Deathiversary: Billy Daniels (October 7, 1988)

Billy Daniels is an American singer who was most notable for his hit recording of "That Old Black Magic" and his pioneering performances on early 1950s television. He died at the age of 73 in Los Angeles, and was buried at the El Camino Memorial Park in Sorrento Valley, San Diego, California. He was one of the first African-American entertainers to cross over into the mainstream and his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame lies alongside that of Jerry Lewis.

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Deathiversary: Bette Davis, We Love You (October 6, 1989)

Bette Davis collapsed during the American Cinema Awards in 1989, and later discovered that her cancer had returned. She recovered sufficiently to travel to Spain, where she was honored at the Donostia-San Sebastián International Film Festival, but during her visit, her health rapidly deteriorated. Too weak to make the long journey back to the U.S., she traveled to France, where she died on October 6, 1989, at 11:20 pm, at the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine. Davis was 81 years old.

She was entombed in Forest Lawn—Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, alongside her mother Ruthie and sister Bobby, with her name in larger type size. On her tombstone is written: "She did it the hard way", an epitaph that she mentioned in her memoir Mother Goddam. 

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Deathiversary: Rodney Dangerfield (October 5, 2004)

On April 8, 2003, stand-up comedian Rodney Dangerfield underwent brain surgery to improve blood flow in preparation for heart valve-replacement surgery on a later date. The surgery took place on August 24, 2004. Upon entering the hospital, he uttered another characteristic one-liner when asked how long he would be hospitalized: "If all goes well, about a week. If not, about an hour and a half."

In September 2004, it was revealed that Dangerfield had been in a coma for several weeks. Afterward, he began breathing on his own and showing signs of awareness when visited by friends, however, he died on October 5, 2004 at the UCLA Medical Center, a month and a half shy of his 83rd birthday, from complications of the surgery he had undergone in August. Dangerfield was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. His headstone reads, "Rodney Dangerfield... There goes the neighborhood." The Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery is home to such stars as Marilyn Monroe, Dorothy Stratten, and Dominique Dunne.

Deathiversary: Eddie Kendricks (October 5, 1992)

Born Eddie Kendrick, but is best known by the stage name Eddie Kendricks, was an American singer and songwriter. Kendricks was noted for his distinctive falsetto singing style. He co-founded the iconic Motown singing group The Temptations, and was one of their lead singers from 1960 until 1971. His was the lead voice on such famous songs as "The Way You Do The Things You Do", "Get Ready", and "Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me).” Exasperated by a lack of creative and financial control, Kendricks left Motown in 1978, with the requirement of signing away the rights to his royalties. He moved first to Arista Records, and later to Atlantic Records. By this time, his popularity had waned, and he was also gradually losing his upper range as a result of chain smoking. In late 1991, Kendricks, by now living in his native Birmingham, Alabama, underwent surgery to have one of his lungs removed in hopes of preventing the spread of the cancer. He continued to tour through the summer of 1992, when he fell ill again and was hospitalized. Kendricks died of lung cancer in Birmingham on October 5, 1992 at age 52.

Rapper Kendrick Lamar was named by his mother after Kendricks.

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Death Site: The Landmark Motor Hotel

On October 4, 1970, Janis Joplin, one of the most iconic female musicians of the 1960s died from an accidental overdose of heroin in room #105 of the Landmark Motor Hotel, at the tragic age of 27. The Landmark Motor Hotel (7047 Franklin Ave.) lies in the heart of Hollywood. The hotel’s name might have changed - it’s now called The Highland Gardens Hotel - but you can still stay in the same hotel room where Joplin died. She lived in this room for the last few months of her life. The closet contains a small brass plaque, commemorating Joplin’s life, and the walls are heavily decorated with fan art and notes, comprising a ever-evolving shrine to the late singer.

