Celebrity Death Thread

[Mainevent]

GOULET!

[Drew]

RIP Goulet

[Masspartan]

not a celeb ... but wtf?

http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3799291

[-Deborah-]

A horrible mistake. :(

[DanO]

How terrible.

GO LIONS "07" !!!!!!!

[Coop]

Another notable passing, and not a celeb per se, however one of the more influential uknowns, if not for who he is, but for what he did:

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the U.S. bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan on Aug. 6, 1945, died on Thursday at age 92, a newspaper reported.

Tibbets, who died at his home in Columbus, Ohio, had suffered strokes and was ill from heart failure, the Columbus Dispatch said in its online edition.

An experienced pilot who had flown some of the first bombing missions over Germany during World War Two, Tibbets was a 30-year-old colonel commanding the Enola Gay, a B-29 Superfortress bomber named for his mother.

After a six-hour flight to Japan, Tibbets' crew dropped the bomb, code-named "Little Boy," over Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m.

"If Dante had been with us on the plane, he would have been terrified," Tibbets said later. "The city we had seen so clearly in the sunlight a few minutes before was now an ugly smudge. It had completely disappeared under this awful blanket of smoke and fire."

The bomb instantly killed about 78,000 people. By the end of 1945, the number of dead had reached about 140,000 out of an estimated population of 350,000.

Three days later the United States dropped an atomic bomb nicknamed "Fat Man" on Nagasaki. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, 1945, bringing World War Two to an end.

Tibbets said in interviews he did not regret the decision to drop the bomb.

He became a brigadier general before leaving the military in 1966. Later he was president of Executive Jet Aviation, a Columbus-based international air-taxi service, the newspaper said.

© Reuters2007All rights reserved

[Nick Pappageorgio]

This kid was the manager for my HS track team my senior year......I ran with his brother Casey. Very sad

NEW YORK -- Top distance runner Ryan Shay died during the U.S. men's Olympic marathon trials Saturday after collapsing about 5½ miles into the race. He was 28.
Shay was taken to Lenox Hill Hospital and was pronounced dead at 8:46 a.m., New York Road Runners president Mary Wittenberg said.
"It cuts a knife through everybody's hearts," said Wittenberg, whose group organized the race.
She said Shay received immediate medical attention. The medical examiner's office said an autopsy will be performed Sunday.
"There were several layers of medical response. It was very quick," said Wittenberg, who would not elaborate on what steps were taken.
Shay of Flagstaff, Ariz., hit the ground near the Central Park boathouse, a popular Manhattan tourist spot, during the 26.2-mile qualifier for the Beijing Games. The death came a day before the New York City Marathon, when millions usually line the streets in one of the sport's showcase days.
"He was a tremendous champion who was here today to pursue his dreams," said Craig Masback, chief executive of U.S. track and field's governing body. "The Olympic trials is traditionally a day of celebration, but we are heartbroken."
Shay was a favorite going into the 2004 trials but was hampered by a hamstring strain and finished 23rd. He was the 2003 U.S. marathon champion and was third at this year's U.S. 25K championships. He also won the U.S. half marathon in 2003 and 2004. He was the NCAA 10,000-meter champion in 2001, the first national individual title in track for Notre Dame.
Shay was the U.S. 20,000-meters (20K) road racing champion in 2004, making him a four-time national champion.
His wife, Alicia, also is a top distance runner. She was a two-time NCAA champion and the collegiate 10,000-meter record-holder while running as Alicia Craig at Stanford. She and Ryan met at the 2005 NYC Marathon and they married in July. Alicia was hoping to make it to Beijing in the women's 10,000 meters.
"My thoughts and prayers just go out to them and their family," said winner Ryan Hall, a college teammate of Alicia's at Stanford.
Shay, who was born in Michigan and graduated from Notre Dame, qualified for the trials at the 2006 Twin Cities Marathon.
Before the race, Shay said during a conference call he had moved from Mammoth Lakes, Calif., where he had been training with Team Running USA, to Flagstaff, where he was training at the Center For High Altitude Training.
"It's a big loss for the running community," said 2004 women's marathon Olympic bronze medalist Deena Kastor, who once trained with Shay. "It's a day we should be celebrating. It has cast a pall. The distance running community is very close."

