Death Comes in Threes

Three celebrities, three members of the entertainment world died this past week. They were each at different levels of success and acclaim, and at different points in their lives when Death knocked on their doors. They each leave behind vastly different legacies.

You may not have heard, but Michael Jackson died yesterday. No, really, it's true. I know they didn't cover it much on the TV news, but yes, the King of Pop is gone. But not forgotten. How he'll be remembered depends on the person doing the remembering. Definitely a mixed legacy with this guy.

I'm in my 40s so I remember seeing the young Michael with the Jackson Five on various television programs performing any one of a number of their hits. And they were good, really good, especially Michael, who went on to a solo career. And it started off well. And then came "Thriller." Blew the socks off of everybody. It was a pop masterpiece. (I must admit I never bought it because, at the time it came out, every time I turned on the radio, they were playing a song from that album, thus there was no need to part with my cash.)

If Michael Jackson had dropped dead within a few years of releasing "Thriller" the memory of him, and the memorializing and the mythologizing of him would be far greater than what has been accorded Elvis these last thirty some odd years since his passing.

If Jackson had dropped dead before all the cosmetic surgeries, before the whitening of the skin and the straightening of the hair, before he started hanging out with Elizabeth Taylor, before the oddball marriages, before the chimp and the hyperbaric chamber and the Neverland Ranch, before admitting to sleeping with boys that were no kin of his, before the horrible accusations...

If only.

But he wasn't that lucky, lucky enough to die at the right time, the right time to leave a great legacy and nothing more than a great legacy. But let me be honest about my feelings, it wasn't the circus of Michael Jackson's life that leaves me cold about his death, it was the thing with the kinder. I can't get past that, I don't forgive him that, and I don't mourn his passing. I didn't wish him dead, but I don't mourn him.

Farrah Fawcett was another story, sometimes kind of a strange story too, but never Michael Jackson strange.

There was The Poster. We all know about The Poster. Many boys had one on their bedroom wall back in the day, and, to be honest, she was a fairly good looking woman, even up until the end. There was The Hair. Many women wanted that hairstyle; many bands in the 1980s wanted it too (I'm talkin' to you, Bon Jovi). There was "The Burning Bed." There was The Appearance on Letterman's show, where she was perhaps more than a little flighty. (Don't bother looking; the video has been removed from YouTube.) There was The End. Who knew such a thing as anal cancer existed? I feel sorry for anyone afflicted with cancer.

So the legacy of Farrah Fawcett is what? A good lookin' chick who persevered, possibly despite the hair and the teeth and the looks, how about that? Not a bad legacy.

And then there is Ed McMahon. Despite all the other work he did, and he worked a lot, McMahon will forever be remembered as Johnny Carson's sidekick.

You know what, that's not a bad legacy to leave.

McMahon was a rock of support for Carson, always quick with a laugh or helpful comment. The two of them for thirty years did the best late night show TV will ever produce, and McMahon was an indispensable part of that show.

In the days after his death, I read or saw interviews with people who knew him, worked with him, met him in the street. To a person, they all said what a genuinely nice person McMahon was, always enjoying life, even in the times of struggle, such as his financial problems of the last few years.

People remembering him as a nice man who enjoyed life. You know what, that may be the best legacy of all to leave behind.

Here's a little clip of Ed and Johnny back in the time when they did live commercials on "The Tonight Show." You can see here just what made them so much fun to watch.