BCAlum2000

Well, the most significant death of 2020 goes to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Runner ups would be John Lewis, Kobe Bryant and Chadwick Boseman.

It's only August, but we definitely have two contenders for Most Significant Death of 2020 along with three runner ups: John Lewis & Kobe Bryant (runner ups: Chadwick Boseman, Regis Philbin & Kirk Douglas)

From an American millennial (under 40 crowd) standpoint, the biggest name to have succumb to COVID-19 is probably Adam Schlesinger, lead singer of the band Fountains of Wayne, best known for their song Stacey's Mom. That song was probably the most well known song of the early to mid 2000s. I would also add Joe Diffie among the middle aged Generation Xers. He was one of the biggest country singers in America of the 1990s and 2000s. To me, I would say the biggest names are Dr. James T. Goodrich, a well-respected neurosurgeon, and Terrence McNally, a beloved playwright whose best works include Kiss of the Spider Woman and Ragtime.

I still predict 2020 to be a grim year for celebrity deaths. Kobe Bryant was just the opening salvo, and the Grim Reaper is not slowing down... So far the following celebrities have either been confirmed or rumored to be gravely or terminally ill... Alex Trebek Olivia Newton-John Larry King Ruth Bader Ginsburg Sam Lloyd Bob Dole Jimmy Carter Bob Barker Olivia De Havilland Loretta Lynn Vera Lynn Robert Wagner Julie Strain Val Kilmer Eddie Van Halen Billy Connolly Ian Holm John Lewis Rush Limbaugh Bill Cosby (joker) Harry Reid Teri Garr Dick Cheney David Crosby Shannen Doherty Ozzy Osbourne

This is up there with Michael Jackson, Robin Williams, and Prince. Probably the most shocking death at least in the last five years, if not last decade. You gotta understand, in America, this is a HUGE deal. Even if you don't follow basketball, Kobe was perhaps the most influential sports athlete of the couple decades and probably the biggest household name in sports.

While the coronavirus is certainly very serious, the death toll appears to be quite low, and most of the ones dying are elderly or very young children. Of the thousands infected, only 55 confirmed dead so far. Apparently, the fatality rate is only about 5%, so the vast majority will recover. A lot of social media is making references to Captain Trips of The Stand, or the influenza outbreak of 1918, but this one will probably end up being overhyped. Then again, when dealing with diseases, it's better to overhype and to be safe than sorry.

Full blown hoax. While Julie Strain is gravely ill and barely making it, she's still alive. She could dead at any moment though.

Julie Strain turned out to be the victim of a cruel death hoax... However, actor Stan Kirsch, best known for starring in the television series Highlander as Richie Ryan, the protege of Duncan McLeod, is dead. And unfortunately, this is not a hoax...

Grim reaper ain't messing around. Barely the first day of 2020 and we already have a major celebrity death. Although he wasn't a famous athlete, he was just as well known to sports fans as the likes of Michael Jordan and Larry Bird. He served as commissioner to the NBA for 30 years and was seen as the one responsible for transforming the NBA into the global brand it is today. Sports fans are in mourning today.

You beat me to it. First major American celebrity death of 2020!

Yeah, I mentioned those two as the possible shocking young deaths. As grim as this may sound, I've always predicted Britney Spears will die young. Either a suicide by cop ala Vanessa Marquez, or something along the lines of Judy Garland and Whitney Houston.

So true. Especially Leslie Nielsen, one of my favorites!

