Check out 25 unusual celebrity deaths (in no particular order) –



1. David Carradine

David Carradine, the famous “Kill Bill” actor died on June 4, 2009 in Bangkok, Thailand due to accidental asphyxiation.

He was found found hanging by a rope naked in his hotel room’s closet in his room at the Swissôtel Nai Lert Park Hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. He is reported to have died during autoerotic asphyxiation.

2. Claude Francois

Claude Francois, french pop singer and songwriter, died on March 11, 1978 in his bathtub by electrocution.

While standing in a filled bath, he noticed a light bulb that wasn’t straight, tried to straighten it with his wet hands and was accidentally electrocuted.

3. Elvis Presley

Elvis died on August 16, 1977 due to heart attack while sitting on a toilet seat.

He was discovered unresponsive on his bathroom floor.

“Drug use was heavily implicated” in Presley’s death, writes Guralnick. “No one ruled out the possibility of anaphylactic shock brought on by the codeine pills … to which he was known to have had a mild allergy.” A pair of lab reports filed two months later each strongly suggested that polypharmacy was the primary cause of death; one reported “fourteen drugs in Elvis’ system, ten in significant quantity.” Forensic historian and pathologist Michael Baden views the situation as complicated: “Elvis had had an enlarged heart for a long time. That, together with his drug habit, caused his death. But he was difficult to diagnose; it was a judgment call.”

While Presley’s main physician, Dr. Nichopoulos, was exonerated of criminal liability for the singer’s death, the facts were startling: “In the first eight months of 1977 alone, he had [prescribed] more than 10,000 doses of sedatives, amphetamines and narcotics: all in Elvis’s name.” His license was suspended for three months. It was permanently revoked in the 1990s after the Tennessee Medical Board brought new charges of over-prescription.Source: en.wikipedia.org

4. Jim Morrison

Jim Morrison, the famous “The Doors” singer died on July 3, 1971 in a Paris. He was found dead in a Paris apartment bathtub allegedly due heroin overdose. No autopsy was performed because the medical examiner claimed to have found no evidence of foul play.

The absence of an official autopsy has left many questions regarding Morrison’s cause of death.

5. Johnny Ace

Johnny Ace, the famous 50s R&B singer, is reported to have killed himself playing Russian roulette in 1955.

Big Mama Thornton’s bass player Curtis Tillman, however, who witnessed the event, said, “I will tell you exactly what happened! Johnny Ace had been drinking and he had this little pistol he was waving around the table and someone said ‘Be careful with that thing…’ and he said ‘It’s okay! Gun’s not loaded…see?’ and pointed it at himself with a smile on his face and ‘Bang!’ – sad, sad thing. Big Mama ran outta that dressing room yelling ‘Johnny Ace just killed hisself!”Source: en.wikipedia.org

6. Keith Relf





Relf, famous lead siger and harmonica player of Yardbirds, died on May 14 1976 from electrocution, at his home, while playing his improperly grounded electric guitar.



7. Les Harvey

Leslie Harvey, guitarist for Stone the Crows, died on May 3 1972 by electrocution.

He was performing on stage with with Stone the Crows at Swansea Top Rank in 1972, when he touched a microphone that wasn’t earth grounded with his wet hands – electrocuting him to death.

8. John Lennon (John Winston Ono Lennon)

John Lennon, the famous Beatles singer, died on December 8 1980 after he was shot in the back by Mark David Chapman after he and his wife Ono, returned to their New York apartment. He shot him four times.

Earlier that evening, Lennon had autographed a copy of Double Fantasy for Chapman.

Chapman had been obsessed with “Catcher in the Rye”. One of the psychologist claims that Chapman wanted to kill Lennon because he viewed him as a “phony.” Chapman later said that he thought the murder would turn him into a Holden Caulfield, a “quasi-savior” and “guardian angel.”



9. Natalie Wood

Natalie Wood, an American actress, died of accidental drowning after she fell off a yacht. Strangely, there was so much partying, that no one answered her call for help. Her body was found wearing a down jacket, nightgown, and socks.

A woman on a nearby yacht said she heard calls for help at around midnight. The cries lasted for about 15 minutes and were answered by someone else who said, “Take it easy. We’ll be over to get you”. “It was laid back”, the witness recalled. “There was no urgency or immediacy in their shouts”. There was much partying going on in the area, though, and while it has never been proven that the woman calling for help was, indeed, Natalie Wood, no other person ever has been identified or come forward as having called out for help on that night.Source: en.wikipedia.org

10. Sonny Bono

Salvatore Phillip “Sonny” Bono, an American record producer, singer, actor, and politician, died on January 5, 1998 from injuries sustained when he struck a tree while skiing on the Nevada side of Heavenly Ski Resort near South Lake Tahoe, California.

11. Gianni Versace

Gianni Versace, an Italian fashion designer and founder of Gianni Versace S.p.A., died on July 15, 1997 after he was shot by serial killer Andrew Cunanan, on the steps of his Miami Beach mansion as he returned from a morning walk on Ocean Drive.



12. Isadora Duncan

Isadora Duncan, American dancer – considered by many to be the creator of modern dance, died on September 14, 1927 while traveling in a Amilcar mobile in Nice (France) when her large silk scarf got entangled around one of the car’s wheels and rear axle, causing her neck to break.

She was fond of flowing scarves. Her last words before getting in to the car were – “Je vais à l’amour” (I am off to love).



