It's always sad when a celebrity dies, since you kind of feel like you know them. And some deaths are just depressing at face value because they come too early or involve tragic accidents. What's really creepy and bizarre is when celebrities die in really specifically similar ways.
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00:00It's always sad when a celebrity dies, and some deaths are depressing at face value because
00:05they come too early or involve tragic accidents.
00:08But what's really creepy and bizarre is when different celebrities die in really similar
00:12ways.
00:13When two relatively young people died only months apart in the same house, people naturally
00:18assumed something weird must be going on.
00:20But no one has ever been able to prove that the deaths of actress Brittany Murphy at 32
00:25and her husband, Simon Monjack, five months later at 40 were anything other than common
00:29illnesses.
00:30When Murphy died suddenly in her house in 2009, rumors swirled that it was because of
00:35anorexia or illegal drugs.
00:37But when the autopsy came back, it showed she died of acute pneumonia and severe anemia,
00:42and while there were drugs in her body, they were all over-the-counter meds.
00:45Monjack said she had been suffering flu-like symptoms and was tired before she died, but
00:50that was all.
00:51Monjack had a heart condition and was overweight, but when he suddenly died five months after
00:55Murphy in the same house, it was also to pneumonia and anemia, just like his wife.
01:00But some don't believe this was a simple coincidence.
01:02There have been theories that their house was full of toxic mold, or that metal present
01:06in Murphy's hair meant she was poisoned, or that her mother killed them both.
01:10As it stands now, though, there is no conclusive evidence for any of this.
01:14The similarities between the deaths of Edward Kennedy and John McCain, two political heavyweights,
01:19were impossible to ignore.
01:21When McCain announced he was ill, The New York Times even ran an article titled,
01:25Eerie Parallels Between John McCain and Edward Kennedy.
01:28Both were diagnosed with the same relatively rare and aggressive form of brain cancer while
01:33in the middle of major health care debates in the Senate.
01:36Both lived just over a year after being diagnosed, and both died on the same day, August 25th,
01:41nine years apart.
01:43Kennedy announced he had glioblastoma in 2008.
01:46He disappeared from the Senate while he had treatment but returned for a key Medicare
01:50vote.
01:51When he died 15 months later at age 77, McCain gave a eulogy at his memorial service.
01:56Even though they sat on different sides of the aisle in Congress, they were good friends.
02:00McCain received his own diagnosis of glioblastoma in 2017.
02:04He voted against repealing Obamacare days after he announced his diagnosis.
02:09He also left the Senate for a while to receive treatment, but he still died 13 months after
02:13being diagnosed in 2018 at age 81.
02:17But Ted and I shared the sentiment that a fight not joined was a fight not enjoyed."
02:23Natalie Wood's passing is one of the most infamous, unexplained deaths in Hollywood
02:27history.
02:28That's why it's absolutely bizarre that just over four years later, another beautiful actress
02:33met an eerily similar fate.
02:35Both Wood and Carol Wayne, famous for appearing in sketches on The Tonight Show with Johnny
02:39Carson, mysteriously drowned in the Pacific Ocean after arguments with their significant
02:44others.
02:45On Thanksgiving weekend in 1981, Wood was on a yacht off the coast of California with
02:49her husband Robert Wagner, as well as Christopher Walken and the boat's captain.
02:54She was found dead at age 43 in the water on November 29th, which was odd since she
02:59was famously afraid of the ocean.
03:01The captain swore he saw a fight between Wood and Wagner the night before she was found.
03:06Despite this, and the bruises on Wood's body, her death was ruled accidental.
03:10In January 1985, Carol Wayne was vacationing with friends and her boyfriend, Edward Durston,
03:15on the Pacific coast of Mexico.
03:17She was later found floating dead in the ocean.
03:20Like Wood, she was afraid of water and couldn't swim.
03:23It was reported that the last time Wayne was seen alive, she and Durston were having a
03:26massive argument.
03:28Suspicions were raised, but her death was also ruled accidental.
03:31She was just 42.
03:33Comedians metaphorically die on stage all the time, but it's rare that their lives literally
03:39end there, which makes the deaths of Tommy Cooper and Ian Cognito all the weirder.
03:43Both British funnymen suffered heart attacks in front of live audiences almost 35 years
03:48to the day apart, and since comedians often do strange things in their acts, neither audience
03:54thought anything was wrong at the time.
03:56Cooper was performing on the hit TV program Live From Her Majesties on April 15th, 1984.
04:02Millions tuned in to watch.
04:04Cooper was in the middle of his routine when he suddenly dropped to his knees.
04:07Since he was known for slapstick and improv, no one, not even the people backstage, thought
04:11anything bad had happened.
04:13The audience kept laughing.
04:15Eventually, the presenter figured out it wasn't a joke and called for a commercial break.
04:19Cooper was taken to the hospital, where he was declared dead.
04:22On April 11th, 2019, Ian Cognito was performing a stand-up set in England.
04:27He was also known for his flamboyant performances, and he had made a joke about having a heart
04:32attack or stroke only minutes earlier.
04:34When he sat down, put his head back, and started twitching, it seemed like just a funny callback.
04:39Once again, the audience laughed as the comedian died of a heart attack.
04:42After a few minutes, someone finally called an ambulance, but Cognito was gone.
04:47On December 31st, 1997, Michael L. Kennedy, the son of political giant Robert F. Kennedy,
04:53died after colliding with a tree while skiing with his family.
04:56Less than a week later, almost the exact same thing happened to politician and musician
05:00Sonny Bono.
