A Little Rascal’s life cut short by a freak accident, a silent film starlet
worked to physical and emotional collapse, and a sitcom star desperate to escape her famous
role. Life dealt a tragic hand to these young celebrities, who never made it past their teens.
Nikita Pearl Waligwa only had one credit to her name when she died,
but it was in a major film with a star-studded cast, and it was a beautiful and affecting role.
"Queen of Katwe" was a 2016 biopic of the Ugandan chess prodigy Phiona Mutesi,
and Waligwa played the main character's friend Gloria.
"Gloria, would you please show Phiona how to move
the pieces?" "Mmm…"
The same year the film came out, Waligwa was diagnosed with a brain tumor,
and according to BBC News, the director of "Queen of Katwe" raised money for her to
have expert medical care abroad. While the cancer went into remission in 2017,
it was only for two years, returning in 2019. In February 2020, Waligwa died, aged 15.
The famous actors she'd shared the screen with immediately sang the young woman's praises.
David Oyelowo [oh-YEL-oh-woh] wrote on Instagram:
"She was a ball of light in 'Queen of Katwe' and in life."
Lupita Nyong'o also posted:
"She played Gloria with such vibrancy. [...] May she truly rest in peace.
May it be well with her soul."
If you're of a certain age, you will remember the brief, unexpected success of 2gether,
a group that started out on an MTV show that spoofed the successful boy bands
of the turn of the century and went on to... become a successful boy band. They
opened for Britney Spears on tour, and charted higher than NSYNC at one point.
Michael Cuccione played Jason "Q.T." McKnight. He'd already had a rough childhood when he was
cast, suffering from Hodgkin's disease when he was younger. While the cancer went into remission,
the chemotherapy weakened his body. So when he and his mother were in a car accident,
he physically couldn't handle it the way someone who hadn't had cancer could. Surgery to repair
his diaphragm resulted in pneumonia, which led to collapsed lungs. Cuccione died in 2001, aged 16.
Cuccione's mother, Gloria, told ABC News:
"He was in a lot of pain. I didn't realize how much he was suffering
because he hid it with a smile. I think God knew he was suffering too much."
The death of Tara Correa-McMullen was tragic not just because she was so young,
but because of how needless and violent it was. And, according to the Los Angeles Times,
it came a bit too close to the role she was known for.
After getting a supporting part in a feature film, she landed a recurring
role on the TV show "Judging Amy." Her character had a difficult life,
but right as she was turning it around, she was involved in a drive-by shooting.
Correa-McMullen was still filming the role when she started becoming unreliable and
hanging out with a "bad crowd." Soon she was dropped by her agency. On October 21,
2005, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was shot to death by a gang member.
At her memorial service, Correa-McMullen's former agent, Cindy Osbrink, said:
"This is life as art. [...] Needless to say, we are devastated. She had everything going for her."
Her friends defended her, with one saying:
"She was an angel. She had a lot of obstacles in her way that took her
motivation away. [...] But she was a good person,
a sweet, giving person who cared about people and didn't want to see people get hurt."
Damien Watts, then 23, was convicted of a slew of
offenses relating to Correa-McMullen's death, as well as other shootings.
He was sentenced to two life terms in prison without parole, plus 11 consecutive life terms.
In 2007, Rob Knox was cast as Marcus Belby,
a Ravenclaw student who was meant to appear in the last three Harry Potter movies.
Unfortunately, Knox had only just finished filming his part in "Harry Potter and the
Half-Blood Prince" when he was stabbed outside a nightclub in London and died. He was 18.
The young man's loved ones were distraught, explaining he'd been trying
to stop a fight, not participating in one. "I can't imagine many people doing that, but he
put himself in harm's way to save his friends and his brother, and that's, that's heroic."
Knox's family released a statement saying:
"Rob [...] would always spend his last penny on other people instead of himself. The life
and soul of the party, he was very outgoing, loved sports, and would always strike up a conversation
with people. He was respectful to others and adored by all his family and friends."
According to Sky News, Knox's killer was 22-year-old Karl Bishop, who already had
a conviction for a knife crime under his belt. A week before the stabbing, Bishop had gotten
into a fight with Knox's friends. He said he would return the next week, and made the
threat that "someone is going to die." Bishop was sentenced to life in prison for Knox's murder.
The beautiful blonde Dorothy Dell was born in 1914,
and she immediately knew what she wanted to do. Her mother told journalist Robbin Coons:
"Since Dorothy was a little baby, she'd had her heart set on being an actress."
The route Dell took was through beauty pageants,
winning her first when she was just one year old. When Dell got older,
she was still winning pageants, but she had her sights set on more, telling reporters:
"Of course, I have a career in mind. I am going to be a real,
honest-to-goodness actress like Marie Dressler."
Dell started with small roles on Broadway, and her breakout was when she got her own
number in "Ziegfeld Follies of 1931." A columnist at the time wrote that
when it turned out Dell wasn't just beautiful, but could sing as well,
the people who had dismissed her had to admit she was "a beauty prize winner made good."
When actors Lilyan Tashman and Lew Cody died within a couple months of each other in 1934,
Dell is alleged to have said to her friends, according to the Los Angeles Times:
"I wonder who'll be the next — they say those things go in cycles of threes."
