2009: Not a good year for famous people

So this is completely irrelevant in the larger scheme of things, but when you stop and think about it, the number of dead celebrities that piled up last year was pretty remarkable.

A quick rundown of the major ones:

Natasha Richardson - Reminiscent of the ski accidents that killed Sonny Bono and one of the Kennedys, but sadder. Poor Liam Neeson.

Bea Arthur - less surprising, since she was in her 80s, but still sad. Golden Girls = Olden Girls.

David Carradine - Oops. Turns out, not so kung fu.

Ed McMahon - I think this is the Publisher's Clearinghouse guy?

Farrah Fawcett - I felt bad for her. Sharing your death day with Michael Jackson is totally unfair. I suppose she was best known for Charlie's Angels, but I remember her best from a certain Jonathan Taylor Thomas movie called Man of the House, where she played a free-spirited (aka big-haired) single mom. Classic cinema.

Michael Jackson - are we done talking about this yet? I am.

Walter Cronkite - apparently, "the most trusted man in America." In 1972. Of course, now that title belongs to Dick Cheney.

Les Paul - legendary.

DJ AM - I don't know who this is. Fortunately, wikipedia does.

Patrick Swayze - We all knew he was sick, but a world without Johnny Castle is not a world I want to live in. Who will keep Baby out of the corner now? We can, however, do without that pederast creeper guy from Donnie Darko.

Brittany Murphy - I had actually forgotten about this one already. Oh well.

There are also a whole bunch of people I've never heard of. I am ok with this.

Finally, this one is from 2008 (actually January 2008), but we are still talking about it. And we are probably always going to be talking about it, because somehow, Heath Ledger is STILL MAKING MOVIES!?! Baffling.

2010 does not appear to be relenting for doomed celebs. We've already lost Howard Zinn, J.D. Salinger, one of the Coreys, Fred Morrison (creator of this fantastic piece of plastic), the guy who invented SpaghettiOs, the Georgian luger with an unpronounceable name, Peter Graves, Rufus Wainwright's mom, Alex Chilton, Davy Crockett, and Marie Osmond's adopted son (actual celebrity status debatable).

And it's only March!