If Only They Had Lived Longer
by evenifthereisnotomorrow | created - 29 Oct 2012 | updated - 02 Dec 2013 | PublicI'm sorry they died too young
1. Heath Ledger
Actor | Brokeback Mountain
When hunky, twenty-year-old heart-throb Heath Ledger first came to the attention of the public in 1999, it was all too easy to tag him as a "pretty boy" and an actor of little depth. He spent several years trying desperately to sway this image, but this was a double-edged sword. His work comprised ...
Date of Birth
4 April 1979, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Date of Death
22 January 2008, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA (accidental overdose of prescription drugs)
2. River Phoenix
Actor | My Own Private Idaho
River Phoenix was born River Jude Bottom in Madras, Oregon. His mother, Arlyn (Dunetz), a Bronx-born secretary, and his father, John Bottom, a carpenter, met in California in 1968. They worked as itinerant fruit pickers, and later joined the Children of God religious group (John was originally ...
Date of Birth
23 August 1970, Madras, Oregon, USA
Date of Death
31 October 1993, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA (drug-induced heart failure)
3. Brittany Murphy
Actress | Clueless
Brittany Murphy was born Brittany Anne Bertolotti on November 10, 1977 in Atlanta, Georgia, to Sharon Kathleen Murphy and Angelo Joseph Bertolotti. Her father's ancestry is Italian, and her mother is of Irish and Slovak descent. Her father moved the family back to Edison, New Jersey as a native New...
Date of Birth
10 November 1977, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Date of Death
20 December 2009, Los Angeles, California, USA (pneumonia, anemia and drug intoxication)
4. Patrick Swayze
Actor | Dirty Dancing
Patrick Wayne Swayze was born on August 18, 1952 in Houston, Texas, to Patsy Swayze (née Yvonne Helen Karnes), a choreographer, and Jesse Wayne Swayze, a chemical plant engineer draftsman. His mother owned a dance school in Houston, where Patrick was also a student. His father passed away in 1982. ...
Date of Birth
18 August 1952, Houston, Texas, USA
Date of Death
14 September 2009, Los Angeles, California, USA (pancreatic cancer)
5. Tony Scott
Producer | Domino
Tony Scott was a British-born film director and producer. He was the youngest of three brothers, one of whom is fellow film director Ridley Scott. He was born in North Shields, Northumberland, England to parents Jean and Colonel Francis Percy Scott. As a result of his father's career in the British...
Date of Birth
21 June 1944, North Shields, Northumberland, England, UK
Date of Death
19 August 2012, San Pedro, California, USA (suicide)
6. Bernie Mac
Actor | The Bernie Mac Show
Bernard Jeffrey McCollough was born in 1957 in Chicago, the son of Mary McCullough and Jeffery Harrison. He grew up in the city, in a rougher neighborhood than most others, with a large family living under one roof. This situation provided him with a great insight into his comedy, as his family, ...
Date of Birth
5 October 1957, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Date of Death
9 August 2008, Chicago, Illinois, USA (complications from pneumonia)
7. John Lennon
Actor | A Hard Day's Night
John Winston (later Ono) Lennon was born on October 9, 1940, in Liverpool, England, to Julia Lennon (née Stanley) and Alfred Lennon, a merchant seaman. He was raised by his mother's older sister Mimi Smith. In the mid-1950s, he formed his first band, The Quarrymen (after Quarry Bank High School, ...
Date of Birth
9 October 1940, Liverpool, Lancashire, England, UK
Date of Death
8 December 1980, New York City, New York, USA (murdered by gunshot)
8. Elvis Presley
Soundtrack | Girls! Girls! Girls!
Elvis Aaron Presley was born on January 8, 1935 in East Tupelo, Mississippi, to Gladys Presley (née Gladys Love Smith) and Vernon Presley (Vernon Elvis Presley). He had a twin brother who was stillborn. In 1948, Elvis and his parents moved to Memphis, Tennessee where he attended Humes High School. ...
Date of Birth
8 January 1935, Tupelo, Mississippi, USA
Date of Death
16 August 1977, Memphis, Tennessee, USA (cardiac arrhythmia)
9. Brad Renfro
Actor | The Client
Brad Renfro was born on July 25, 1982 in Knoxville, Tennessee, to Angela Denise McCrory and Mark Renfro, a factory worker. He was discovered at age 10 by director Joel Schumacher and was cast in the motion picture The Client (1994), which starred Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones. Although this ...
Date of Birth
25 July 1982, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
Date of Death
15 January 2008, Los Angeles, California, USA (heroin overdose)
10. Dana Plato
Actress | Diff'rent Strokes
Dana Michelle Plato was born in Maywood, California, on Saturday, November 7, 1964. Her first excursion into the film world occurred when she was 11 in the television film Beyond the Bermuda Triangle (1975). Dana never made an impact on the TV screen until she landed the role of Kimberly Drummond ...
