Dead Folks: Celebrities
A look at some of the notable individuals who passed away in 2008.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
He’s best known for associating with pop stars in the 1960s. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi infiltrated popular culture in broader ways, though, with his Transcendental Meditation technique challenging Erhard Seminars Training (EST) in the 1970s as the leading pop-psychology fad. That helped the Maharishi get on the cover of Time in 1975. By then, his biggest acolyte was Mike Love from the Beach Boys. That wasn’t a particularly hip association.
Earlier though, the Maharishi had been hanging out with The Beatles in India. The band members had studied with him in Wales, but the trip to the Maharishi’s home country played a big part in the Beatles mythos, with much of The White Album written during their stay. That includes the scathing “Sexy Sadie,” which John Lennon wrote in disgust after hearing that their spiritual leader had tried hooking up with student Mia Farrow.
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Accounts continue to differ on those charges, but the other Beatles kept speaking highly of the Maharishi in the decades to come. The spiritual leader always maintained an American following, with his Maharishi University of Management prospering in Iowa. His big project for the past decade was constructing Maharishi Peace Palaces in 3,000 major cities, each with “Peace-Creating Experts who will create an orderly influence in the whole atmosphere of the city.” He was raising $1 billion for that endeavor, but the peace palace for New York City is out on Long Island. That’s probably why Manhattan hasn’t gotten orderly yet. (91, natural causes.) —JRT
Lefty Rosenthal
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Not many people live to see their death portrayed on screen. For example, that’s supposed to be Lefty Rosenthal getting blown sky-high when Robert De Niro’s car explodes at the start of Casino. Just like De Niro’s character, Rosenthal survived the 1982 attempt on his life. Nobody was ever prosecuted for the bombing—most likely because Rosenthal kept his mouth shut. He left Las Vegas for Miami Beach the next year and enjoyed a uniquely long life for a guy who (unofficially, of course) ran some of Vegas’ biggest hotels/mob operations. (79, heart attack.) —JRT
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Mr. Blackwell
Richard Selzer left Brooklyn for Hollywood, and ditched his last name to become the notorious fashion designer Mr. Blackwell. He dressed a celebrity clientele with his House of Blackwell line in the 1950s, then retired in the 1960s to cultivate his celebrity status—although he did some work behind the scenes for “The Beverly Hillbillies.”
Blackwell’s role in pop culture began with his annual list of the Worst Dressed Women of the Year, first introduced in 1960. He was slightly ahead of his time. It took a while, but Blackwell eventually found his audience through shows like “Entertainment Tonight” and publications like People. He never said anything particularly daring, and he occasionally confused an actress’ costumes with her clothing. He was also quick to rise to the bait whenever Cher trotted out increasingly moronic outfits. Ultimately, Blackwell died as a pioneer of the snarky celebrity fascination that lives on in hundreds of showbiz blogs. (86, intestinal infection.) —JRT
Yves St. Laurent
On the basis of a few sketches 14-year-old Laurent made for a couture competition in Paris in 1952, leading designer Christian Dior hired the young fellow that week. In 1958, upon Dior’s untimely death from a heart attack, Laurent was thrust into international fame because, remarkably, the founder of the House of Dior had decided much earlier that Laurent would succeed him as head designer. After a bizarre turn of events that had Laurent conscripted into the French army, then placed in a mental institution for radical treatment (including shock therapy), the designer and his partner founded their own house with assistance from an Atlanta millionaire. The Rive Gauche stores followed in 1966, selling prêt-à-porter designs to both the general public and a fairly exclusive clientele previously devoted strictly to YSL haute couture (it is rumored that Catherine Deneuve was the first customer through the door).
