Death Of Legendary Figures

Why are celebrity deaths so interesting?

We look at the celebrities from a distance and we imagine what their life would be like and we usually admire them or emulate them. So when they die we try to find out the real clue of the things that may have killed them, as trying to give us another look of how they lived. There are a number of celebrities, that not until they died did we realize some of the habits they were in, or some of the other different types of things that they were into until we discovered that they had died in a certain way. One of those you might remember as probably the earliest one was Rock Hudson who died from AIDS. He was one of the first celebrities to come forward and mention that he acquired this disease. It took years to build up his reputation as a ladies man, even though his close friends knew he was a homosexual, the public had no clue. So it was pretty much a shock. Although he was admired in the press for coming out finally towards the end of his death, reports indicate that the person he was having the affair with wasn't given the benefit of coming out and he continued to have relationships with this person even after he had AIDS.

How did Houdini die?

Houdini died from a punch in the stomach, in his appendix. He was very proud of the way that men would take pride in getting punched in the stomach, believe it or not, it showed a sense of masculinity. He was a known contortionist. He could break his shoulder, and dislocate his shoulder to get out of straitjackets. So he had a unique type of anatomy. It has it that he was sucker-punched and wasn't prepared for the punch he received from this college student, and that caused his appendix to burst. Shortly after he was put into the hospital and died of gangrene from that wound. But the interesting thing is that the college student who had punched him may have had another type of curse, and he died almost 20 years later, even though he had degrees from different colleges. He died penniless of malnutrition.

How did Harry 'The Human Fly' Gardiner die?

He was a very popular attraction in the 20's and throughout the 30's. Once the skyscrapers started to rise above the landscape, people decided that they were things that they want it to climb and these guys that used rope or nets or suction cups: they would wear normal, ordinary clothes, especially Harry Gardiner - he'd have his bifocal glasses on to climb up, amazingly high, 30, 40, 50 storeys on a building. He was named, "The Human Fly" when he was able to walk almost vertically up a flagpole as if it were lying on the ground. What happened, when a number of these Human Flies started to fall of buildings, New York state passed the first law preventing anyone from climbing the outside of public buildings. Reports suggested that he moved to Europe. A person of his description was found beaten to death at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower years later.

How did the man behind the 'Have A Nice Day' smiley campaign die?

Many people are attributed with making the icon of the "Have A Nice Day" happy face. But B.A. Hapday changed his name to fit the type of program that he tried to do during the 70s in New York City to make the happy face icon a popular thing to improve the image of the city. However, it seemed that his life and his death showed a different type of happiness that he was looking for. He was found dead of a drug overdose and Drano was in his veins behind a public toilet while he was in the attire of a woman.

How did Christopher Columbus die?

Christopher Columbus has the record of being the explorer to discover what they call the New World. But he was quite a character. Once he got into power, being a governor of the island of Hispaniola that he had founded, he was kind of tyrannical, and he was sent back in chains for being an unjust ruler. He ultimately died of effects of venereal diseases that he acquired abroad, or from numerous different starvations, because he was lost and shipwrecked on different islands for a number of years at a time. But he also has the distinction of having one of the first bodies to be skinned, and that was considered a place of honor. So his full skin was taken off his body and preserved. Where he's actually buried is similar to his discoveries, they think his body is in three different places at the present time.