Live Poll: Most Shocking Death of an Actor

From your list, I would say Anton Yelchin.

FYC:
Robin Williams

when i read the question, i knew immediately who my answer was...tommy bolin...

i remember coming home from a gig and turning on the radio only to hear the d.j. reading the lyrics to one of his songs...then, at the end, mentioning his passing...

to this day, that was the most powerful, and, to use your phrase, shocking...

i didn't think i would see tommy on this list, but the next two that came to mind i thought i would...karen carpenter and  andy gibb...

both have stories of their own with me...the shortened versions...karen i heard on a radio in a store in new york...for andy, i was on the air in new york when he passed and i had to make the radio announcement...(ironic)...

surprised neither of these were on the list either...all three powerful pronouncements for me...

would love to see them added...and glad to see phil hartman on your list as well...

FYC:

Paul Walker - Car accident, aged 40

Without any doubt: John Lennon

Allot of them are accidents that you really can't stop or prevent. Death cases by addiction or engaging in dangerous activity are another matter. That is courting death. Then their is suicide. But what goes straight to the top is murder: Hartman, Lennon, Tate, Shelly, Selena, Schaeffer, and Monroe (yeah, I don't believe it was an accident ether).
You might want to consider Princess Di, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, Micheal Jackson, and Keith Moon.

I think I will change it to just actors, since there are so many musicians that fit in.

If any admins see this, please change the title to actor, from celebrity.

Paul Walker wasn't at all shocking to me, but I guess it was to others so I'll add him.

I *do* want to keep (and add more) older ones.

While people living now would not remember the older ones, they could still be shocked when learning about the conditions under which someone died.

If it was up to me, I would have put Sharon Tate right on the top, you can't make worse than a young and beautiful pregnant mother being stabbed to death, not to mention that she begged her killer to spare her baby and the last thing she heard is too heartbreaking to be written.

Others suggestions:
- Vic Morrow (decapitated by a helicopter blade during the shooting of the Twilight Zone movie, two children died at that freak accident)
- Judith Barsi (assassinated at 10 by her own father)
- Bob Crane
- Chris Farley

I expect Heath Ledger and James Dean to be 1-2 in this poll.

What about Graham Chapman succumbing to throat cancer at age 48?

I'm on my phone and will update this list when I am in the computer. In the meantime, could an admin PLEASE change the title and intro to match the info in the list? Thank you!

I've updated the list to reflect the suggestions I wanted to add.

Robin Williams

 Typo:

...either due to the the manner of death...

Jen, JFF and it is rather a timely post for Holloween, Jen, have you ever watched a show called "Ghost Adventures"? Well, the paranormal ghost hunting team have of an episode where they investigate the LA night club "The Viper Room" and someone on your list makes an appearance there.

Have two suggestions:
George Sanders and Judy Garland.
George Sanders, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg...
"Sanders suffered from dementia, worsened by waning health, and visibly teetered in his last films, owing to a loss of balance. According to Aherne's biography, he also had a minor stroke. Sanders could not bear the prospect of losing his health or needing help to carry out everyday tasks, and became deeply depressed. At about this time he found that he could no longer play his grand piano, so he dragged it outside and smashed it with an axe. His last girlfriend persuaded him to sell his beloved house in Majorca, Spain, which he later bitterly regretted. From then on he drifted.[21]

On 23 April 1972, Sanders checked into a hotel in Castelldefels, a coastal town near Barcelona. He was found dead two days later, having gone into cardiac arrest after swallowing the contents of five bottles of the barbiturate Nembutal.[22][23] He left behind three suicide notes, one of which read:

Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck.[24][25][26]

[27]

His signature appeared under the message.

Sanders's body was returned to Britain for funeral services, after which it was cremated and the ashes were scattered in the English Channel.

David Niven wrote in Bring on the Empty Horses (1975), the second volume of his memoirs, that in 1937 his friend George Sanders had predicted that he would commit suicide from a barbiturate overdose when he was 65, and that in his 50s he had appeared to be depressed since his marriages had failed and several tragedies had befallen him.[28]"

Judy Garland:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judy_...
Despite profound professional success, Garland struggled largely in her personal life from an early age. The pressures of stardom affected her physical and mental health from the time she was a teenager; her self-image was influenced and constantly criticized by film executives who believed her to be physically unattractive, and who manipulated her onscreen physical appearance.[4] She was plagued by alcohol and substance abuse as well as financial instability into her adulthood, often owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes. Her lifelong struggle with drugs and alcohol ultimately led to her death in England from a barbiturate overdose, at the age of 47.
...
On June 22, 1969, Deans found Garland dead in the bathroom of their rented mews house in Chelsea, London; she was 47 years old. At the inquest, Coroner Gavin Thurston stated that the cause of death was "an incautious self-overdosage" of barbiturates; her blood contained the equivalent of 10 1.5-grain (97 mg) Seconal capsules.[120] Thurston stressed that the overdose had been unintentional and that no evidence suggested she had committed suicide. Garland's autopsy showed no inflammation of her stomach lining and no drug residue in her stomach, which indicated that the drug had been ingested over a long period of time, rather than in one dose. Her death certificate stated that her death had been "accidental".[121] Supporting the accidental cause, her doctor noted that a prescription of 25 barbiturate pills was found by her bedside half-empty and another bottle of 100 was still unopened.[122]

A British specialist who had attended her autopsy said she had nevertheless been living on borrowed time owing to cirrhosis, although a later autopsy showed no evidence of alcoholism or cirrhosis.[123][124] She died twelve days after her forty-seventh birthday. Her Wizard of Oz co-star Ray Bolger commented at her funeral, "She just plain wore out."[125] Forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Hunter believes that Garland had an eating disorder which contributed to her death.[126]

FYC:
Bruce Lee
Dorothy Stratten