A lot of fashion firsts followed: black and Asian runway models, re-creations of Art Deco period silhouettes, tailored tuxedo suits, and most significant, the profits from ready-to-wear exceeding that of the YSL haute couture line. YSL also established a new kind of society figure: designer as jet-set superstar. Decadence, drug dependence, and debauchery at Studio 54 and sundry international hot spots characterized the YSL persona from that point until his decline in health. It was time to pack in the scissors once models were propping up what appeared to be an intoxicated Laurent on the runway. It may have been simple fatigue. With some 6,000 designs under his belt, so to speak, Laurent had certainly earned a retirement. (71, cancer.) —DP
Christian Brando
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The eldest of actor Marlon Brando’s often troubled children, Christian Brando was best known for his run-ins with the law. He spent five years in prison on manslaughter charges following the 1990 killing of his half-sister’s boyfriend. They had scuffled over a gun during an argument about whether the boyfriend had beaten Brando’s half-sister, Cheyenne, while she was pregnant with the boyfriend’s child. Cheyenne committed suicide in 1995 after losing custody of the child. Christian once dated Bonnie Lee Bakley, who was shot to death in 2001. Bakley’s husband at the time, actor Robert Blake, was acquitted of the murder. (49, pneumonia) —ER
House Peters, Jr.
The bald Peters couldn’t have been blessed with a more appropriate first name, considering that he starred in commercials for the Proctor & Gamble household cleaning product known as Mr. Clean, which was also the name of his character in the ads. Often cast as a villain in various acting roles, the muscular, intimidating Peters will instead be primarily remembered for attacking dirt and grime in TV commercials during the 1950s and ’60s. (92, pneumonia) —ER
Sunny von Bülow
Martha (Sunny) von Bülow, an American heiress, spent her last 28 years in a coma. Her husband, Claus, a Danish-born society figure and man-about-town, was twice convicted and later acquitted of trying to kill her. She was discovered unconscious on her bathroom floor in 1980, and she never regained consciousness. Claus divorced Sunny in 1988 and currently lives in London. He and Sunny had discussed divorce, but it was noted at his trial that a divorce would have deprived him of the $14 million he stood to inherit from Sunny’s will when she died, instead leaving him with a paltry $120,000 a year. (76) —ER
Dock Ellis
Former Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis always claimed he was under the influence of LSD when he pitched a no-hitter against the San Diego Padres in 1970. Ellis, who eventually founded an anti-drug program in Los Angeles, said he didn’t know the Pirates had a game that day, much less that he was scheduled to pitch. He picks up the story in an interview that was published in Lysergic World in 1993: “I was in Los Angeles, and the team was playing in San Diego, but I didn’t know it. I had taken LSD . . . I thought it was an off-day, that’s how come I had it in me. I took the LSD at noon.” His girlfriend, who had also taken acid, was reading the newspaper and shouted, “Dock, you’re pitching today!”
“That’s when it cost $9.50 to fly to San Diego,” Ellis remembered. “She got me to the airport at 3:30. I got there at 4:30, and the game started at 6:05 p.m. It was a twilight-night doubleheader. I can only remember bits and pieces of the game. I was psyched. I had a feeling of euphoria. I was zeroed in on the [catcher's] glove, but I didn’t hit the glove too much. I remember hitting a couple of batters and the bases were loaded two or three times. . . . The ball was small sometimes, the ball was large sometimes, sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I didn’t. Sometimes I tried to stare the hitter down and throw while I was looking at him. I chewed my gum until it turned to powder.” Ellis reportedly talked the Pirates’ catcher into putting red reflective tape on his catcher’s mitt to provide him with a target. (63, cirrhosis of the liver) —ER
Bobby Fischer
It’s hard to believe now, but Bobby Fischer was front-page news while competing in the World Chess Championship of 1972. All of America got chess fever during his climactic match with the Soviet Union’s Boris Spassky. City parks were soon littered with players on the benches, and there was a great episode of “Columbo” with Laurence Harvey as a homicidal chess master.
As it turned out, America deserved a better chess hero. Fischer was a brilliant player, but he grew increasingly unstable in his daily life. He refused to defend his title in 1975, gave up competitive matches until a 1992 rematch with Spassky (Fischer won), and lived all over the world while making increasingly loony statements. His anti-Semitism reached a dizzy climax after 9/11, with Fischer cheering the terrorists while calling on the U.S. military to take power and “arrest all the Jews.”
He wasn’t too crazy about other chess players, either. He might be best remembered for creating the popular Fischer Clock that provides a time limit for players’ moves. (64, renal failure.) —JRT
Richard Fortman
Fortman was the world’s foremost checkers champion, writing the essential book Basic Checkers, among several others about the game. Fortman was renowned for winning games blindfolded, as well as effortlessly winning while playing up to 100 matches at the same time. (93, natural causes) —ER