Pete Duel-(Alias Smith and Jones)

Freddie Prinze

John Lennon

Freddie Mercury

JFK Jr.

Whitney Houston

Michael Jackson

Robin Williams

I'm not as old as some here. So, I don't remember alot of the big stars that I actually loved dying. Until 03 when Ritter died. That was the first time I broke down and cried at a celeb death.

So, list time...

John Ritter

Elliott Smith

Phillip Seymour Hoffman

Robin Williams

That's it. I'm not attached or a superfan of most celebs. But, the few I did love. When they passed it gutted me. Especially RW's.

James Garner's death hit me hard, b/c he embodied so many traits I wish I could possess.

Princess Di hit me. I was glued to the TV for a week watching the events unfold. Not sure why really, but it resonated for me.

Recently Ann B Davis. Robert Reed has been dead 20 years but he didn't die of old age like Ann did. That made me very sad.

Princess Diana

Michael Jackson

Whitney Houston

Donna Summer

Mostly because these deaths were all so sudden and unexpected.

The only time I cried was Michael Jackson and it's because I thought of how tortured and isolated his short life was. He never got to have a life.

Edited August 13, 201411 yr by Eric83

Aaliyah

Andy Griffith. I knew he was older (obviously) and that eventually he was going to go, but when he actually died, that was the signal that most of TAGS cast (and that show is probably the one I have the earliest memories of watching) is now gone. There are a few left, but not many.

Shari Lewis' death in 1998 made me really sad. I loved Lamb Chop so much.

John Ritter's death, like Golden Duck said, was so sad because it was so out of left field, and it shared the spotlight with the death of Johnny Cash, who died at about the same time.

Elizabeth Edwards. She deserved SO much better at the end of her life, to put it mildly, I'll admit I cried for her.

And if I had been alive at the time, the deaths of Dominique Dunne, Heather O'Rourke, Judith Barsi, and Rebecca Schaeffer. All gone too soon.

John Lennon probably hit me the hardest. I was a teenager and The Beatles were a generation before me but I had the albums. He was senselessly murdered just as he was "Starting Over." I live in NYC. I heard about it the following morning when my mother woke me up for school. I remember crying on the way. My mom and I also went to the vigil in Central Park that weekend. And they kept playing that song on the radio....something that was meant to be optimistic and full of hope turned into a tragic, painful reminder.

Truth be told, I never thought Chapman would have lasted in prison this long. I half expected that another inmate would have done him in by now, a la Dahmer.

Edited August 17, 201411 yr by applcin

I'm dating myself big time here but the first celebrity death that ever really gut punched me was Gene Kelly. My dad and I used to watch MGM musicals all the time so I've loved him my whole life. I remember that I was at a work lunch at a riverfront restaurant/bar and while my boss droned on, I began to watch one of the TVs on the wall and that's when I saw the breaking news that Gene Kelly had died. It was like losing a small piece of my dad. It was all I could do not to cry and/or vomit.

A more recent one was the writer David Rakoff. I've loved his work for years. His writing pretty much singlehandedly got me through more Christmases than I can count. (Christmas is a tough time for me.) I knew that his cancer was back but somehow his death was still a shock.

Michael Jackson because I loved him my whole life and also because it broke my heart to realize he was a drug addict.

Here are two I forgot:

Fred Rogers. He died literally the day before my 14th birthday. Broke my heart.

Don Knotts. He died two days before my 17th birthday. Again, the TAGS cast slowly fading away.

John Ritter and Johnny Cash passed either the same day or a day apart in September 2003. I just remember being so shocked about John Ritter because it seemed to come out of nowhere, whereas Johnny Cash had been in poor health for quite some time and June had passed away only four months previously.

But as much of a shock as John Ritter's passing was, it was of natural causes and happened while he was on the job (taping an ep of 8SR). Robin Williams' death was shocking in the sense of yes, he was still pretty young at 63 and always seemed full of energy, but that he was suffering from depression so bad that he took his own life - I think that's what makes it even more shocking.

The deaths of Peter Deuel, Freddie Prinze, Donny Hathaway, etc. were all before I was born, so I can't comment on whether or not they were shocking. I was a year old when John Lennon was assassinated, so I can't comment on that, either. In the cases of Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston, I was shocked but not surprised, given their issues with substance abuse and surrounding themselves with yes-people (and in Whitney's case, Bobby Brown).

So I would call Robin Williams' passing the most shocking. I never would have seen it coming.

Madeline Kahn, Gilda Radner and Eileen Brennan are at the top of my list. They were three of the funniest people ever, bar none.

Robin Williams and John Ritter are close behind.

As a kid, I idolized River Phoenix and his immense talent, so when he died it affected me big time.

Yeah, I was about 14 when River Phoenix died and it was indeed shocking - he had so much talent and was so young. Ditto for Heath Ledger (who was born the same year I was).

Amy Winehouse

Aaliyah

Deaths of people who were on the brink of great careers.