Death is always tragic, but when someone who has brought joy and laughter to millions passes
away unexpectedly, it can be especially heartbreaking.
With that in mind, here are some famous comedians who died especially tragically.
During Chris Farley's time on Saturday Night Live, he was in many ways the spiritual successor
to John Belushi.
Both comedians were robust men who could steal a sketch with boundless energy.
And unfortunately, Farley also carried some of the same demons that ultimately ended both
of their lives.
He joined SNL in 1990, and during his five-year tenure, he became one of the show's most celebrated
actors.
His most memorable sketches include the likes of the Chippendales audition and Matt Foley,
Motivational Speaker.
Following his time on the show, he starred with his good buddy David Spade in the films
Tommy Boy and Black Sheep.
While Farley's career was on the rise, his personal life was spiraling from drug and
alcohol addiction.
He returned to SNL to host an episode in October 1997.
He reportedly lost his voice during a dress rehearsal, and was breathless throughout the
live show.
Less than two months after that episode aired, he died of a cocaine and morphine overdose
at the age of 33, the same age and the same combination of drugs that had killed Belushi
back in 1982.
"He was the best.
We all loved that boy."
As one of the original cast members on Saturday Night Live, Gilda Radner is one of the most
important figures in 20th century comedy.
Her influence can be seen in popular TV characters that followed in her wake, like Seinfeld's
Elaine Benes and 30 Rock's Liz Lemon.
After leaving SNL, Radner appeared in a few movies in the 80s, often alongside Gene Wilder,
whom she married in 1984 after the two met on the set of 1982's Hanky Panky.
In 1986, Radner started to suffer from various physical ailments, such as cramping, bleeding,
and weight loss.
During this time, she and Wilder were attempting to have a child.
After visits to multiple doctors and a series of misdiagnoses, she eventually learned that
she had ovarian cancer.
Wilder later recalled that after the cancer was finally discovered, she turned to him
and said,
"Thank God, someone believes me!"
Alas, that sense of relief wasn't enough to help Radner recover from the disease, as she
died in 1989 at the age 42, though her legacy lives on in many ways.
"She gave her name to Gilda's Club, a network of supportive gathering places for cancer
patients, founded by Wilder and others."
As the radical activism of the 1960s led into the 70s, Flip Wilson's variety program The
Flip Wilson Show illustrated how far America had come in terms of race relations.
While Wilson himself wasn't the first African American to host his own TV show, his was
popular enough that it led Time Magazine to refer to him as "TV's First Black Superstar."
He understood his role as a popular Black comedian palatable for a white audience, as
he once said,
"A show hosted by a Black had never been accepted.
I may have been the first Black in the house [for some white viewers]."
In this way, Wilson steered clear of the political turbulence of his time to get a foot in the
door for future Black comedians to be free to discuss anything they wanted.
By the '80s, he'd left show business to focus on his family, though he would also struggle
with drug addiction during this period.
In 1985, he returned to TV to play the dad in the CBS show Charlie & Company, which ran
for only one season.
Wilson would ultimately succumb to liver cancer in 1998 at the age of 64.
Between his explicit stand-up and his successful movie and TV career, Bernie Mac was as diverse
a comedian as he was fearless.
He arrived on the comedic center stage in 1992 when he told a raucous crowd at HBO's
Def Comedy Jam:
"I ain't scared of you muthaf---ers."
Mac spent the '80s working a variety of jobs in Chicago to care for his wife and child
while he honed his comedy routine during nights and weekends.
After his Def Comedy appearance, he gained notoriety for being a no-nonsense performer.
Throughout the '90s, he landed bit parts on a number of TV shows and movies before he
hit it big at the turn of the century in the 2000 concert documentary The Original Kings
of Comedy.
Directed by Spike Lee, it starred Mac alongside fellow comics D.L.
Hughley, Cedric the Entertainer, and Steve Harvey.
The next year, The Bernie Mac Show made its debut on TV.
Privately, Mac had spent decades fighting sarcoidosis, a disease that inflames tissues
and attacks the lungs.
On the morning of August 9, 2008, he went into cardiac arrest and died from complications
of pneumonia.
Cedric the Entertainer memorialized him by saying,
"He was just our comedian.
He was just the black folks' comedian and he was a secret."
Thanks to movies such as Uncle Buck and Planes, Trains and Automobiles, John Candy had a reputation
for being both hilarious and warmhearted.
That easy lovability made his death at an early age especially painful.
He first gained widespread acclaim in the 70s and 80s on the sketch show SCTV.
1987 was a big year for him onscreen, as he starred in both Spaceballs and Planes, Trains
and Automobiles.
The next seven years would see him continue to star in a variety of classic comedies,
such as The Great Outdoors and Cool Runnings.
On March 4, 1994, Candy died of a heart attack at the age of 43 while filming the Western
comedy Wagons East.
He had struggled with obesity throughout his life, and career setbacks had reportedly led
him to episodes of binge eating.
His cigarette addiction and cocaine use were also contributing factors to his fatal heart
attack.
Bill Hicks left behind a massive comedic legacy despite living a rather short life.
He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in June 1993 and died the following February
at the age of 32.