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Deathiversary: Janis Fucking Joplin (October 4, 1970)

On Sunday afternoon, October 4, 1970, producer Paul Rothchild became concerned when Janis Joplin failed to show up at Sunset Sound Recorders for a recording session in which she was scheduled to provide the vocal track for the already-existing instrumental track of the song "Buried Alive in the Blues." In the evening, Full Tilt Boogie's road manager, John Cooke, drove to the Landmark Motor Hotel in Hollywood where Joplin was staying. He saw Joplin's psychedelically paintedPorsche 356 C Cabriolet in the parking lot, and upon entering Joplin's room (#105), he found her dead on the floor beside her bed. The official cause of death was a heroin overdose, possibly compounded by alcohol.

“I'm a victim of my own insides. There was a time when I wanted to know everything ... It used to make me very unhappy, all that feeling. I just didn't know what to do with it. But now I've learned to make that feeling work for me. I'm full of emotion and I want a release, and if you're on stage and if it's really working and you've got the audience with you, it's a oneness you feel.” -Janis Joplin

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Then and Then: Robert F. Kennedy and Juan Romero

Juan Romero cradling the head of a dying Robert F. Kennedy and a photo of the abandoned and now demolished kitchen hallway of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles where Robert F. Kennedy was mortally wounded by an assassin’s bullet. Juan Romero died this past Monday at the age of 68 from a heart attack. He was the last person to shake Kennedy’s hand before Kennedy was struck down.

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Breaking... Juan Romero Dead (Oct 1, 2018)

The LA Times is reporting tonight that Juan Romero has died of a heart attack at the age of 68. Romero was the busboy seen cradling the head of a mortally wounded Robert F. Kennedy in the iconic photograph taken shortly after Kennedy had been shot in the head by an assassin's bullet. Romero was forever haunted by what happened just after midnight on June 5, 1968, when he was on duty as a busboy at the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Blvd. near Koreatown in Los Angeles. Romero was just 17 at the time. Romero was in the habit of leaving flowers at that monument each year to mark RFK’s death. He said he often felt we as a nation were moving further politically from what he saw as a Kennedy legacy of tolerance and compassion.

Deathiversary: Janet Leigh (October 3, 2004)

The OG Scream Queen. Leigh died in October 2004 at age 77, following a year-long battle with vasculitis - an inflammation of the blood vessels.

In 1960, Leigh was cast in her most well-known role as murder victim Marion Crane in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960). Leigh was reportedly so traumatized by filming her character's shower murder scene that she went to great lengths to avoid showers for the rest of her life. Leigh received a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Leigh's role in Psycho became career-defining, and she later commented: "I've been in a great many films, but I suppose if an actor can be remembered for one role then they're very fortunate. And in that sense I'm fortunate." Her character's death early in the film has been noted as historically relevant by film scholars as it violated narrative conventions of the time, while her murder scene itself is considered among both critics and film scholars to be one of the most iconic scenes in film history.

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Deathiversary Part 2: Rock Hudson

Throughout his career, numerous magazines declared Rock Hudson "Star of the Year" and “Favorite Leading Man.”  Hudson appeared in nearly 70 films and starred in several television productions during a career that spanned more than four decades. In 1956 he was nominated for an Oscar for his role in "Giant" - alongside James Dean. Hudson died from AIDS-related complications in 1985, becoming the first major celebrity to die from an AIDS-related illness.

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Deathiversary: Rock Hudson

Rock Hudson died on this day in 1985. While Hudson’s career developed, Hudson and his agent Henry Willson kept the actor's personal life out of the headlines. In 1955, Confidential magazine threatened to publish an exposé about Hudson's secret homosexuality. Willson stalled this by disclosing information about two of his other clients. Willson provided information about Rory Calhoun's years in prison and the arrest of Tab Hunter at a party in 1950. Hudson's homosexuality was well known in Hollywood throughout his career, and former co-stars Elizabeth Taylor and Susan Saint James claimed that they knew of his homosexuality, as did Carol Burnett 

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