaker for the most part on the show, which ran from 1959 until 1973, the second longest running series ever on NBC behind "Law and Order." Blocker had a routine gall bladder surgery in May of 1972, but soon after died of a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot that developed post-op that went to his lung. "Bonanza" never explained his absence to viewers, and the show could not survive his loss, going off the air the year after his passing. Blocker was only 43 when he died.

Rod Serling won a Purple Heart and Bronze Star in the Pacific Theatre of World War II, and the horrors of war would give him nightmares for the rest of his life. Serling would eventually become a gifted screenwriter and give millions of Americans their own nightmares with his science fiction series "The Twilight Zone", which he hosted. Serling, who stood just five-foot-four, would come on before and after the show, which dealt with a different theme each week using a plethora of actors, many who went on to great things. Over half of the program's shows were written by Serling himself. After its five year run from 1959 until 1964, Serling had a brief stint on NBC with a similar format on "Night Gallery", but it could not sustain itself and was cancelled after three years on the air. Rod Serling suffered a pair of heart attacks in 1975 and had a third while on the operating table for a bypass on June 28th, 1975, which killed him at the age of 50.

Ted Cassidy stood six-foot-nine inches tall and he was able to use his height to his advantage in obtaining unusual roles. None was stranger than his stint as the butler Lurch on "The Addams Family." His signature line was "You rang?", whenever someone in the family pulled on the rope that was connected to a loud gong. Cassidy also appeared in an episode of "Star Trek" called "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", and provided the voice for the reptilian monster called the Gorn in another episode and a small child-like alien in "The Corbamite Maneuver." Cassidy passed away after he developed complications from open-heart surgery in 1979 when he was just 46 years old.

Mary Wickes was a tall woman, two inches short of six feet, with plain looks, but she would appear in a plethora of television and movie roles. She played the busybody housekeeper Emma in "White Christmas" with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye, and years later as the nun who couldn't teach the choir to sing in "Sister Act." Wickes was well-known for her quick quips and wisecracks, and she was a good friend of Lucille Ball, appearing on her television shows with regularity. She did countless guest shots on many series and was a regular for some time on "Dennis the Menace." Wickes was 85 when she died in 1995 during surgery, suffering from a number of ailments that contributed to her demise.

Jesse White was a veteran of TV, motion pictures, and the stage when he took a job in a commercial for Maytag in 1967. The success of the ads, which basically showed White, as the Maytag repairman with nothing to do due to the extreme reliability of the products, meant that White had a job for the next twenty-one years in that one role. White finally retired from his best known role in 1989. In 1997, a handful of days after his 80th birthday, White went to his reward after suffering cardiac arrest following surgery.