Celebrity Deaths That Never Were (... As Legend Describes Them)

[GNC]

Well, they died, but there's a story that goes with their deaths that is highly unlikely. For instance, Mama Cass never died from choking on a ham sandwich, she suffered heart failure, and Elvis Presley didn't die straining on the toilet, he had a heart attack while reading on a chair in his bathroom - not quite the same.

Any others that sound dubious?

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Rumours about Jim Morrison have been cropping up quite a bit recently:

www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19886

See also:

Celebrity Faked Deaths (which might be worth merging with thei thread):
www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8504

And pos. Rock and Roll Myths:
www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20761

 

[WhistlingJack]

Jayne Mansfield wasn't decapitated, the cause of her death was 'crushed skull with avulsion of cranium and brain' - further info (and graphic images) at findadeath.com > Directory > Jayne Mansfield.

 

[WhistlingJack]

Harry Houdini (there's one for the kids...) didn't die of a ruptured appendix caused by a punch to his stomach. He was already suffering from peritonitis when he was struck and he subsequently wrote off his discomfort as being due merely to the blow rather than his underlying condition - further info at snopes.com/horrors/freakish/houdini.

 

[Rrose_Selavy]

Bruce lee -rumours abounded on his death.

-Bruce Lee the "Little Dragon," was dead on arrival at the hospital. Emergency treatment was used to try to stimulate his heart and breathing, but there was no life. Linda arrived with Chow to be with Bruce at the end, but they were too late. How Bruce died is a matter of public record---a brain aneurysm in the vicinity of the cerebral edema, which surfaced in May of 1973. Whether it was present from birth or caused later by a blow to the head is pure conjecture. In any case, he was living on borrowed time with a damaged blood vessel in his head capable of exploding at any moment. The medicine prescribed for him, Dilantin, was not to deal with the problem of edema or aneurysm, but for the epilectic convulsions brought about by the edema. So a cerebral aneurysm claimed him as he slept, unfortunately in Betty Ting Pei's apartment. That Bruce suffered a severe brain trauma two months earlier was known to many people. That a weakness was present, whether congenital or brought about through stress or a hard blow to the head, was a matter of knowledge to many in Hong Kong, particulary in the film industry.

http://home.coqui.net/jlromang/brustor4.htm

 

[barfing_pumpkin]

When I was at school, the playground legend (which we all took as gospel, naturally) concerning Bruce Lee's death was that he was so physically perfect - so 'pure' - that his body couldn't cope with a single aspirin which he took for a headache.

Bloody ridiculous now that I think about it.

 

[Rrose_Selavy]

When I was at school, the playground legend (which we all took as gospel, naturally) concerning Bruce Lee's death was that he was so physically perfect - so 'pure' - that his body couldn't cope with a single aspirin which he took for a headache.

Bloody ridiculous now that I think about it.

The version I heard years ago was he simply had a serious allergy to aspirin. Just an achilles heel in someone seemingly so physically fit.

 

[ignatiusII]

Jayne Mansfield wasn't decapitated, the cause of her death was 'crushed skull with avulsion of cranium and brain' - further info (and graphic images) at findadeath.com > Directory > Jayne Mansfield.

There is a black and white photograph taken at the scene of the accident showing what was purportedly Mansfield's severed head.

It was actually her wig.

Photographers at the scene did, however, pose Jayne's dead poodle alongside her body, in an attempt to create a more poignant death tableau. Sleazebag paparazzi have had a long and sorry history in hollywood (and elsewhere).

 

[Anonymous]

There is always the comedy / disturbing (delete as applicable) story about how Catherine the Great died when her naughty-horse-harness collapsed on top of her. I was also going to mention the story that I remember from being a kid of how Bob Marley died of cancer that he got from kicking a football and hurting his toe but a quick Google reveals that it is not actually too far from the truth. I will settle instead for a story that I heard as a youngster about how Mr T from the A-Team was in prison for killing his own mum and was let out every once in a while to film a new episode of the show. He was then supposed to have died of some sort of bodybuilding steroid related illness. As far as I know, he is alive and well and all of the above was just a weird untruth that did the rounds of our schools.

