Famous People Who Died in 2016

2016 seemed to have more famous people dying than any other year.


Gordie Howe: arguably the greatest hockey player of all time

Greg Lake: brilliant English musician

John Glenn: first American to orbit the earth in a spacecraft

David Bowie: very talented and creative English pop musician

Glenn Frey: rock band The Eagle's founding member

Fidel Castro: long-time Cuban dictator

Arnold Palmer: arguably the greatest golfer of all time

Robert Vaughn: lead actor in The Man From UNCLE TV series

Prince

Merle Haggard

Leonard Cohen

Peter Vaughan

Leon Russell

Alan Rickman

Doris Roberts

Garry Marshall

Muhammed Ali

Garry Shandling

Nancy Reagan

Harper Lee

Ali, Prince and Bowie for me are the big misses for me.

Harambe :-(

Bowie gutted me, I actually mourned him.

Keith emerson as well
Buffin (drummer out of Mott the Hoople)

Prince was my biggest shock.

The death of David Bowie was tough. I have been so close to that music since I was a kid. I bought every new release religiously. It's how I imagine people are when they go to church.

Blackstar was delivered to my home. I listened to it then learned he was dead. I was devastated.

It was an early portent that 2016 was going to be a bad year.

It's not too surprising if you think about it

it was television and radio which created the modern version of 'celebrity'. Previous to that, it was pretty impossible for anybody to become world famous within their lifetime.

Global TV really started in the late 1950's, so people who got on there became the first world celebrities. As it was the only medium for this there were less 'celebrities' than in our internet age, and thus more focus on them.

Naturally, that first generation are now in their seventies and are popping their clogs. The ones that died young were in the minority, so there isn't the cumulative effect we see now of many people naturally passing away at a proper age.

I am therefore not surprised. Statistically we should expect to see more celebrity deaths in the next few years, before the line smoothed out to become more uniform every year.

Victoria Wood

Alan Thicke just died

Keith Emerson

Anton Yelchin

Paul Kantner

Paul Daniels

Terry Wogan

Bobby Chacon

Ronnie Corbett

Andrew Sachs

Pete Burns

Gene Wilder

Victoria Wood

Caroline Aherne

Terry Wogan died once and Cliff Richards is still alive.

American sports reporter Craig Sager just died.

Don't forget Mrs. Brady, Prince Buster, Pete Fountain, Phife Dawg, Dave Mirra and R2D2 aka Kenny Baker :-\

A legend for ageing rude boys like yours truly. Got to meet one of my heroes Dave Wakeling from the English Beat this year and he played tribute to one of the Godfathers of the Ska and then Two Tone scene


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iibpewIA_ik

Rick Parfitt has made a late entry