Date of Birth
7 November 1964, Maywood, California, USA
Date of Death
8 May 1999, Moore, Oklahoma, USA (suicide by overdose)
11. Bridgette Andersen
Actress | Savannah Smiles
Bridgette Andersen was born on July 11, 1975 to Frank Glass and Teresa Andersen in Inglewood, California and grew up in Malibu. She always considered it good luck to have her birthday read as 7-11 rather than as July 11th. She would always kiss the first two fingers on her right hand and then touch...
Date of Birth
11 July 1975, Inglewood, California, USA
Date of Death
18 May 1997, Los Angeles, California, USA (accidental overdose of alcohol & drugs)
12. Judy Garland
Actress | The Wizard of Oz
One of the brightest, most tragic movie stars of Hollywood's Golden Era, Judy Garland was a much-loved character whose warmth and spirit, along with her rich and exuberant voice, kept theatre-goers entertained with an array of delightful musicals.
She was born Frances Ethel Gumm on 10 June 1922 in ...
Date of Birth
10 June 1922, Grand Rapids, Minnesota, USA
Date of Death
22 June 1969, Chelsea, London, England, UK (accidental barbiturate overdose)
13. Tupac Shakur
Actor | Juice
Born in New York City, Tupac grew up primarily in Harlem. In 1984, his family moved to Baltimore, Maryland where he became good friends with Jada Pinkett Smith. His family moved again in 1988 to Oakland, California. His first breakthrough in music came in 1991 as a member of the group Digital ...
Date of Birth
16 June 1971, East Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA
Date of Death
13 September 1996, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (homicide)
14. Brandon Lee
Actor | The Crow
Born on February 1, 1965 to Bruce Lee (Martial Arts idol) and Linda Lee Cadwell. Brother to Shannon Lee. In 1970-71, they moved to Hong Kong, where Brandon lived until age eight, becoming fluent in Cantonese. By the time he was able to walk, he was already involved in learning about martial arts ...
Date of Birth
1 February 1965, Oakland, California, USA
Date of Death
31 March 1993, Wilmington, North Carolina, USA (accidental gunshot wound from faulty prop revolver)
15. Aaliyah
Soundtrack | Romeo Must Die
Talented. Beautiful. Modest. These three words described R&B singer-turned-actress Aaliyah perfectly.
Aaliyah Dana Haughton was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Diane (Hankerson) and Michael Haughton. Her uncle was music manager Barry Hankerson and her brother is director Rashad Haughton. Aaliyah was ...
Date of Birth
16 January 1979, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
Date of Death
25 August 2001, Marsh Harbour, Abaco Island, Bahamas (airplane crash)
16. Kurt Cobain
Soundtrack | The Batman
Kurt Cobain was born on February 20 1967, in Aberdeen, Washington. Kurt and his family lived in Hoquiam for the first few months of his life then later moved back to Aberdeen, where he had a happy childhood until his parents divorced. The divorce left Kurt's outlook on the world forever scarred. He...
Date of Birth
20 February 1967, Aberdeen, Washington, USA
Date of Death
5 April 1994, Seattle, Washington, USA (suicide by gunshot)
17. Whitney Houston
Soundtrack | The Bodyguard
Whitney Elizabeth Houston was born into a musical family on 9 August 1963, in Newark, New Jersey, the daughter of gospel star Cissy Houston (née Emily Lee Drinkard) and John Russell Houston, Jr., and cousin of singing star Dionne Warwick.
She began singing in the choir at her church, The New Hope ...
Date of Birth
9 August 1963, Newark, New Jersey, USA
Date of Death
11 February 2012, Beverly Hills, California, USA (accidental drowning caused by heart disease and cocaine use)
18. Bruce Lee
Actor | Jing wu men
Bruce Lee remains the greatest icon of martial arts cinema and a key figure of modern popular media. Had it not been for Bruce Lee and his movies in the early 1970s, it's arguable whether or not the martial arts film genre would have ever penetrated and influenced mainstream North American and ...
Date of Birth
27 November 1940, San Francisco, California, USA
Date of Death
20 July 1973, Hong Kong (cerebral edema)
19. Bob Marley
Soundtrack | I Am Legend
Bob Marley was born on February 6, 1945, in Nine Miles, Saint Ann, Jamaica, to Norval Marley and Cedella Booker. His father was a Jamaican of English descent. His mother was a black teenager. The couple were married in 1944 but Norval left for Kingston immediately after. Norval died in 1957, seeing...
Date of Birth
6 February 1945, Nine Miles, St. Ann, Jamaica
Date of Death
11 May 1981, Miami, Florida, USA (Metastatic skin cancer)
20. Martin Luther King
Soundtrack | Freedom Writers
Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. He was the son of Alberta Christine (Williams), a schoolteacher, and Martin Luther King Sr. a pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. For Martin the civil rights movement began one summer in 1935 when he was six ...
Date of Birth
15 January 1929, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Date of Death
4 April 1968, Memphis, Tennessee, USA (assassination by gunshot)
21. Marilyn Monroe
Actress | Some Like It Hot
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, comedienne, singer, and model. Monroe is of English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh descent. She became one of the world's most enduring iconic figures and is remembered both for her winsome embodiment of the Hollywood sex symbol and her tragic personal and ...