[DanO]

RIP Mr. Shay.

GO LIONS "07" !!!!!!!

[Malto Marko]

Sorry to hear this, Nick.

[Guise Marino]

Tibbets fought one hell of a war. He also frequently flew Eisenhower in and out of North Africa when not on bombing missions in Europe. He was the only one in the plane that knew he was carrying the A bomb until he announced it to his crew over the Pacific when it became apparent that they wouldn't be called back. He named the plane after his mother Enola Gay. If he was going to go into history he was going to take her with him.

I knew the man who was Doolittle's secretary during the war. He had some great stories to tell.

[-Deborah-]

Report: Quiet Riot lead singer found dead

Kevin Dubrow found in Vegas home; band rose to fame in early 1980s

Ethan Miller / Getty Images file
Quiet Riot singer Kevin DuBrow, with Lori Sampson, in Las Vegas in 2006.

MSNBC

updated 3 minutes ago


The celebrity Web site TMZ.com was reporting Monday that Kevin Dubrow, lead singer for the ?80s metal band Quiet Riot, was found dead in his Las Vegas home.

The 52-year-old was reportedly found Sunday by a neighbor and TMZ says the Clark County Coroner was trying to determine a cause of death.

Fellow band member Frankie Banali posted a message on his Web site which read: ?I can?t even find words to say. Please respect my privacy as I mourn the passing and honor the memory of my dearest friend Kevin Dubrow.?



Quiet Riot?s 1983 single ?Cum on Feel the Noize? was the first heavy metal song to make Billboard?s pop chart and helped carry the album ?Metal Health? to the top of the Billboard pop album charts.

[Newbomb Turk]

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Evel Knievel, the hard-living motorcycle daredevil whose exploits made him an international icon in the 1970s, died Friday. He was 69.

Knievel death was confirmed by his 21-year-old granddaughter, Krysten Knievel. He had been in failing health for years, suffering from diabetes and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable condition that scarred his lungs. He had undergone a liver transplant in 1999 after nearly dying of hepatitis C, likely contracted through a blood transfusion after one of his bone-shattering spills.

His death came just two days after it was announced that he and rapper Kanye West had settled a federal lawsuit over the use of Knievel’s trademarked image in a popular West music video.

Immortalized in the Washington’s Smithsonian Institution as “America’s Legendary Daredevil,” Knievel was best known for a failed 1974 attempt to jump an Idaho canyon on a rocket-powered cycle and a spectacular crash at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. He suffered nearly 40 broken bones before he retired in 1980.

For the tall, thin daredevil, the limelight was always comfortable, the gab glib. Always, he welcomed the challenge whether in sports, at work or play. To Knievel, there always were mountains to climb, feats to conquer.

“No king or prince has lived a better life,” he said in a May 2006 interview with The Associated Press. “You’re looking at a guy who’s really done it all. And there are things I wish I had done better, not only for me but for the ones I loved.”
He garbed himself in red, white and blue and had a knack for outrageous yarns:

“Made $60 million, spent 61. ...Lost $250,000 at blackjack once. ... Had $3 million in the bank, though.”

Although he dropped off the pop culture radar in the ’80s, Knievel always had fans and enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in recent years. In later years he still made a good living selling his autographs and endorsing products. Thousands came to Butte, Mont., every year as his legend was celebrated during the “Evel Knievel Days” festival.

“They started out watching me bust my ass, and I became part of their lives,” Knievel said. “People wanted to associate with a winner, not a loser. They wanted to associate with someone who kept trying to be a winner.”