 

[Quake42]

I was also going to mention the story that I remember from being a kid of how Bob Marley died of cancer that he got from kicking a football and hurting his toe but a quick Google reveals that it is not actually too far from the truth.

I think the urban legend attached to this was that the source of the original injury was Danny Baker (of early 90s "lad" radio/TV fame) who supposedly kicked Marley during a rock stars vs NME journalists football match.

As far as I am aware, this is a complete fabrication although Marley's cancer did begin in his toe following a football injury.

 

[WhistlingJack]

I recall Herr Baker saying on his long-lamented Radio 1 show that he believed he was indeed responsible for the injury which caused the cancer which killed Bob... :shock:

 

[GNC]

I heard that the CIA put a poison needle in Marley's football boot.

 

[EnolaGaia]

When playwright Tennessee Williams died, the initial news stories - citing official claims - blamed it on accidentally choking on a plastic bottle cap that somehow got lodged inside his throat. For example, there's this from the New York Times:

Williams Choked on a Bottle Cap

Tennessee Williams choked to death on a plastic cap of the type used on bottles of nasal spray or eye solution, New York City's Chief Medical Examiner said yesterday.

The 71-year-old playwright, whose body was found Friday morning on the floor of his Manhattan hotel suite, was first thought to have died of natural causes. But an autopsy yesterday found the bottle cap blocking the larynx -''swallowed or inhaled or some combination,'' said the Medical Examiner, Dr. Elliot M. Gross. ...

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/00/12/31/specials/williams-choked.html?_r=2

However, it was subsequently revealed that Williams had died of acute Seconal intolerance, and the bottle cap story was issued to cover up his substance abuse / addiction issues. The official record allegedly cited the drug intolerance, but the bottle cap story persists to this day ...

... Following his death, initial reports indicated that Williams had choked on a cap from a nasal spray bottle. But those who knew him later said he actually died of Seconal intolerance, in what CUNY professor Annette J. Saddik called “kind of a Michael Jackson situation, but not as drastic” during a 2010 talk with the Roundabout Theatre Company.

Saddik said Williams had been taking Seconal – a barbiturate derivative – to help him sleep, and also had been drinking the night he died.

“When this happened, John Uecker, who was his companion and assistant at the time, was still around and told the (New York City) Medical Examiner, ‘Look, people are going to think it’s suicide or AIDS or something bizarre and we don’t know what happened,’” Saddik said in the interview. “So the Medical Examiner, said, ‘OK, he choked on a bottle cap.’ But really, his body just gave up and the eventual diagnosis was intolerance.”

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/02...essee-williams-dies-in-manhattan-hotel-suite/

There was a compassionate cover-up in the 1983 death of Tennessee Williams, says his friend, playwright Larry Myers. “Williams did not choke on a nasal spray cap lodged in his windpipe as reported then,” Myers told us. But, “No booze, no AIDS, no suicide, no murder — what media hungered for! ‘Acute Seconal intolerance’ is what the autopsy report reveals. This has never been reported,” he said.

https://pagesix.com/2010/02/15/tennessee-williams-death-myth/

 

[MrRING]

Jack Nance of Twin Peaks & Eraserhead fame showed up saying he was beaten up and died of his injuries... but it's possible he was never really beaten in the first place as all evidence of it came from Nance himself.
http://www.lynchnet.com/absent/nancepre.html

Ted Healy, the original lead for the Three Stooges and notoriously ill-tempered drinker, got married and was beaten to death in the streets. That is certain, but rumors persist that it was famous celebrities (Albert Broccoli, Wallace Beary who did him in but that Hollywood "fixers" kept the story from coming out. But is it the truth?

http://www.playgroundtothestars.com...ht-ted-healy-was-beaten-up-at-cafe-trocadero/