This past summer, we lost a lot of celebrities, some much more famous than others but they all had different impacts and a lot of people will be mourning the passing of their favorite celebrities.
One of the biggest losses that has affected several generations was Ozzy Osbourne. Shortly after his final show it was announced that he had passed at 76 due to a heart attack.
Ozzy co-founded the pioneering heavy metal band Black Sabbath in 1968 as their lead vocalist; he had adopted the title “The prince of darkness”. He suffered from a coronary artery disease in addition to suffering from Parkinson’s disease for several years. His death certificate was submitted by his older daughter Aimee Osbourne.
Terry Gene Bollea, better known by his ring name Hulk Hogan, passed away only a few days after Ozzy. It was announced that he had also passed due to a heart attack at the age of 71. He suffered cardiac arrest in his home in Clearwater, Florida.
Despite not being the greatest person it’d be wrong of me to not add him to this list because he was widely regarded as the greatest wrestling stars of all time, was in a handful of movies and had won several championships across the world, most notably being a six-time WWF champion.
Malcolm-Jamal Warner, prominent for his role as Theodore Huxtable on the NBC sitcom The Cosby Show from 1984 to 1992. He passed away having drowned in Costa Rica after being caught in a strong current. He had starred in several comedies and other films such as, Malcolm and Eddie, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Sons of Anarchy, A Different World, and Lethal Weapon.
Not only was he an actor, he was also an award winning musician and poet he received the Grammy Award for Best Traditional R&B performance for his contribution to the cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Jesus Children of America”. He performed a poem on that track, dedicated to the victims of the Sandy Hook School shooting, along with the musicians Robert Andre Glasper and Lalah Hathaway.
Val Kilmer was an actor in a wide variety of genres, his most notable and prominent roles being “Iceman” in the original Top Gun, K.I.T.T in Knight Rider, also playing Mark Twain on stage, and Batman in the 1995 Batman Forever. He passed away from pneumonia on April 1 at the age of 65. He had beaten throat cancer back in 2014 that required two tracheotomies. In 1998 he traveled to Iraq with AmeriCares to deliver humanitarian aid, the first humanitarian airlift to Iraq since 1990, he also made several trips to New Orleans to help in the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster relief.
Charles Frank Mangione, Chuck Mangione, was an American musician, trumpeter and composer. He came to prominence as a member of Art Blakey’s band in the 1960, and later Co-led the Jazz brothers with his brother, Gap. Not only was he a musician, he was an actor too, playing a recurring role on King of the Hill as a fictional version of himself. He also appeared in television shows such as Magnum P.I. and Sharon & Lewis.
Anne Burrell was an American Chef, Television personality, and instructor of Culinary Education. Her death was ruled as suicide due to acute intoxication from a combination of drugs, she was found inside her apartment on June 17th at the age of 55. She hosted the food network show Secrets of a Restaurant Chef and was co-host of Worst Cooks in America. The food network has gotten a large amount of backlash due to their post on social media on August 4th promoting the show’s 29th season which premiered on July 28th, the post includes screenshots from the August 4th episode, but no mention of Anne’s death, fans calling it “tone-deaf”.
Connie Francis was an American singer, musician, author, and actress. She was one of the top-charting female singers of the late 1950s and early 1960s, she amassed over 100 million of records sold, placing her among the best-selling musicians of all time. She passed at the age of 87 due to an extensive Hip Injury that led to even more problems. Francis recorded her songs in several different languages including English, Italian, French, German, Yiddish, and Japanese, making her a best-selling artist globally. Between 1974 and 1988, she experienced a series of personal traumatic events which sidelined her career but she resumed performing in 1989 until she retired in 2018. She regained a bit of prominence earlier this year when her song “Pretty Little Baby” went viral on social media.
