Hollywood Immortals’ Death Cult
Heath Ledger, CPImages
Heath Ledger’s tragic miserable death took us by surprise. He has taken the first step to Movie Star Immortality.
Ledger follows the lead of other Immortals before him. He was an unusually handsome young man working his way up the H’wood totem pole while at the same time, fearing fame. He may have been too sensitive for life as a public figure, if you believe what you hear. Ironically, his death ensures fame.
Ledger’s autopsy results are inconclusive, but some people have made up their minds that he died for love, heartbroken over his split from Michelle Williams, intentionally overdosing on prescription drugs. [His family has denied his death was intentional.]
Each time a celeb dies ‘before his time’ we get a taste for them and devour them.
We pry into the most private details of their lives. Who could have known that Ledger was allegedly as lonely and as troubled as he was. Well, we sure do now because there are armies of professionals out there digging for news, no matter how inconsequential, hurtful or litigious.
The Timeline of Heath’s death! The Pills in His Home! Sleeplessness, prescription drug use and pneumonia! It was suicide! It was not suicide! The housekeeper was 56! Here’s how his mourning ex girlfriend and daughter looked at the airport in Sweden! And here in front of their onetime Brooklyn love nest! Here’s who he was dating…we think!
It’s all too much and yet who can look away?
Online and citizen reporting have redefined the celebrity news game. Streams of misinformation, speculation and assumptions are delivered as fact, in a race to post the story first. There’s no time to prepare, vet and confirm stories. Turns out pills were not strewn around Ledger’s body and there were no traces of drugs on that rolled up twenty.
Immortals exit to hysteria. Stories of fan copycat suicides (that date back to Valentino) blare as shots of sidewalk memorials open and close each TV news story. Surprise and shock give way to melodrama.
Already they’re saying that Ledger‘s upcoming performance as The Joker in Dark Knight is the Performance of the Year. Just days ago, New York and London tabs dismissed the heartthrob as appearing ‘homeless’, ‘scruffy’ and ‘pathetic’.
That‘s nothing new. Young actors, male and female, the good-looking ones, find not just immortality but infallibility in death. Suddenly, they are The Best of Their Generation.
James Dean, CPImages
The cult of H’wood death sprung up generations ago. Here are a few Immortals we created – Marilyn Monroe [who, like Ledger, was found naked at the time of her death], James Dean, Anna Nicole Smith, Jayne Mansfield, John Lennon, Kurt Cobain, John Belushi, Tupak Shakur, Brandon Lee, River Phoenix, Aaliyah, Heather O‘Rourke, Rudolph Valentino, and the mother of them all, The Princess of Wales. Each died young, left a good-looking corpse and unfulfilled promise. Elvis Presley fails the age criteria but is an honorary Immortal.
Lesser, small ‘i’ immortals are known for the ways they died, not their achievements and include:
- George ‘Superman’ Reeves who was tubby and over the hill, a probable suicide
- Wallace Reid, the Brad Pitt of the twenties, who was pushed to overwork, morphine addiction and death
- Peg Entwistle who was a talented Broadway actress who dove from the Hollywood sign, depressed that H’wood didn’t want her
- Rock Hudson who was the first H’wood ‘name’ to die of AIDS
- Sharon Tate, Adrienne Shelley, Rebecca Schaeffer, Dominique Dunne who were murdered
- Bob Crane , whose murder was a result of his weird sex life
- Troubled Brad Renfro, who died of a drug overdose, snuffing nascent talent for good
Dozens of websites are dedicated to dead celebs. H’wood tourists can satisfy their morbid Joneses by taking the official Graveline Tour to celebrity death sites – Sal Mineo, Janis Joplin, Tate – and the star studded Westwood Memorial Park where Marilyn Monroe, Dunne and O’Rourke are parked.
I did the tour. You go in a hearse, the way the Immortals do.
Okay, time to settle in for tonight’s Ledger deathwatch.
