Death comes for us all, and everyone approaches this potentially complicated time differently.
Here are some famous people whose last, big wish was granted — never
mind the tremendous effort their loved ones had to put in to make them happen.
Tupac Shakur, or 2Pac when performing, was among the most popular and influential rappers of the
1990s. His powerful voice and clever lyrics propelled songs like "Dear Mama," "Keep Ya
Head Up," and "California Love" to the top of the charts. Shakur died unexpectedly and violently,
succumbing to injuries suffered after a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas in September 1996, according
to The New York Times. He was only 25 years old and probably hadn't given much thought toward his
final resting place. He didn't sign any official, legal document, but like so much of Shakur's life,
his notion of how his remains should be handled was expressed bluntly in the lyrics of a song.
About a year before he died, Shakur formed the hip-hop collective Outlawz,
with whom he recorded the song "Black Jesuz," which wasn't
officially released until three years after the rapper's death.
“If you listen to Black Jesuz, he said: ‘Last wish is to smoke my ashes.”
The Outlawz, along with some members of Shakur's family, had a small memorial
on a beach. They ceremonially burned things the rapper enjoyed,
including chicken wings and orange soda. Then they mixed in the remains of that
stuff with the previously cremated remains of Shakur, and some marijuana, and smoked it.
“When your time comes, how long will you be mourned?”
Elizabeth Taylor was known for three things: her terrific dramatic acting skills, getting married
eight times to seven men, per ABC News, and for being a living, breathing vestige of Hollywood's
glamorous mid-20th century golden age. Well into her semi-retirement in the 1990s and beyond,
when her every move and love life development was breathlessly and endlessly covered by gossip
magazines, Taylor rarely appeared in public not dressed to the nines in a fancy gown,
adorned in diamonds with her hair done up. The violet-eyed national treasure ensured
that her final act on Earth, after her last breath but before burial, would be suitably
fashionable and charmingly self-aggrandizing — diva or movie star behavior, in other words.
Taylor died in March 2011 at age 79 of heart failure, according to The Guardian. Her funeral
was held one day later in Southern California, and many celebrity well-wishers arrived well
in advance of the announced 2 p.m. start time. The service didn't actually begin until 2:15,
however. According to CBS News, Taylor left instructions that expressly stated that the
funeral was to begin 15 minutes late, as she wanted to be late to her own funeral.
There aren't many celebrities that captured the collective attention quite like Marilyn Monroe.
Monroe became Hollywood's definitive blonde bombshell and biggest sex symbol,
with showy roles in 1950s movies like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, How to Marry a Millionaire,
The Seven-Year Itch, and Some Like It Hot. Reported details of Monroe's personal life
were just as eagerly devoured by the public, particularly her tumultuous marriages to
baseball star Joe DiMaggio and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Arthur Miller.
Monroe's period at the top of the world was relatively short-lived.
According to History, her body was found in her Los Angeles home on August 5,
1962. A Los Angeles Police investigation ruled that:
"[The death was] a self-administered overdose of
sedative drugs and that the mode of death is probable suicide."
According to Vanity Fair, Monroe had written up a will, however, requesting that all of
her personal effects become the property of influential performance coach Lee Strasberg,
director of the Actors Studio and Monroe's personal mentor. Those various items sat
mostly untouched in storage for years, and after Strasberg died in 1982, they became the property
of his third wife, Anna Mizrahi Strasberg, who began auctioning off Monroe's things in 1999.
Very few hoteliers become celebrities, but then there weren't many hoteliers like Leona
Helmsley. By the 1980s, Helmsley co-owned several of New York's most palatial hotels,
including the Palace Hotel, the Park Lane, and the New York Helmsley,
as well as the Empire State Building according to CNN. That made Helmsley extraordinarily rich,
but that portfolio was severely threatened in 1989 when she was tried for tax evasion. During the
media hubbub that resulted, employees came forward to reveal horrendous treatment from Helmsley.
“Look at these plates. How much do I pay you to be a dishwasher?”
“You pay me two dollars under the minimum wage.”
An ex-housekeeper at one of her hotels claimed the tycoon once said:
"We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes."
After serving several years behind bars,
Helmsley shifted to a lower profile and gave millions to charitable causes.
When Helmsley died at age 87 in 2007, she still had a sizable fortune. According to Slate,
she left $10 million each to two grandkids, none to her two other grandchildren, and a whopping
$12 million to ensure the continued care of her dog, Trouble. According to The New York Times,
Trouble received more than 20 kidnapping and death threats in the aftermath.
Dusty Springfield was gifted with one of the sweetest, smoothest, and most soulful voices
in pop music history, a gift she shared with the world. Her big and bold singles from the 1960’s
performed well in both her native UK and the US. These included "I Only Want to Be With You",
"You Don't Have to Say You Love Me", "The Look of Love", and "Son of a Preacher Man."
Springfield rarely recorded after the early '80s but made a nice comeback as
a guest on the Pet Shop Boys hit "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" Sadly,
Springfield was diagnosed with cancer in 1994 and died in March 1999 at age 59.
The pop legend never married and didn't have any children, and she left her estate
largely to a 13-year-old named Nicholas — her cat. According to the New York Post,
Springfield's will left resources and directions for the proper care of Nicholas. The cat was to be
fed American-made baby food, exported to England, provided a seven-foot-tall indoor treehouse,
and was to sleep on a bed covered with the nightgown Springfield had on when she died.
The will also read:
"[The cat should] be serenaded to sleep each night
by a stereo system playing his master's greatest pop hits."
