Today marks the celebration of Hallowe’en, that time when the border between this world and the world of the dead. What better moment to bring up my recent read, The Last Days of Dead Celebrities by Mitchell Fink.
Far less tabloid than the title suggests, Last Days… documents the passing of a selected group of musicians, actors, and sports figures. He handles the subjects with dignity, making them humans with foibles, warts, and other afflictions. Among the revelations are Arthur Ashe’s struggle for privacy after his AIDS diagnosis, how Dan Ackroyd turned John Belushi’s drug death into a warning for other comedians’, and Lyle Alzado’s realization of the role steroids played in his brain cancer.
Also, you’ll learn that Milton Berle had an enormous schwanzstucker.
Fink documents the actual deaths with a factual eye. There’s no lingering over the corpse; once the celebrity expires, we move on to the aftermath. There are no grisly details or what have you. That alone sets it higher than books such as Hollywood Babylon.
There are others in the book that may catch your eye: Warren Zevon, Lee Strasberg, Lucille Ball, and Ted Williams. If you’re willing to engage in your macabre bone, The Last Days… is an enlightening, morbid read.
