Maybe April Isn't 'The Cruelest Month'

After the death of much-liked TV actor William Windom today, Phyllis Diller yesterday, the quietly iconic Scott McKenzie, then the stupefying suicide of director Tony Scott on Sunday, who ABC erroneously reported as having had "Inoperable Brain Cancer" (he didn't - supposedly), I decided to look into Famous People who have died in the month of August in recent or semi-modern times rather than go all the way back to Marc Antony's August demise in 30 B.C.E.

With what has seemed like an endless series of RIP's this month, along with the August deaths of three of the world's icons bidding an unexpected good-bye in this often strange month (Elvis, Marilyn, Princess Diana), I wondered if it was simply my imagination or are there more deaths of high-profilers at this time of year than any other? Particularly in August rather than June, for example. Finding a concise list was impossible beyond one comprised of music icons and no one else. To my surprise, not as many people have passed in August as I thought, although the list I have put together (missing many people, I'm sure) is full of famous names and several who made an impact on the world in significant ways. It is classic in several forms.

However, it appears to me that the majority of those who flew away to join their loved ones in wherever some of these people have gone, were on the elderly side and hung in as long as they could. In no specific order of death or alphabetizing, if you care to follow The Macabre Trail,  below is what I came across after a tedious search. A few names may not jump out at you if you're really young, but overall I think you may recognize most of them.

Elvis Presley
Gore Vidal
Phyllis Diller
Princess Diana
Marvin Hamlisch
Julia Child
Mickey Mantle
Les Paul
H.G. Wells
Florence Nightingale
Helen Gurley Brown
Babe Ruth
Bela Lagosi
Ted Kennedy
Dominick Dunne
Nick Ashford
Patricia Neal
Don Hewitt
Groucho Marx
Oscar Hammerstein II
Rudolph Valentino
Ira Gershwin
Pearl Bailey
Vivian Vance
Rick James
Cannonball Adderley
Jerry Garcia
Isaac Hayes
Jerry Wexler
Max Roach
Elmer Bernstein
Bill Tillman
Jerry Leiber
Stan Kenton
Laura Branigan
Brian Epstein
Stevie Ray Vaughan
Lee Marvin
Lionel Hampton
Rocky Marciano
Marilyn Monroe
Alec Guinness
Richard Burton
Ida Lupino
Lenny Bruce
Peter Jennings
Victor Mature
Sharon Tate
Gregory Hines
Bernie Mac
Will Rogers
Leona Helmsley
Gracie Allen
Ingrid Bergman
Bernie Brillstein
Calamity Jane
Paddy Chayefsky
Frances Farmer
Louise Brooks
Jackson Pollack
Alfred Knopf, Sr.
Edith Wharton
Andrew Carnegie
Mike Douglas
Eunice Kennedy Shriver
Alfred Kinsey
Truman Capote
Ian Fleming
Merv Griffin
Loretta Young
Henry Fonda
Pope Paul VI
Harry Reasoner
William Windom
Judith Crist

Now you can regale your friends with A Death List For August when the parties become excessively happy and light. You will always be remembered as the one who made them feel The Sads when they thought they were happy, and your reputation as either a Trivia Genius or Party-Downer will seal the deal for your future social invitations.

If you have names of others not on this list, please add it in the Comments section. (Yet another email address I've had for contacting TDFB has gone "missing." Don't ask me why, ask Gmail. Another new address will be up soon.)

Thanks!

Image via: http://sylviafreedom.wordpress.com