13. Albert Dekker

Albert Dekker, American actor and politician, was found dead on May 5 1968 in his Hollywood home. He was found naked, kneeling in his bathtub with a noose wrapped around his neck that was looped around the shower’s curtain rod.

He was also handcuffed, blindfolded, gagged and had sexually explicit words scrawled on his body in red lipstick. The coroner’s ruling was accidental death by autoerotic asphyxiation.

14. Sharon Tate

Sharon Tate, American actress, died on August 9 1969. She was murdered by Charles Mason “family”.

She was stabbed sixteen times, and “five of the wounds were in and of themselves fatal”.

15. Selena

Selena Quintanilla-Pérez or Selena, a Mexican American singer-songwriter, died on March 31, 1995, after she was shot by the president of her fan club – Yolanda Saldivar.

Saldivar and Selena had a falling out after it was discovered that Saldivar was embezzling money from the fan club. Saldivar shot Selena after she told her that she could not be trusted and turned to leave her in a room in Days Inn hotel in Corpus Christi.

16. Rebecca Schaeffer

Rebecca Lucile Schaeffer, an American actress best known for her role in the sitcom My Sister Sam, died on July 18, 1989 after she was shot point-blank in the chest by an obsessed fan, Robert John Bardo, who had been stalking her for three years.

He decided on teaching her a lesson after he saw her in “Class Struggle in Beverly Hills” in she appeared in bed with a male actor.

(Robert John Bardo)

Bardo had earlier been fixated with Samantha Smith, Madonna, etc.



17. Marilyn Monroe (Norma Jean Baker)

Marilyn Monroe, famous American actress, died on August 5 1962, due to acute barbiturate poisoning from a “probably suicide”.

The last person she is reported to have called was President John F. Kennedy.



18. Brandon Lee

Brandon Bruce Lee, American actor, martial artist and son of Bruce Lee, died on March 31, 1993 after he was accidentally shot and killed in North Carolina while filming the movie – “The Crow”.

During a scene which required actor Michael Massee to fire a pistol at Lee, the blanks from a pistol propelled an earlier stuck bullet in the barrel that hit Lee in the abdomen, lodging in his spine – causing his death.

There seems be a strange similarity between Brandon’s role in “The Crow” and Heath Ledger’s “Dark Knight”.

19. Bruce Lee (Li Yuen Kam)

Bruce Lee, a Chinese American and Hong Kong actor, martial arts instructor, philosopher, film director, film producer, screenwriter, and founder of the Jeet Kune Do martial arts, died on July 20 1973 due to brain swelling.

It had swollen from 1,400 to 1,575 grams. The swelling was reported as a result of hypersensitivity to the muscle relaxant (meprobamate) in Equagesic, a common ingredient in painkillers. Officially, the death was ruled as a “death by misadventure”



20. William Holden

William Holden, an American actor who won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1954, died on November 12, 1981 after he slipped on a throw rug, hitting his head on a night stand and bleeding to death in his apartment in Santa Monica, California.

He is reported to have been alone and intoxicated. Evidence suggests he was conscious for at least half-an-hour after the fall but may not have realized the severity of the injury and did not summon aid or was unable to call for help.

21. Olivia Goldsmith





Olivia Goldsmith, American author famous for her book “First Wives Club”, died on January 15 2004 after complications resulting from anesthesia during plastic surgery.

22. Marvin Gaye (Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr.)

Marvin Gaye, an American singer-songwriter and instrumentalist with a four-octave vocal range – famous for the song “Sexual Healing”, was murdered on his birthday by his father on April 1, 1984.

Gaye’s father fatally shot him after an argument that started after his parents squabbled over misplaced business documents. Gaye attempted to intervene, and was killed by his father using a gun that Marvin Jr. had given him four months before. Marvin Gaye would have turned 45 the next day. Marvin Sr. was sentenced to five years of probation after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter. Charges of first-degree murder were dropped after it was revealed that Marvin Sr. had been beaten by Gaye before the killing.

Source: en.wikipedia.org

23. Bobby Fuller

Bobby Fuller, an American rock singer, songwriter, and guitar player best known for his singles “I Fought the Law” and “Love’s Made a Fool of You,” was found dead on July 18, 1966 in his automobile, which was parked outside his Hollywood apartment.

The police considered the death an apparent suicide/accident; however, some people believe Fuller was murdered. The investigation was botched from the start. The crime scene was not secured and no fingerprints were obtained. A witness also claimed seeing a police officer throw a can of gasoline found at the scene into the trash. Fuller was found with multiple wounds all over his body and covered in gasoline, leading many to speculate that the perpetrators fled before they could set the car on fire. In October 1966, the Los Angeles County Coroner/Medical Examiner’s Office later changed the cause of death to “accidental asphyxiation” citing no evidence of foul play.



24. Amanda Blake (Beverly Neill)

Amanda Blake, an American actress known for the role of “Miss Kitty Russell” on the television western Gunsmoke, died on August 16, 1989 reportedly due to AIDS that she contracted from her husband.

Though her doctor claimed her death was caused due to throat cancer. But her death certificate listed the immediate cause as cardiopulmonary arrest due to liver failure and CMV hepatitis.

25. Sherwood Anderson

Sherwood Anderson, an American novelist and short story writer, died on March 8 1941 in Panama at the while on a cruise to South America.

An autopsy revealed that he had accidentally swallowed a toothpick (presumably in a martini olive), which had perforated his colon and caused a fatal case of peritonitis.