Jim Henson was a towering figure of 20th-century arts and entertainment. As the creator
and chief creative mind behind the Muppets, he made cultural icons out of expressive
and hilarious puppets like Kermit the Frog and Rowlf the piano-playing dog,
and made classic TV in the form of Sesame Street and The Muppet Show.
In May 1990, according to the Orlando Sentinel, Henson checked into New York Hospital-Cornell
Medical Center feeling extremely sick. According to The New York Times, less than 24 hours later,
the 53-year-old entertainer was dead from a quickly spreading case of toxic shock syndrome
brought on by bacterial pneumonia. According to Jim Henson: The Biography,
shortly after his passing, Henson's children received, via their father's lawyers,
a letter the Muppet master wrote in 1986, laying out his funeral ideas.
He wrote:
"I suggest you first have a nice, friendly little service of some kind [...] hopefully
using the talents of some of the good people who have worked with me over the years."
He asked for Muppet collaborator Richard Hunt to speak, for a few, quote, "happy and joyful"
songs to be performed, and that a Dixieland jazz band close the ceremony with a, quote,
"rousing version" of "When the Saints Go Marching In."
Mere days later, Henson's Muppets staged a memorial service that closely
followed Henson's just-delivered wishes. Richard Hunt delivered a powerful eulogy,
many songs were performed, gathered mourners operated butterfly puppets,
and The Dirty Dozen Brass Band played "When the Saints Go Marching In."
As the creator of the Star Trek franchise — specifically,
the 1966-69 Star Trek original series and the 1987-94 Star Trek:
The Next Generation — Gene Roddenberry was extremely influential on the popularization
and development of American science-fiction. His sci fi stories were often allegorical
tales about the human condition and were filled with optimism about what the future controlled.
“Gene was in love with space, I mean, with the future.”
Understandably, Roddenberry wanted his final resting place to be space. He died in 1991,
and his remains were cremated, according to Heroes and Villains. Getting them into the cosmos proved
difficult. In April 1997, along with the ashes of other celebrities who'd paid for the privilege,
a portion of Roddenberry's ashes were loaded onto the Pegasus-XL rocket, which shot them
into Earths' orbit. More of Roddenberry's ashes were scheduled to hit space on another memorial
spaceflight in 2014, along with the ashes of Star Trek actor James Doohan who played Scotty.
The name "Del Close" might not be familiar, but his legacy and influence on comedy are
tremendous. According to the Independent, he was influential in the style and evolution of
several live comedy theaters like Second City and ImprovOlympic, training grounds
for masters like Bill Murray, Mike Myers, Chris Farley, John Belushi, and Amy Poehler.
Close appreciated anarchy, mischief, and darkness in comedy, and his last will and testament
included a wish that reflected his personality. According to the Chicago Tribune, Close died at
age 64 in March 1999, and four months later, his professional partner, Charna Halpern,
conducted a public ceremony at ImprovOlympic, as laid out in Close's will. Close’s preserved skull
was set out on a velvet pillow and officially left to Chicago's Goodman Theatre. His wish
was for the theatre to use it in a production of William Shakespeare's Hamlet, as Yorick, the skull
of an old friend that the title character holds up while reflecting in a graveyard.
“Whose was it?”
“A whoreson mad fellow’s it was.”
Known in his lifetime as Bill W., Bill Wilson founded Alcoholics Anonymous in the 1930s,
establishing a 12-step program to help himself — and an estimated two million
people — to break a devastating addiction to alcohol. Wilson himself struggled with
cravings for alcohol for his entire life, after decades of recovery. When he died at age 75
in January 1971, according to The New York Times, he hadn't had a drink in more than 35 years.
During the last weeks of his life, bed-bound due to the effects of emphysema,
hospital logs shared with The Washington Post in 2004 stated that on Christmas Day 1970:
"[Wilson] asked for three shots of whiskey."
His nurse denied the request, which reportedly
upset Wilson. He died less than two weeks later, never getting that final drink.
Ted Williams was an undeniably great baseball player. Suiting up for the Boston Red Sox for
every year of his 19 season career, Williams was a 19-time All-Star, two-time American League MVP,
a Baseball Hall of Famer, and the last man to hit .400 in a single season.
Three years after writing his will, Williams — along with his other two children—
signed a document expressing the desire to be placed in biostasis upon death. Biostasis
is another word for cryogenic freezing, a cutting-edge scientific procedure in
which the body is frozen in chemicals in the hope that it can one day be revived.
And that's what became of Ted Williams' body. Right after he died in July 2002,
his corpse was whisked to the Arizona headquarters of cryonics firm
Alcor Life Extension Foundation, where his head was separated from
his body and then preserved in steel containers filled with liquid nitrogen.
In the early 20th century, Harry Houdini was one of the most popular entertainers in America. His
vaudeville act featured illusions, magic tricks, and death-defying stunts that baffled audiences.
According to Biography, Houdini would be handcuffed or contained to a straightjacket
and then locked inside tanks full of water or other confined spaces,
and he'd somehow find his way out, seemingly barely cheating death each time. His secret:
He was an expert at both lock-picking and hiding lock-picking gear on his person.
Although Houdini tried to expose phony psychics and call out performers who claimed to have a
link with the supernatural, he and his wife, Bess, developed a keen interest in "spiritualism," the
1900s term for attempting to communicate with the dead. The couple had a pact: Whoever died
first would attempt to communicate with the surviving spouse from beyond the great beyond.
It came to pass that Harry Houdini died first, on Halloween 1926. And so, during the following
anniversaries of her husband's death, according to Mental Floss, Bess Houdini held seances, hoping to
connect with her deceased life mate. After a tenth failed seance in 1936, Bess Houdini gave it up.
According to the New York Times, she said
"Ten years is long enough to wait for any man.”
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