It's sort of similar to 2010 or even 2012. A lot of deaths, but not really any that were super high profile. When I was going through the 2010 obituaries, I couldn't really think of any names that stood out. I only picked Robert Byrd b/c he was the longest serving United States senator at the time of his death. Though I was also tempted to pick Dennis Hopper, who was certainly the highest profile celebrity death in 2010 (aside from Gary Coleman who received more media coverage due to his untimely death). Ditto for 2019. While we lost quite a few celebrities, not many in terms of trailblazers. Most of the actors we lost for example were character actors and we didn't lose a lot of Hollywood A-listers. That is not to diminish their accomplishments, but in terms of losses in the entertainment business, most were B-grade actors/actresses or were supporting character actors (e.g. Robert Forster, Danny Aiello, etc.). Besides Doris Day, the biggest name actors to pass away this year were probably Peter Fonda, Albert Finney, Valerie Harper, and Rutger Hauer. And Fonda and Harper were the only two were received significant media coverage (though Hauer definitely got the most coverage from social media and among younger people b/c was probably more well known to the Generation X and millennials whereas Fonda and Harper had more name recognition with the Baby Boomers). Speaking of social media, if we go by Twitter and other social media news sites, one could argue that Luke Perry and Juice WRLD were the most significant deaths of 2019 b/c they received the most coverage on social media -- at least anecdotally speaking.

Most significant deaths since 2003 from an American perspective (so don't get offended if you disagree ): 2003: Bob Hope & Katharine Hepburn 2004: Ronald Reagan 2005: Pope John Paul II 2006: Gerald Ford 2007: Benazir Bhutto (runner up: Anna Nicole Smith) 2008: Paul Newman & Charlton Heston (tie) (runner up: Heath Ledger) 2009: Michael Jackson, Walter Cronkite, & Ted Kennedy (tie) 2010: Robert Byrd 2011: Steve Jobs & Elizabeth Taylor (tie) (runner up: Kim Jong-il) 2012: Neil Armstrong (runner up: Whitney Houston) 2013: Nelson Mandela (runner up: Margaret Thatcher) 2014: Maya Angelou & Robin Williams (tie) 2015: BB King (runner up: Leonard Nimoy) 2016: Muhammad Ali (runners up: Prince, David Bowie, Carrie Fisher, John Glenn, Fidel Castro, Antonin Scalia, George Michael, and Nancy Reagan) 2017: Jerry Lewis 2018: George H.W. Bush (runners up: Aretha Franklin, Stan Lee, and John McCain) 2019: Doris Day

2018 was a big year for celebrity deaths as well. We lost President George H.W. Bush, John McCain, Stan Lee, Dr. Stephen Hawking, Aretha Franklin, Burt Reynolds, Neil Simon, Kofi Annan, Barbara Bush, Steven Bochco, Reverend Billy Graham, Dolores O'Riordan of The Cranberries, Anthony Bourdain, Harlan Ellison, R. Lee Ermey, Kate Spade, Mac Miller, and many others. I think though 2018 we had more higher profile deaths. 2016 was the worst year in terms of the number of high profile celebrities who died, as well as all the shocking deaths. 2009 was also a very bad year (we lost Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, etc.)

I too do think 2020 (or maybe 2021) will be poised to be a big year in terms of celebrity deaths. Although we did lose a lot of celebrities this year, most of them aren't really too high profile, and were more second tier. But we've got some big names down the pike that the Grim Reaper is anxious to claim their souls including Jimmy Carter, Prince Phillip, Alex Trebek, Larry King, Kirk Douglas, Olivia Newton-John, Sean Connery, and so forth. I also think we will have a truly shocking death of a young celebrity, and not an "up and comer" type, but an A-lister celebrity who will likely die by either suicide or drug overdose (think Robin Williams or Philip Seymour Hoffman level). I predict that we will see the death of one (or maybe even more) of the following in 2020 or 2021: Lindsey Lohan, Britney Spears (she has been deteriorating mentally lately and sadly I think she could end up taking her own life or suffer a suicide by cop similar to Vanessa Marquez), Amanda Bynes, Demi Lovato (she will relapse and not survive this time around, she won't cheat death twice), Pete Davidson, Tekashi69, Lil' Wayne (or another high profile hip hop artist), and one or two big name celebrities connected to Jeffrey Epstein. I also await Bill Cosby to croak. He will die in disgrace like Joe Paterno.

