E-Verse Radio

Top Five People Who Died Just Before Fame Struck (including Two Lar[r]sons)

by Ernie on 06/08/10 at 3:10 pm

5. Adrienne Shelly: She wrote, directed, and acted in the movie Waitress (2007), which would become her most successful film to date after years of making highly regarded but little-seen indie films. Waitress was her first foray into the limelight. She was murdered several months before its release.

4. Sylvia Plath: She enjoyed minor success with The Colossus and Other Poems, but her iconic status as author of the poetry collection Ariel and novel The Bell Jar came only after her suicide.

3. John Kennedy Toole: By now it is a familiar story to many. Toole committed suicide after his manuscript for Confederacy of Dunces was rejected by every publisher in the United States. Eleven years after he died, the indefatigable  efforts of his mother, and the ambassadorial influence of Walker Percy, led to his book’s publication to wild acclaim. It has since become a standard, must-read indie novel. He posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize.

2. Jonathan Larson: Playwright and composer, died the night before opening night of his magnum opus, Rent. He went on to win two Tonys and a Pulitzer, posthumously.

1. Stieg Larsson: Author of the international bestsellers The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (known collectively as the Millennium Trilogy), he died several months before the first book was released.

Also: arguably, James Dean. One of his three great films was released posthumously, and both of his Oscar nominations were posthumous. While he was popular in life, his iconic status only arose after he died.

Ernie

Ernest Hilbert is founder of E-Verse Radio.

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