Just a few days later, on June 8, she would be next. A friend was driving her
home when they were in an accident that left the car "an unrecognizable mess
of twisted steel – a sickening, ghastly wreck." Dell died instantly. She was 19.
Not only did Ritchie Valens achieve significant fame before his death,
but the way he died went down in music history.
In 1958, Valens and his producer played the single "Come On, Let's Go," for his friends
before it was released. When it was, the song took off. Valens' childhood friend,
Bob Munson, told the East Bay Times that "after that, Ritchie was gone all the time."
Not even a year later, 17-year-old Valens was touring with Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper.
On the way to a gig, their plane crashed, killing all of them.
It became known as "The Day the Music Died." Valens' body was brought home
to California for the funeral, which more than 1,000 people attended. Munson said:
"Afterward a bunch of us hung out at his grave and just talked about him. He was a sweet guy.
My mom loved him. Just think if he had lived where he'd be now."
"His career was eight months long." "He packed a lot of living into eight months."
While the Little Rascals might be most familiar to people these days from the 1994 film, originally
the adorable group of kids were part of the "Our Gang" shorts of the 1930s and '40s. The character
of Froggy, played by Billy Laughlin, was a popular one. With a slightly put-on gravely voice and his
thick glasses, Laughlin was a perfect addition to the gang when he made his debut in 1940.
"This is the happiest day of my life."
After MGM stopped making the "Our Gang" shorts in 1944, Laughlin only appeared
in a single cameo role before telling his parents he wanted a break from Hollywood.
He went back to living the life of a normal teenager, even getting a job as a paperboy.
This normal life ended in tragedy. On August 31,
1948, Laughlin and a friend were delivering papers on his new motor scooter when they were
hit by a speeding truck while making a U-turn. According to the La Puente Valley Journal,
while his friend suffered only minor injuries, Laughlin was thrown 40 feet.
He died from his injuries, aged 16. Laughlin was buried in Los Angeles, and his tombstone
pays tribute to his famous role, with the inscription "'Our Gang' Froggy" under his name.
Lucille Ricksen's mother pushed her into acting and modeling when she was still a toddler. By
the time she was 12, she was being cast as an adult woman in films, and while the studio lied
and said she was 16, Ricksen was still known as "the youngest leading lady in movies." Someone who
watched her on set in the drama "The Rendezvous" lamented the young girl's lost childhood, saying:
"You long to see those pigtails flying in the wind and the cheeks snapping with bright color,
instead of the all-day session playing the abused wife [...] and talking with older men and women."
Worked to the bone, in 1924, Ricksen starred in 10 films in seven months.
It was too much. Ricksen had a complete breakdown. Her doctor, J. F. McKitrick, told the press:
"She crowded too much work into too short a time and overtaxed her
capacities. [...] The result is that she has had a complete physical and nervous collapse."
It didn't help when Ricksen's mother came to check on her in bed and, while leaning over,
collapsed on her daughter and died. Ricksen herself died three weeks later, and theories range
from the effects of her breakdown to pulmonary tuberculosis to a botched abortion. She was 14.
Once, the most famous character named Buffy on TV was the one played by Anissa
Jones on "Family Affair." Despite being just 8 years old at the time,
a 1966 review in the Independent Star-News praised her performance, saying:
"She has an uncanny ability to convey, on screen, a child's feelings of rejection,
sadness, fun, pride, stubbornness, and wish to be loved, sometimes all in one episode."
But despite being great at her job, the young girl wasn't sure she liked it all that much.
In 1970, the San Bernardino County Sun implied she was being exploited,
and during a public appearance reported that Jones said she hoped to retire when she was 14.
A man in the crowd then reportedly said:
"Over her mother's dead body."
So it seemed to be an open secret that it wasn't her choice to give up her childhood to work.
After "Family Affair" ended in 1971, Jones lost out on the lead role in "The Exorcist"
and turned down an invitation to audition for "Taxi Driver," according to Closer Weekly.
Her life spiraled, and she fell into a pattern of shoplifting,
quitting jobs right after taking them, sleeping and eating poorly, and "incredible mood swings."
Tragically, five years later Jones died of an overdose, with "cocaine,
PCP, Quaalude, and Seconal" in her system.
By then she seemed to have really regretted her famous role, with a family friend writing:
"It would have driven her crazy that people remember her as the
star of 'Family Affair,' because she never saw herself that way."
Sawyer Sweeten
Sawyer Sweeten and his twin brother were cast on "Everybody Loves Raymond" when they
were just 16 months old, and Sweeten played Geoffrey Barone until the show ended in 2005.
Ten years later, aged 19, Sweeten died by suicide in his parents' Texas home.
After he died, the twins' manager, Dino May, told People:
"This was a good kid. I’ve been in the industry a
long time and these kids were special. [...] Growing up on a stage that young,
these kids had the responsibility of adults and they handled it like champs."
Others close to Sweeten also sang his praises. His uncle told People:
"Sawyer was the one with a heart of toughness and love mixed together. He carried himself with a
sense of confidence that made me double-check myself when I was with him. I loved it."
"One of the best hearts of any person I've ever met, really. Not just because he was my child."
Sweeten's TV dad, Ray Romano, released a statement that said:
"He was a wonderful and sweet kid to be around. Just a great energy whenever he was there."
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts,
please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ at​ 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.