Here's my preliminary death list for 2020: Alex Trebek Olivia Newton-John Larry King Ruth Bader Ginsburg Sam Lloyd Kirk Douglas Bob Dole Jimmy Carter Bob Barker Olivia De Havilland Terry Jones Loretta Lynn Vera Lynn Robert Wagner Julie Strain Val Kilmer Eddie Van Halen Billy Connolly Ian Holm Bill Cosby (joker)

For the 25 and under crowd, this may be the biggest celebrity death of the year. And if the Twitterverse is any indication, for the Generation Z crowd, his death ranks up there with the likes of Elvis Presley and John Lennon, or at the very least, is on par with Tupac Shakur (that's obvious, given both are hip hop artists) and Kurt Cobain (which makes sense too). It's a generational thing, and Juice WRLD's untimely death is HUGE on the teen and tween crowd and early 20s. Like I said, you'd think it was Elvis or John Lennon who died. BTW...drugs are suspected to be involved in his death

The States are weird. I've seen them provide coverage over the death of a MAJOR star of a television show, and they make such a big deal out of it. Turns out the actor or actress who died had a walk on role with a couple of lines at best. Or maybe had a couple of guest starring roles. Or if I am to be generous, was a minor supporting actor and far from being a "major star." example being Brian Tarantina. all the media made a big deal over his (admittedly sudden and tragic death) and touted him as one of the stars of the hit show The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, when really, he had a minor role at best. He didn't even have a wikipedia page until his death! An even more egregious example is when a few months ago, there was "breaking news" of a major star from The Walking Dead who died. Turned out it was a two-bit background actor who had like maybe one or two lines! The guy was Dango Nguyen. (In fairness to the media, Scott Wilson from The Walking Dead also died fairly recently, and he got quite a bit of coverage.) So yeah, the media likes to tout breaking news over the smallest, most insignificant of events.

Hmmm, didn't think of Ian Holm. He's a good choice. Here is my 20 for 2020. Alex Trebek Olivia Newton-John Larry King Ruth Bader Ginsburg Sam Lloyd Kirk Douglas Bob Dole Jimmy Carter Bob Barker Olivia De Havilland Terry Jones Loretta Lynn Vera Lynn Robert Wagner Julie Strain Val Kilmer Eddie Van Halen Billy Connolly Ian Holm Bill Cosby

In the States, the biggest name to have died in the past month or so... ...is Godfrey Gao, and he only got media coverage due to his young age. And even he's not that well known; people only committed on his death b/c he died so young. The other names I don't recognize, though I admit I am an Yankee not a Brit so it's all a matter of perspective. None of those names mentioned above received any coverage whatsoever in the States.

Who knows?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-7429863/Britney-Spears-reveals-new-brunette-hairdo-amid-family-drama-ex-Kevin-Federline-father.html Britney Spears looks terrible. She has struggled with mental health issues for the past several years and her career has stagnated. One I would keep an eye out. We still really haven't had a major young celebrity death for a while so I predict the Grim Reaper is looking to shock everybody soon. Every year, there is usually 1 or 2 major celebrities who die real young and which shocks the nation. Granted, this year we had Cameron Boyce and Nipsey Hustle, but neither of them are really big timers and didn't make big news outside of their fanbase. Sadly, Britney is off the rails again.

Damn, Grim Reaper missed out on a major high profile celebrity. Kevin Hart survives a MAJOR car crash. He had not survived, he easily would have been the Most Shocking Celebrity Death of 2019 and would have probably been the highest profile celebrity to die this year. Death squandered its opportunity here... https://www.tmz.com/2019/09/01/kevin-hart-car-accident-malibu-off-road-passengers-trapped/

The four high profile celebrities that the media and tabloids are keeping an eye out right now are Larry King, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Olivia Newton-John, and Eddie Money. I am sure there are others, but the tabloids are likely zoning in on those four.