December 25 is the most wonderful time of the year,
but it's also filled with tragedy, as famous pop stars, iconic actors,
and groundbreaking artists and activists have all died on Christmas Day.
In an obituary published two days after he died,
Variety called Charlie Chaplin "the greatest comic actor in motion picture history." Beloved
particularly for his roles in silent films, especially his character the Little Tramp,
he lived quite the eventful life. But he also fell afoul of the communist witch hunt craze
that swept the United States in the 1950s. After that, Chaplin moved to Switzerland, which is
where he died surrounded by family on Christmas morning in 1977. As his widow Oona announced,
"My husband died peacefully in his sleep during the night [...] All the
presents were under the tree. Charlie gave so much happiness and although he had been
ill for a long time it is so sad that he should have passed away on Christmas Day."
Chaplin's health issues included needing a wheelchair and oxygen tank,
as well as losing his hearing and sight and having trouble speaking. Despite this,
his doctor explained that in the end, it was nothing dramatic that killed him,
but rather just old age. He was buried in a Swiss cemetery but would not rest for long.
A few months later, grave robbers stole his body and held it for ransom. He was
eventually reburied in a concrete grave to prevent any further attempted thefts.
"Sir Laurence Olivier called Chaplin the greatest comedian ever."
Godfather of Soul James Brown managed to make almost as many headlines in death as he did
while alive. That's because things that happened, or didn't happen, right before and after he died
on Christmas Day in 2006 were a bit odd. Even a decade after his passing, the doctor who signed
his death certificate thought something was weird. As Dr. Marvin Crawford explained to CNN,
"He changed too fast. He was a patient I would never have predicted would have coded [...] But
he died that night, and I did raise that question: What went wrong in that room?"
On the surface, it doesn't seem weird that the 73-year-old Brown would die while in the hospital,
considering he had prostate cancer and diabetes. Plus, once he was admitted, Dr. Crawford diagnosed
a recent small heart attack and early congestive heart failure. But under treatment, Brown started
to really improve, according to Crawford. So the sudden death was unexpected. And yet,
no autopsy was performed. Brown's daughter Yamma is mum on why, as she once told an interviewer,
"I had my own personal reasons for not doing an autopsy. I don't want to talk about that."
She later reiterated to CNN,
"I don't need an autopsy. That was the day that God chose to take him."
You can't escape the Wham! classic "Last Christmas" during the holiday season. So
it's perhaps a little ironic that singer George Michael died on Christmas Day 2016.
He was discovered by his boyfriend of five years, Fadi Fawaz, who told The Telegraph,
"We were supposed to be going for Christmas lunch.
I went round there to wake him up and he was just gone, lying peacefully in bed."
The official cause of death was "dilated cardiomyopathy with myocarditis and fatty
liver." Neighbors said they'd seen the singer getting ready for the holidays,
but he hadn't interacted with them, with one noting,
"He came to the midnight service last year, but he didn't come this year. He
decorated the garden with Christmas lights so we knew he was there but we didn't see him."
It was thought that Michael spent his last night either alone or in the company of his
housekeeper. In another tragedy for his family, his sister Melanie died suddenly exactly three
years later to the day, making Christmas an especially sad time for their loved ones.
"Absolutely devastated. Devastated."
Eartha Kitt might have been compared to a cat by the press originally because of her last name,
but it was an image she played into. She started her long career in the 1940s as a dancer,
before tackling Broadway, Hollywood, and the music industry. She ultimately built up a great body of
work in all of those fields. But by the time she was 81, she was suffering from advanced colon
cancer. She died at her home on Christmas Day in 2008, with her daughter Kitt Shapiro by her side.
Colon cancer isn't exactly a pleasant way to go, and when Shapiro gave an interview to
Mommy Noire in 2013, she made her mother's death sound quite horrible. As she put it,
"She left this world literally screaming at the top of her lungs."
But Shapiro actually seemed to mean this as a good, or at least characteristic,
thing about her mother, as she also noted,
"Up until the last two days, she was still moving around. The doctor told us she will leave very
quickly and her body will just start to shut down. But when she left, she left the world with a bang,
she left it how she lived it. She screamed her way out of here, literally. I truly believe her
survival instincts were so part of her DNA that she was not going to go quietly or willingly."
Dean Martin is synonymous with a certain type of mid-century cool: dressed to the nines,
drink in hand, crooning away in Las Vegas. It was an unexpected career path, as he dropped
out of high school before trying to be a boxer and then getting a job as a steelworker. But
then his work with Jerry Lewis and the Rat Pack made him a household name. However,
the image he portrayed on stage wasn't his actual personality. For one thing,
he was drinking apple juice instead of whiskey. According to his daughter Deana,
"He was so different from what everybody thought
he was. There was no one who could do Dean Martin better than Dean Martin."
Martin died on Christmas Day in 1995 at the age of 78. He'd been fighting a couple major
health issues for years. His kidney problems had forced him into retirement shortly before he died,
but it was complications from lung cancer and emphysema that would actually kill him.
