DYING YOUNG IS A GREAT CAREER MOVE.
Ritchie Valens (17): Plane crash, along with Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper.
Sid Vicious (21): Heroin overdose, apparently supplied by his mother.
Eddie Cochran (21): Thrown through the windscreen of a Ford Consul in a traffic accident.
Stuart Sutcliffe (21): Brain haemorrhage, possibly due to prior head injury.
Buddy Holly (22): Plane crash, memorialized in Don McLean's American Pie.
Aaliyah (22): Plane crash
Ian Curtis (23): Hanged himself after watching Stroszek and listening to The Idiot.
River Phoenix (23): Overdose of cocaine and heroin
Bobby Fuller (23): Found dead with multiple injuries and covered with gasoline.
Pine Top Smith (24): Shot during a fight.
Duane Allman (24): Motorcycle accident.
Cliff Burton (24): Killed in a bus accident.
The Notorious B.I.G. (24): Shot in his car shortly following Tupac's death.
Tupac Shakur (25): Killed in a drive-by in Las Vegas Nevada.
James Honeyman-Scott (25): Either too much or too little cocaine.
Randy Rhoads (25): Killed in plane crash as a result of pilot douchbaggery.
Nick Drake (26): Suicide.
Otis Redding (26): Plane crash.
Gram Parsons (26): Morphine overdose while hunting UFOs.
The Big Bopper (28) (Jiles Perry Richardson, Jr.): Plane crash, see above.
Bix Beiderbecke (28): Officially lobar pneumonia, but some reckon alcoholism played a part.
Bradley Nowell (28): Heroin overdose.
Hank Williams (29): Mysterious circumstances involving heart failure (probably alcohol or drug-induced) in a Cadillac.
Marc Bolan (29): Never learned to drive because he was afraid of a premature death. So he died as a passenger in a car wreck.
Patsy Cline (30): Plane crash (but not the same one as Buddy Holly, etc).
Pete Farndon (30): Drowned in bathtub during heroin overdose.
Jeff Buckley (30): Accidental drowning.
Mama Cass (32): Heart attack brought on by "fatty myocardial degeneration due to obesity".
Keith Moon (32): Overdose on sedatives meant to stop his alcoholism.
Keith Godchaux (32): Automobile accident, and being a keyboardist for the Grateful Dead.
Rob Pilatus (32): Prescription drug and alcohol overdose, and lip synching.
John Bonham (32): Warmed up with four quadruple screwdrivers on the way to rehearsal, where he began the serious drinking. Later that night he died from choking on vomit (it was his own, so no need to dust).
Karen Carpenter (32): Heart failure from side effects of anorexia.
Hideto Matsumoto (33): Accidental asphyxiation (or suicide) after a night of drinking, provoked several copycat deaths.
Elliott Smith (34): Died of stab wounds to the chest, inconclusive whether they were self-inflicted. Had a tragic history of substance abuse.
Layne Staley (34): Heroin overdose.
Melanie Thornton (34): Plane crash
Matthew Ashman (35): Complications due to diabetes.
Jimmie Rodgers (35): Tuberculosis. Not to be confused with Jimmy Rogers who died a rock 'n' roll death due to colon cancer at age 73.
Blind Lemon Jefferson (36): Unknown. His grave was unmarked until 1967 and is, finally, being kept clean.
Brent Mydland (37): Drug overdose, and being a keyboardist for the Grateful Dead.
Michael Hutchence (37): Officially suicide, some speculation that it was autoerotic asphyxiation.
Charlie Poole (39): Heart attack following a three-month drinking binge.
Anna Nicole Smith (39): Accidental drug overdose.
Fats Waller (39): Became sick after an otherwise successful performance.
John Lennon (40): Shot in the chest by deranged asshole.
Elvis Presley (42): Died in his bathroom after basically destroying his body with drink, drugs, and junk food.
Marvin Gaye (44): Shot by his father.
Mike Starr (44): Prescription drug overdose.
Freddie Mercury (45): (Born Farrokh Bulsara.) Died of being bisexual in an era when no one cared about AIDS.
Randy California (45): Accidental drowning while rescuing his son from a rip current (his son lived).
Jeff Hanneman (49): Alcohol-related cirrhosis of the liver.
Joey Ramone (49): Cancer, glue-sniffing.
Dee Dee Ramone (50): Heroin overdose, glue-sniffing.
Michael Jackson (50): Possible drug overdose administered by his personal physician
Vince Welnick (55): Suicide. And being a keyboardist with the Grateful Dead.
NOT SUCH A GOOD CAREER MOVE
MARY PINCHOT MEYER
MURDERED
Wife of Cord Meyer who was amongst other things member of the Scroll and Key society at Yale, strong advocate of world government (elected president of the United World Federalists), worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, joining the organization in 1951 at the invitation of Allen Dulles, implicated by a death bed confession to be part of the Kennedy assassination plot.
His wife Free as a Bird.
Mary Pichot Meyer - Friend (ahem! very very close friend) of John F Kennedy but more important friend of Timothy Leary the LSD man.