There have been some odd celebrity deaths over the years that still to this day are unexplained. Here is a list of the weirdest ones out there.
1. Natalie Wood
Thirty five years after, the case of Natalie Wood’s death was reopened in 2011 and was reclassified from the initial investigation as “accidental drowning” to “drowning and other undermined factors.” Up to now there was no clear answer if Wood really died because of drowning or foul play.
Natalie Wood died on November 28, 1971, one mile from the yacht The Splendor near the Santa Catalina Island. Her husband Robert Wagner and Brainstorm co-star Christopher Walken were there that night and had an argument and both of them didn’t see her leave the boat.
What makes her death mysterious was because she was known to have a fear of water, dark water in particular. What made her leave the yacht in the middle of the night? There were also bruised in her arms and legs that was also questionable.
2. David Carradine
A maid found David Carradine’s body in a hotel room closet in Bangkok, Thailand on June 3, 2009. His neck was wrapped in cord and and hands tied above his head. Investigators said that he may have died from accidental suffocation or heart failure. There was also a speculation about his engagement with a form of sex called auto-erotic asphyxiation. Suicide was the first theory but his ex-wife Marina Anderson said that the actor was into kinky sex which may explain what led up to his death.
3. Jayne Mansfield
She was supposed to be the next sex symbol of her generation after Marilyn Monroe, but this blonde bombshell died before it happened in a tragic accident in the early morning of June 29, 1967. Jayne Mansfield was with her boyfriend Sam Brody and driver Ronnie Harrison; all three of them died in the accident.
Her three children Miklos Jr., Zoltan and Mariska who were with them survived. There was a rumor that she was decapitated, but the investigation said it was just the top part of her head that was taken off. The autopsy said it was “crushed skull with avulsion of cranium and brain.”
4. George Sanders
At 65, George Sanders committed suicide in a Barcelona hotel. In his suicide not he wrote “Dear World. I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck.” He swallowed five bottles of Nembutals on April 25, 1972 that lead to his death that they called Bored to Death.
5. Bruce Lee
On July 20, 1973 while filming Game of Death and three weeks before the release of the movie that would be his biggest film, Bruce Lee died from cerebral edema. According to the diagnosis, he was given a medicine for a headache and it caused an allergic reaction. But there are other theories surrounding his death at a very young age of 32. There was a theory that he was killed by a Triad through a Death Touch or Dim Rak. And there’s another one about a family curse that ended his brother’s life and then fifteen years after, took his son’s life as well.
6. Elizabeth Short
On January 15, 1947 her body was found in a vacant lot with bruises and lacerations over her body and her mouth slashed from ear to ear like a form of an eerie smile. Her body was sliced in two parts, above the waist with no blood found on the scene that indicates she was killed and cleaned somewhere before her body was dumped in the vacant lot.
Elizabeth Short was given a nickname The Black Dahlia, a nickname made as a wordplay from a movie. Short was an aspiring Hollywood actress that was usually seen wearing black clothes. As of now the case is still unresolved and still a mystery.
7. Selena
Selena Quintanilla Perez died on March 31, 1995 in the hands of the president of her fan club, Yolanda Saldivar. Perez dragged her body in the lobby of the motel, bleeding from a single gunshot wound.
The singer had an argument with Saldivar but as she tried to get out of the hotel room, Saldivar shot her in the chest. There was an argument between the two about Saldivar stealing money from the fan club’s funds. Perez found out she was lying which led to Saldivar shooting her.
8. James Dean
Aside from Natalie Wood, another Rebel Without a Cause Star James Dean died in a bizarre way. He was driving a Porsche Spyder on the afternoon of September 30, 1955 in Cholame California.
The Porsche he was driving hit a Ford Sudan and killed him but the driver of the Ford Sudan, Donald Turnupseed and Rolf Wutheric, the mechanic who was with Dean survived.
Dean had his car customized by George Barris and called it the Little Bastard. There was an incident after Dean met actor Alec Guinness who gave him a warning. “If you get in that car, you will be found dead in it by this time next week.” And after seven days, Dean died driving his beloved Little Bastard. After the crash there was a rumor that the car was cursed to whoever bought the parts of it.
9. Marilyn Monroe
She was found dead in her home on August 5, 1962 in Los Angeles, California, naked, her face lying face down in bed with a telephone in her hand. The autopsy report “caused by a self-administered overdose of sedative drugs and that the mode of death is probable suicide.”
Still there are questions left unanswered even after years of her death. Why Eunice Murray, the housekeeper and Dr. Ralph Greenson, her psychiatrist didn’t call the police as soon as they saw her lifeless body? Theories of her death that were linked to the Kennedy’s and the government were still a big puzzle. Was she killed because of her love affair to John and/or Robert Kennedy?
10. Elvis Presley
The King of Rock n’ Roll died in his home in Memphis on August 16, 1977. Elvis Presley returned to Graceland after an appointment to his dentist and took a rest before he was found dead in the bathroom later that evening. His death was declared as “hypertensive cardiovascular disease associated with atherosclerotic heart disease,” though his father Vernon Presley sealed the autopsy report of his death until 2027, 50 years after. There were speculations about drug involvement in his death and the conspiracy theory of him faking his death is still circulating now.