The drinks he had on stage might've been fake, but the cigarettes were
real. His friend and fellow Rat Packer Frank Sinatra remembered him by noting,
"Dean was my brother — not through blood,
but through choice. Good times and bad, we were there for each other."
"I'll be going to Las Vegas as long as they'll have me."
The Hubble telescope was groundbreaking when it was launched in 1990. STEM careers at the
time were dominated by men, but one of the key people who helped make the famous satellite
a reality was a woman, Nancy Grace Roman. In fact, she was so important to the project that
she was even dubbed the "Mother of Hubble." Unsurprisingly, Roman faced an uphill battle
getting the education and career that she wanted. As she admitted in a video released by NASA:
"I was told from the beginning that women could not be scientists."
Roman also recalled an interaction she had with her high school guidance counselor, who asked her:
"What lady would take mathematics instead of Latin?"
And while getting her PhD, her thesis advisor refused to talk to her for six months. But
Roman prevailed, joining NASA as one of the agency's first employees after it was created,
as the first ever chief of astronomy. She passed away on Christmas Day 2018 at
the age of 93. A year earlier, she was included in Lego's Women of NASA set.
When he died on Christmas Day 1983 at the age of 90, Spanish artist Joan Miro was already a
legend. The Washington Post called him "one of the great masters and creators of modern art"
and gave him credit for connecting the abstract art movements from the early to mid-20th century.
He also influenced the work of other greats like Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. By the time of
his death, Miro already had works displayed in some of the best museums in the world.
In the end, Miro's passing wasn't particularly dramatic. He'd been having health issues you'd
expect of someone in their 10th decade, including heart and lung ailments. Just two weeks earlier,
he'd been in the hospital because of difficulty breathing, and he'd been confined to his bed since
then. But in his old age, Miro was still thinking about the future. As he put it,
"It's the young people who interest me, and not the old dodos. If I go on working,
it's for the year 2000, and for the people of tomorrow."
"I always have my feet on the ground. And my eyes on the stars."
One of the most dedicated fighters in South Africa's anti-apartheid effort was Helen
Joseph. Nelson and Winnie Mandela even considered her to be part of their family. Joseph was also
declared a "listed person," which was supposed to mean that she wasn't allowed to be quoted
in the press, but she continued speaking out regardless. As she once told an interviewer,
"You can't silence yourself."
Despite suffering through cancer and a heart attack, Joseph held on long enough to see Nelson
Mandela finally released from prison in 1990. And in March 1992, just shy of her 87th birthday,
she voted in the referendum to end apartheid. However, she died on Christmas Day that year,
so she didn't live long enough to see Mandela actually ascend to the presidency.
There are plenty of mobsters who are just low-level toughs, but not Frank Calabrese Sr.,
who became infamous as a hitman for the Chicago mafia. He was eventually
convicted of 10 disturbing murders, in which he'd strangle his victims with a
rope before cutting their throats. Even his own brother ended up testifying against Calabrese.
A friend of their family, Frank Coconate, called Calabrese a "unique
individual” and "a throwback gangster" who was "strong as a bull." Calabrese's lawyer,
Joseph "Shark" Lopez, said his client was "quick-witted, smart and street-savvy"
and "always very upbeat." But he obviously wasn't a good guy, as Coconate also said,
"He was a great manipulator. He was very charming. That's what made him dangerous.”
"He said, 'Would you kill? Would you kill for the, for the crew?' I thought for a while,
thought for a- said, 'I can't lie to you. I can't do it."
As Calabrese was convicted of murdering almost a dozen people, it's no surprise that he died in
prison, on Christmas Day 2012 at the age of 75. As his lawyer Lopez explained to the Chicago Tribune,
"Last I spoke with him a little over a year ago, he was a sick man. He was on
about 17 different medications. But always a strong-willed individual."
As for the fact that Calabrese died on Christmas, Lopez thought it was "odd," especially since the
mobster was a religious guy, so the holiday meant a lot to him. Lopez also revealed,
"He always talked about how much he loved spending
Christmas with his family. It was his favorite holiday of the year."
When Yankees legend Billy Martin died in a car crash on Christmas Day 1989 at the age of 61,
there was an immediate outpouring of sympathy from the baseball fraternity. Lou Piniella,
who was friends with Martin and had played for him in the past, told The New York Times,
"He was going to be more involved with the team. He was going to go to more Yankee games,
help evaluate the team in spring training. He was enthused about doing these things.
I got the feeling he was looking forward to managing one more time.”
Yankees owner George Steinbrenner said that he'd spoken to Martin just
a week before and they'd discussed the upcoming holiday, revealing,
"He was excited about it. He talked about how when he was a kid at Christmas, he didn't do much."
Martin and his friend Bill Reedy were coming home that morning from a bar when their car was in a
single-vehicle accident. It's not clear who was driving when they crashed, since Reedy survived
but changed his story, as he said he's been trying to protect Martin, who had serious issues
with alcohol abuse his whole life. Reedy was eventually convicted of driving over the limit.
If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction issues,
help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).