05:02Both men had crazy youths of excess and fame, and both became more serious once they got
05:06older, and then they both met their end the same way.
05:10Kennedy was in Aspen, Colorado with his extended family when the tragedy happened.
05:14In hindsight, it seems obvious someone was going to get hurt.
05:16The Kennedy family had apparently been playing football on skis for generations.
05:21While Michael was an extremely talented skier, that afternoon he lost control and crashed
05:26into a tree, resulting in major head injuries.
05:29Tests to stabilize him failed, and he was pronounced dead at a hospital about 90 minutes
05:33later.
05:34Six days later, Congressman Bono was skiing with his own family in California.
05:37He left in the afternoon to go ski alone, and when he didn't come back that evening,
05:41his family reported him missing.
05:43The ski patrol found Bono in a wooded area.
05:45He, too, had collided into a tree sometime in the afternoon, resulting in massive head
05:50injuries that killed him.
05:52Actors Teresa Graves, Dennis Patrick, and Royce Applegate might not be household names,
05:57but they all found a decent amount of fame around the same era.
06:00Their careers even overlapped, with Graves and Patrick both appearing in episodes of
06:04The Rookies, while Patrick and Applegate both showed up on Dallas, The Streets of San Francisco,
06:09and The Mod Squad.
06:10Unfortunately, their deaths in house fires in Los Angeles also overlapped over the same
06:1412-week period.
06:16On October 10, 2002, Teresa Graves, who starred on the 70s show Get Christy Love, was alone
06:21in her house when a faulty space heater started a fire that caused major damage.
06:26She was found unconscious but couldn't be revived at the hospital.
06:29She was 54.
06:31Just three days later, 84-year-old Dennis Patrick was home with his dog when a fire
06:35started.
06:36Sadly, both he and the dog died and were found next to each other after firefighters doused
06:40the flames.
06:41Royce Applegate appeared in dozens of TV shows and films over his career, but on January
06:461, 2003, less than three months after Graves and Patrick passed, his L.A. home caught fire.
06:52He was found dead at the age of 63.
06:55While heroin overdoses are not unheard of in celebrity circles, the similarities in
07:00the deaths of comedian Lenny Bruce and actors Robert Pastorelli and Philip Seymour Hoffman
07:04make them even more depressing.
07:06All three men died in their 40s, but Bruce was the youngest.
07:09The counterculture comedian was arrested numerous times, including for drug possession.
07:14In 1966, he was found dead on his bathroom floor of a heroin overdose, the needle still
07:19sticking out of his arm.
07:20He was just 40.
07:22Pastorelli was most famous for starring on the CBS sitcom Murphy Brown.
07:26He battled a heroin addiction and was being investigated for his girlfriend's death when
07:30he died.
07:31But his death was ruled accidental when he overdosed in 2004.
07:34He was found dead on the floor of his bathroom with a needle in his arm at the age of 49.
07:39Hoffman was one of the greatest actors of his generation, and while he had battled drug
07:43addiction in his youth, he'd been sober 23 years by 2012.
07:48But that year, he fell off the wagon.
07:50The following year, he went into rehab.
07:52Sadly, it wasn't enough.
07:54In 2014, he, too, was found dead on his bathroom floor of an overdose with a needle still in
07:58his arm.
07:59He was 46.
08:01John Gregory Dunn was a journalist, screenwriter, and novelist happily married to the author
08:06Joan Didion, with whom he had one daughter.
08:09Michael Whitney was an actor unhappily married to the much more famous model Twiggy, with
08:13whom he, too, had one daughter.
08:16And while their deaths happened almost exactly 20 years apart, they had some odd similarities.
08:21Whitney was already estranged from his wife of six years when he sat down to dinner with
08:25his young daughter at a restaurant in New York City on November 30, 1983.
08:30But he didn't get to enjoy the meal, as he suffered a massive heart attack.
08:34He was rushed to a hospital, but doctors failed to revive him.
08:37Twiggy was onstage in a play at the time and wasn't told of her husband's passing until
08:41the show ended.
08:42Dunn was also sitting down to dinner with family in New York City, this time with his
08:46wife at their home, when he died on December 30, 2003.
08:50He also died of a massive heart attack before he could enjoy his last meal with his loved
08:54ones.
08:56Parallels in natural deaths are one thing, but similarities in murder are even more disturbing.
09:01Actor Phil Hartman and NFL star Steve McNair were both shot in their sleep by women with
09:05substance abuse issues with whom they had deteriorating romantic relationships.
09:10And both women then killed themselves.
09:13Hartman found fame on Saturday Night Live and then branched out successfully into other
09:16TV shows and movies.
09:18But his marriage was tumultuous, and his wife Brynn had issues with cocaine and alcohol.
09:22On the night that he died, he and Brynn had an argument over her drug use.
09:26Then Hartman went to bed.
09:28At some point, Brynn got out one of their guns and shot her sleeping husband three times
09:32in the head and chest.
09:33She got drunk, made some phone calls, drove to a friend's house, and then went back home
09:37to see what she'd done.
09:39The police showed up.
09:40Eventually, Brynn locked herself in the bathroom and took her own life.
09:44McNair was married but had a girlfriend on the side.
09:46His lover, Sahel Kazemi, knew he was cheating on her with even more women, so she cheated
09:51on him back.
09:52Two days before she killed him, she got a DUI.
09:55Knowing their relationship was unraveling, she bought a gun and as he slept on his couch
09:59in 2009, she shot him four times in the head and chest.
10:03She then turned the gun on herself.