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Hollywood sign in Los Angeles - Source: Paul Stenhouse / ONE News -
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Patrick Swayze is just one of a number of famous Hollywood faces to shuffle off this mortal coil this winter (or summer, depending on which part of the world you live in).
Actress Farrah Fawcett
The television star whose big smile and feathered blond mane
made her one of the reigning sex symbols of the 1970s,
died in June after a long battle with cancer. She
was 62.
Fawcett, who was first vaulted to stardom by an alluring poster of her in a red swimsuit, was diagnosed with anal cancer in late 2006. It spread to her liver in 2007, proving resistant to numerous medical treatments in Germany and California.
"After a long and brave battle with cancer, our beloved Farrah has passed away," Fawcett's long time companion, actor Ryan O'Neal, said in a statement at the time.
"Although this is an extremely difficult time for her family and friends, we take comfort in the beautiful times that we shared with Farrah over the years and the knowledge that her life brought joy to so many people around the world."
Fawcett's death in a Los Angeles hospital came just six weeks after the TV broadcast in May of a video diary she made chronicling her battle with cancer and her final months.
Goodbye to the King of Pop
Literally hours after the Charlie's Angels star passed away,
news came through that the self-proclaimed King of Pop,
Michael
Jackson, had
died at the age of 50 .
Jackson was pronounced dead after arriving at a Los Angeles hospital in full cardiac arrest.
Weeks later, court documents showed the singer was killed by a lethal dose of the powerful anaesthetic propofol given in a cocktail of drugs, leading authorities to suspect his doctor of manslaughter.
Death of a film genre superstar
Then it was the turn of fans of 1980s teen comedies to mourn,
when
filmmaker John Hughes
suddenly
died of a heart attack in New York. He was
59.
Hughes, who had largely turned his back on Hollywood in the past decade to become a farmer in the Midwestern state of Illinois, collapsed while strolling in Manhattan, where he was visiting friends.
His films, such as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, are considered standard-bearers of the teen genre.
Another New York tragedy
At the end of August, disc jockey
DJ AM (aka Adam
Goldstein) was
found dead in his New York apartment at age
36.
Goldstein, who socialised with Hollywood celebrities and in 2008 survived a plane crash with Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker, was found with prescription pill bottles near his body after he had not been heard from for days.
Most recently Patrick Swayze, who went from Broadway dancer to Hollywood star in box-office hits like Dirty Dancing and Ghost, died after a two year battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 57.
Swayze died at home with his family at his side, his publicist said.
He became a pop culture icon with 1987's Dirty Dancing, which defied Hollywood expectations to become one of the most-watched movies of all time.
Honourable mentions
They may not all be Hollywood stars, but they're still famous
faces who died this year and we'll still miss them all the
same:
Bea Arthur, David Carradine, Dom DeLuise , Natasha Richardson, Senator Edward Kennedy, Jade Goody , the Taco Bell chihuahua and Socks, the official cat of the Clinton administration.
And, of course, who can forget Jeff Goldblum? Oh wait, that was just the Australians who thought he was dead...