He began his daredevil career in 1965 when he formed a troupe called Evel Knievel’s Motorcycle Daredevils, a touring show in which he performed stunts such as riding through fire walls, jumping over live rattlesnakes and mountain lions and being towed at 200 mph behind dragster race cars.

In 1966 he began touring alone, barnstorming the Western states and doing everything from driving the trucks, erecting the ramps and promoting the shows. In the beginning he charged $500 for a jump over two cars parked between ramps.

He steadily increased the length of the jumps until, on New Year’s Day 1968, he was nearly killed when he jumped 151 feet across the fountains in front of Caesar’s Palace. He cleared the fountains but the crash landing put him in the hospital in a coma for a month.

Hi son, Robbie, successfully completed the same jump in April 1989.

In the years after the Caesar’s crash, the fee for Evel’s performances increased to $1 million for his jump over 13 buses at Wembley Stadium in London — the crash landing broke his pelvis — to more than $6 million for the Sept. 8, 1974, attempt to clear the Snake River Canyon in Idaho in a rocket-powered “Skycycle.” The money came from ticket sales, paid sponsors and ABC’s “Wide World of Sports.”

The parachute malfunctioned and deployed after takeoff. Strong winds blew the cycle into the canyon, landing him close to the swirling river below.

On Oct. 25, 1975, he jumped 14 Greyhound buses at Kings Island in Ohio.
Knievel decided to retire after a jump in the winter of 1976 in which he was again seriously injured. He suffered a concussion and broke both arms in an attempt to jump a tank full of live sharks in the Chicago Amphitheater. He continued to do smaller exhibitions around the country with his son, Robbie.

Many of his records have been broken by daredevil motorcyclist Bubba Blackwell.

Knievel also dabbled in movies and TV, starring as himself in “Viva Knievel” and with Lindsey Wagner in an episode of the 1980s TV series “Bionic Woman.” George Hamilton and Sam Elliott each played Knievel in movies about his life.

Evel Knievel toys accounted for more than $300 million in sales for Ideal and other companies in the 1970s and ’80s.

Born Robert Craig Knievel in the copper mining town of Butte on Oct. 17, 1938, Knievel was raised by his grandparents. He traced his career choice back to the time he saw Joey Chitwood’s Auto Daredevil Show at age 8.

Outstanding in track and field, ski jumping and ice hockey at Butte High School, he went on to win the Northern Rocky Mountain Ski Association Class A Men’s ski jumping championship in 1957 and played with the Charlotte Clippers of the Eastern Hockey League in 1959.

He also formed the Butte Bombers semiprofessional hockey team, acting as owner, manager, coach and player.

Knievel also worked in the Montana copper mines, served in the U.S. Army, ran his own hunting guide service, sold insurance and ran Honda motorcycle dealerships. As a motorcycle dealer, he drummed up business by offering $100 off the price of a motorcycle to customers who could beat him at arm wrestling.

At various times and in different interviews, Knievel claimed to have been a swindler, a card thief, a safe cracker, a holdup man.

Robbie Knievel followed in his father’s footsteps as a daredevil, jumping a moving locomotive in a 200-foot, ramp-to-ramp motorcycle stunt on live television in 2000. He also jumped a 200-foot-wide chasm of the Grand Canyon.

Knievel married hometown girlfriend, Linda Joan Bork, in 1959. They separated in the early 1990s. They had four children, Kelly, Robbie, Tracey and Alicia.

Knievel lived with his longtime partner, Krystal Kennedy-Knievel, splitting his time between their Clearwater condo and his Butte hometown. They married in 1999 and divorced a few years later but remained together. Knievel had 10 grandchildren and a great-grandchild.

[-Deborah-]

Hey I was related to him kinda sorta by marriage. My cousin is married to his nephew, I think.

69 is old when considering what he did for a living. RIP.

[Drew]

RIP Evel. Great American.

[ghandi]

"He suffered nearly 40 broken bones before he retired in 1980"

Hope brett favre shared some of his vicadin with him.....