WHEN CELEBRITIES GO TO HEAVEN... BY SANDRA HARRIS.

 

WHEN CELEBRITIES GO TO HEAVEN…

BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

It’s always sad when anyone we know dies, but when celebrities die, even if we’ve never met them in the flesh, it gives us a special kind of shock. It’s usually because they’ve played such a big part in our lives, maybe even in those all-important formative years.

We’ve bought their records and listened to their music and pondered over their lyrics during hard times and difficult years. We’ve been to see their movies in the cinema, then watched them again on television and later bought the DVD, which we then watched until it fell apart.

When someone mentions a specific year, we’ll often be immediately transported back to that magical period in time when we listened to So-and-So’s album to death, or went to see So-and-So’s movie on that fabulous summer’s night when we lost our virginity down by the lake to the girl with the strawberry blonde hair and the braces on her teeth.

I remember being devastated when Christopher Lee died in 2015 at the age of ninety-three. Not only did I fancy him hugely in all the films in which he played Dracula for Hammer Film Studios, but I’d been writing salacious fan fiction about his Dracula character for some time at that point and, not only that, but I’d even sent some of it to his agent, in the hope that she might show it to him and he might like it. Oh, vain hope, lol.

He was nearly the last of his peer group of actors to die, in fairness, but I was upset because I’d genuinely believed that he’d live to be a hundred and beyond. He’d lived a fantastic and adventurous life, he’d served in World War Two in an important secret capacity, he’d acted in numerous films and he’d even made a heavy metal record, so he probably passed away feeling like he’d lived his life to the full, but because I loved him, I felt a bit like he had no right to just up and die on me like that. 

I felt like I had rights to him just because I was a devoted fan, and that’s what can often happen with celebrity crushes. We feel a strong connection to the people we see on our screens or whose music we put in our ears every day, so strong we feel like we own them. They belong to us, the public. I’m over that feeling now, but back in 2015 it was powerful strong…

I had similar feelings of devotion and possession about James Gandolfini, who passed away in 2013 after having played mob boss Tony Soprano in HBO’s hit mobster drama The Sopranos from 1999 till 2007. Mind you, it was Tony Soprano the character I was in love with really, not James Gandolfini the actor, although I’m sure he was lovely too…!

I still think The Sopranos is the best television show ever made, and among the first to elevate television into an art form. Over the years since 2007, as we get better and better at it, drama shows like The Crown have come close, but The Sopranos is still the Daddy of them all.

James Gandolfini was only fifty-one years old when he died, though! He was taken much too young. He could have lived for another forty years. It was just so sad. By 2013, I still hadn’t properly come to terms with the screen turning to black at the end of the very last episode of The Sopranos! Oh, cruel death, you really pick your times. And your subjects. And the manner of their passing. You get the picture…

Also, we see so much of these celebrities’ lives in the media that, when they die, we often feel almost as bereaved as if we’ve lost a close friend, it’s totally mad. Maybe people even get depressed about it, I don’t know. I daresay you wouldn’t go to your doctor about it, though, as he’d probably give out to you for wasting his time with nonsense when he has so many other patients with real, as opposed to imagined, problems that need looking at…! I hate doctors, lol.

I don’t know what happened prior to 2016, but 2016 seemed to kick off a mad spate of celebrity deaths, starting with the legendary Lemmy from Motorhead. I cried for both David Bowie and George Michael, and I still think the world has lost some of its ‘coolness’ since it’s been without the Thin White Duke in particular.

Prince’s death was a shock too, as was Alan Rickman’s, Gene Wilder’s, Leonard Cohen’s, Matthew Perry's and Aretha Franklin’s. Half the cast of the Harry Potter movies seems to have gone up to that great old wizarding school in the sky by now.

Prior to 2016, a quick Wikipedia check reminds me that we've lost Richard Harris (the original Dumbledore!), Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and poor little Amy Whitehouse as well. It’s always worse when they do away with themselves, that’s just so sad.

What's got me started on all this morbid stuff is the deaths of both Val Kilmer (Batman, Top Gun, The Doors, etc.) and Clem Burke, the drummer from Blondie, in the last few days. Actor Gene Hackman also passed away in recent weeks, and the manner of his demise seems to have been prolonged and distressing due to a combination of strange circumstances.

Joey Molland, the last living member of tragic ‘Seventies pop and folk band Badfinger, a band I’ve loved for about twenty-plus years, died recently as well. Freddie Mercury, my hero, has been deceased for thirty-four years. I think I’d die myself if anything ever happened to Kate Bush, my favourite female vocalist and songwriter of all time. I’d also mourn for the sultry little sexpot that is Debbie Harry, and Madonna would be a huge loss to me too.

Acting-wise, I’d be devastated if we lost Tom Cruise, for whom I’ve had a warm quivering soft spot since he starred in Vanilla Sky back in 2002. I’d definitely also cry for Julia Roberts, Cameron Diaz, Penelope Cruz, Kate Winslet and Angelina Jolie, even if they wouldn’t cry for me! 

I also cry buckets whenever one of the last hangers-on-to-life from the Carry On films (I think we’re down to Jim Dale now, good on ya, Jim Dale!) or Hammer Horror films slips quietly away into the next world. We’ll literally never see their like of actor, actress or film again.

My favourite writer, Ruth Rendell, died quite some time ago, sadly, and I think the American government should somehow see to it that Stephen King lives forever, as there are millions of us readers who just wouldn’t be able to handle it if anything ever happened to him.

I’d hugely miss John Cleese (Fawlty Towers, Monty Python) as well, and Michael Crawford, who played Frank Spencer in Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em. They’re almost the last of the old school of comedy greats left alive now, and I think we should treasure them too and swaddle them in cotton wool and bubble wrap to keep them safe.

So that’s it anyway, hopefully while I was writing this piece another well-loved celebrity hasn’t quietly fallen off their perch and slipped away to eternity but, if they have, well then, I’ll say what I always say when a celebrity dies:

‘What? But I was only watching them/listening to them/reading about them/talking about them the other day!’

Or:

‘What? But they were only 19/48/72/103 years old, they had loads of life left in them yet…!’

Just one more thing. Do you think celebrities get fast-tracked to heaven once they reach that big old green room in the sky? Hell, yeah! What would be the point otherwise?