Unfortunate Demises of the Famous and Infamous Quiz

Answer: Bob Crane

Crane was a well known sex addict and videotaped his sexual acts. In 1978 he was bludgeoned to death with a camera tripod. The killer also cut a cord from Crane's VCR and tied it around his throat. John Carpenter, Crane's friend, was eventually indicted for the murder but was acquitted two months later. Bob Crane was buried eight days before his fiftieth birthday.

Answer: Heath Ledger

Heath Ledger had been ill while shooting the film "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" and his illness was not lost on his co-star, Christopher Plummer. Plummer thought at the time that Heath might have had walking pneumonia and commented on it. When the toxicology reports were revealed after Heath's death, according to the New York City medical examiner's office, Ledger died of an accidental overdose of a combination of six drugs.

The world lost an amazing young actor.

Answer: Dante Rossetti

Before Elizabeth was buried in 1862, Rossetti placed the poems in the grave with her. Apparently he had decided not to write poems for a while. Then, when he was ready to write again, he got permission to have his wife's body exhumed. He found the book of poetry intact except for a worm hole.

Answer: Mark Twain

Mark Twain was touring Europe at the time he read the obituary. He did, however, predict his own death. In 1909 he predicted he would die after Halley's Comet made an appearance the following year. Sure enough, he died of a heart attack the day after the comet's approach to earth in 1910.

His body was shipped to his wife's hometown of Elmira, New York and he was buried in his wife's family plot.

Answer: John Wayne Gacy

Gacy died by lethal injection in 1994 for his heinous crimes. What should have been a five minute procedure turned out to be eighteen minutes because the poison kept clogging Gacy's veins. Poetic justice?

Answer: Warren Harding

Harding served as both a U.S. Senator and Lieutenant Governor before becoming the 29th President of the United States. It was a well known fact that Harding had a mistress and illegitimate child and often appointed his associates to high federal positions. Perhaps his wife, who had him embalmed within an hour of his death, grew tired of his cheating ways and used her power to put an end to it all.

The mystery will likely remain just that.

Answer: Inger Stevens

When a houseguest found Inger lying on her kitchen floor, face down, and called out her name, Inger opened her eyes, let out a groan, and lapsed into unconsciousness. A medical examiner later concluded that she had died of an overdose of barbiturates. Police, however, said she had swallowed cleaning fluid.

In addition, there was a unexplained cut on her chin. Did Inger commit suicide or was she murdered? Whatever the answer, Inger Stevens took it with her to the grave.

Answer: Tycho Brahe

What started it all was a banquet that Tycho had attended. He probably should have excused himself from the table and gone to the bathroom when the urge struck. However, in those days it was poor manners to leave in the middle of a banquet so Tycho, being the gentleman that he was, held it in way too long. Medical experts nowadays attribute his death to uremia, a toxic condition that eventually leads to renal failure.

As for his missing nose, Tycho wore a silver and copper prosthesis painted to match his skin tone. Whatever works!

Answer: Erma Bombeck

In my opinion, what made Erma so funny was her ability to poke fun at the often mundane activities of housewives and mothers. Women everywhere could identify with Erma's humor because she herself was a housewife and mother and had experienced the very things she wrote about. Erma Bombeck died in 1996 from complications following a kidney transplant.

She was buried in the family plot in Ohio but her husband wanted his beloved to have a reminder of their years together in Arizona. He hired a flat-bed truck to haul a 29,000-pound rock from Arizona to Ohio to mark her grave. Now that's devotion.

Answer: Ray Combs

When the show went off the air, life spiraled out of control for Ray. He was involved in a serious car accident that left him with chronic back problems. Financial problems soon followed. Ray became so depressed that he was committed to the psych ward of California's Glendale Medical Center on a seventy-two hour suicide watch. Apparently, no one was watching.

He removed the sheets from his bed and hanged himself in a closet. Not exactly a happy ending for a man who, at one time, earned over six million a year.