He achieved cult status while he was alive and has since become more well-known and celebrated
following his passing.
In the late 80s, he grew his audience through relentless touring.
He worked in the Houston-based "Comedy Workshop" while a member of the Texas Outlaw Comics.
He drew attention for tackling taboo subjects such as the First Amendment, religion, and
substance abuse.
These subjects limited Hicks' commercial viability in the United States outside of his cult following,
though he did experience some success overseas.
But he didn't get to enjoy that for very long, as he passed away eight months after his cancer
diagnosis.
One of his last appearances was on the Late Show with David Letterman, which became infamous
after Letterman cut the entire set to avoid controversy, which enraged Hicks.
In 2009, Letterman invited Hicks' mother Mary onto the show to apologize and then play Bill's
entire performance.
In a 2001 interview with Penthouse, Mitch Hedberg was asked how he would end his life,
to which he responded,
"First, I'd want to get famous, and then I'd overdose.
If I overdosed at this stage in my career, I would be lucky if it made the back pages."
Hedberg's comedy style was a bit of a throwback, as it relied primarily on clever puns and
quick wit.
Entertainment Weekly once referred to him as "comedy's Kurt Cobain."
Much like that rock star, Hedberg seemed very uncomfortable with his popularity, as he frequently
mumbled his lines and kept his head down and voice low.
Also like Cobain, Hedberg was heavily addicted to drugs, an issue he fought throughout his
life.
Hedberg developed a passionate cult following that would shout out his punchlines before
he could even finish his setups.
Unfortunately, despite all that love, he was unable to overcome a dependency on drugs.
On March 30, 2005, he was found dead in his hotel room from a heroin and cocaine overdose.
Just thirteen days prior, he had appeared on The Howard Stern Show and said that his
drug problem was under control.
He was only 37 years old.
Sam Kinison began the 80s as a former fire-and-brimstone Pentecostal preacher trying to make it as
a comedian.
He ended the decade as one of the era's most successful stand-ups, beloved for a routine
that would've gotten him kicked out of every church in the nation.
He was known and beloved for his iconic scream and explicit rants about various subjects.
In the early 80s, he refined his act as part of the Texas Outlaw Comics, alongside the
likes of Bill Hicks, among others.
Hicks once said of Kinison,
"What I learned from Sam was this.
He was the first guy I ever saw to go on stage and not in any way ask the audience to like
him.
That gave me confidence because then I knew you could just be yourself."
On April 5, 1992, Kinison married his girlfriend Malika.
Five days later, he was traveling to Nevada for a show when he was struck head-on by a
pickup truck.
As he lay dying, he carried on a conversation with seemingly no one.
He pleaded that he didn't want to die, asked no one in particular why he had to pass away,
and then seemingly accepted an answer, as he said, "Okay, okay, okay."
He was only 38.
Freddie Prinze achieved fame at a young age, but he wouldn't be able to enjoy it for very
long, as he died at the age of 22.
Nevertheless, he left behind a significant legacy as a star of the NBC sitcom Chico and
the Man, and also thanks to his stand-up and appearances on celebrity roasts.
In 1979, CBS aired a movie about Prinze's life called Can You Hear the Laughter?: The
Story of Freddie Prinze.
Peter Greenberg, the movie's producer, said of Prinze,
"He never got a chance to think.
He was moving too fast."
By the age of 16, Prinze was already using cocaine and taking Quaaludes.
His big break came in 1973 when he delivered an acclaimed stand-up performance on The Tonight
Show, which led to his starring role on Chico and the Man.
By 1977, Prinze had become depressed and dependent on drugs.
His marriage was crumbling, and he worried about being separated from his son.
On January 28 of that year, he shot himself in the head and then died the next day.
It was originally determined that he killed himself, but his family launched a civil case,
which led to his death being declared accidental because of his hobby of playing Russian roulette.
"In the years to come and in the days and the years, this moment will have passed, and
we'll see Freddie again."
Robin Williams became a huge star by playing such hilarious characters as the alien Mork
on Mork and Mindy and the Genie in Aladdin.
He also had a penchant for more serious performances in films like Dead Poets Society and Good
Will Hunting.
And he was of course beloved for his comedy specials that featured him tirelessly breaking
into an array of various characters like a comedic Swiss Army knife.
But he also struggled throughout his career with depression and drug and alcohol addiction.
He was able to kick his cocaine habit following the death of his friend John Belushi, who
had been with Williams the night before his fatal overdose.
Alas, the alcohol and the depression both remained present for the rest of his life.
On August 11, 2014, Williams took his own life at the age of 63.
Just months before, he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.
Cheri Minns, his makeup artist on Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, one of his
final films, told Vanity Fair that he had sobbed in her arms at the end of every day.
Other people close to him said that he was losing weight and that it was becoming harder
and harder to hide the effects of his condition.
After his death and autopsy, it was discovered that he had Lewy body dementia, an incurable
brain disorder associated with an increased risk of self-inflicted death.
In 2018, his son Zak recalled what his father was like in an HBO documentary about the comedian.
"In so many senses, he was the most successful person I know, and yet, he didn't always feel
that."
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.
Or Text HOME to the Crisis Text Line, at 741741.