Date of Birth
1 June 1926, Los Angeles, California, USA
Date of Death
5 August 1962, Los Angeles, California, USA (drug overdose)
22. Buddy Holly
Soundtrack | Big Fish
Charles Hardin Holley, known as Buddy Holly, was an American singer and songwriter who was a central and pioneering figure of mid-1950s rock and roll. He was born in Lubbock, Texas, to a musical family during the Great Depression, and learned to play guitar and sing alongside his siblings. His ...
Date of Birth
7 September 1936, Lubbock, Texas, USA
Date of Death
3 February 1959, Clear Lake, Iowa, USA (plane crash)
23. Anna Nicole Smith
Actress | Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult
Anna Nicole Smith was born on November 28, 1967 in Houston, Texas, USA. She was an actress and producer, known for Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994), Be Cool (2005) and Illegal Aliens (2007). She was married to J. Howard Marshall II and Billy Smith. She died on February 8, 2007 in Hollywood...
Date of Birth
28 November 1967, Houston, Texas, USA
Date of Death
8 February 2007, Hollywood, Florida, USA (accidental prescription drug overdose)
24. James Dean
Actor | East of Eden
James Byron Dean was born February 8, 1931 in Marion, Indiana, to Mildred Marie (Wilson) and Winton A. Dean, a farmer turned dental technician. His mother died when Dean was nine, and he was subsequently raised on a farm by his aunt and uncle in Fairmount, Indiana. After grade school, he moved to ...
Date of Birth
8 February 1931, Marion, Indiana, USA
Date of Death
30 September 1955, Cholame, California, USA (car accident)
25. Christopher Reeve
Actor | Superman
Christopher D'Olier Reeve was born September 25, 1952, in New York City, to journalist Barbara Johnson (née Barbara Pitney Lamb) and writer/professor F.D. Reeve (Franklin D'Olier Reeve). He came from an upper-class family; his paternal grandfather was CEO of Prudential Financial, and one of his ...
Date of Birth
25 September 1952, New York City, New York, USA
Date of Death
10 October 2004, Mount Kisco, New York, USA (heart failure)
26. The Notorious B.I.G.
Soundtrack | Fast X
Christopher Wallace, a.k.a. Biggie Smalls, was born on May 21, 1972 in Brooklyn, New York. He was the son of Jamaican parents, Voletta Wallace, a pre-school teacher, and Selwyn George Latore, a welder and small-time politician. He was raised in the poor Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant. ...
Date of Birth
21 May 1972, Brooklyn, New York, USA
Date of Death
9 March 1997, Los Angeles, California, USA (homicide)
27. Andy Kaufman
Actor | Taxi
Referred to by some as a dadaistic comedian, Andy Kaufman took comedy and performance art to the edges of irrationality and blurred the dividing line between reality and imagination. Born in New York City on January 17, 1949, the first son of Stanley and Janice Kaufman, Andy grew up on New York in ...
Date of Birth
17 January 1949, New York City, New York, USA
Date of Death
16 May 1984, Los Angeles, California, USA (lung cancer)
28. Jean Harlow
Actress | China Seas
Harlean Carpenter, who later became Jean Harlow, was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on March 3, 1911. She was the daughter of a successful dentist and his wife. In 1927, at the age of 16, she ran away from home to marry a young businessman named Charles McGrew, who was 23. The couple pulled up ...
Date of Birth
3 March 1911, Kansas City, Missouri, USA
Date of Death
7 June 1937, Los Angeles, California, USA (uremic poisoning brought on by acute nephritis)
29. Sharon Tate
Actress | Valley of the Dolls
Sharon's early life was one of constant moving as her father served in the military. When she lived in Italy, she was voted "Homecoming Queen" of her high school. After being an extra in a few Italian films, Sharon headed to Hollywood where she would again start as an extra. Her first big break ...
Date of Birth
24 January 1943, Dallas, Texas, USA
Date of Death
9 August 1969, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA (homicide)
30. Michael Clarke Duncan
Actor | The Green Mile
Michael Clarke Duncan was born on December 10, 1957 in Chicago, Illinois. Raised on Chicago's South Side by his single mother, Jean, a house cleaner, Duncan grew up resisting drugs and alcohol, instead concentrating on school. He wanted to play football in high school, but his mother wouldn't let ...
31. Steve Jobs
Producer | Toy Story
Steven Paul Jobs was born on 24 February 1955 in San Francisco, California, to students Abdul Fattah Jandali and Joanne Carole Schieble who were unmarried at the time and gave him up for adoption. He was taken in by a working class couple, Paul and Clara Jobs, and grew up with them in Mountain View...
32. Paul Walker
Actor | The Fast and the Furious
Paul William Walker IV was born in Glendale, California. He grew up together with his brothers, Caleb and Cody, and sisters, Ashlie and Amie. Their parents, Paul William Walker III, a sewer contractor, and Cheryl (Crabtree) Walker, a model, separated around September 2004. His grandfather, William ...
Date of Birth 12 September 1973 , Glendale, California, USA Date of Death 30 November 2013 , Valencia, Santa Clarita, California, USA (car accident)
Tell Your Friends