visionaryvoid

STORIES| TRUTH| MYSTERY| HUMANITY | KINDNESS| NATURE

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Many celebrity has the saddest upbringing but I’d say Eminem may take the cake. Born to teenaged parents, his father abandoned the family when he was a baby. He never bothered to show up ever again, and all Eminem’s letters were returned to him, unanswered. His mother was troubled, struggled with addiction all her life and was generally unstable and paranoid. She moved her son around a lot, finally settling in a primarily black neighborhood where Eminem was repeatedly beaten savagely just for being white.


One of the few positive influences was Eminem’s uncle, Ronnie Polkingharn, who encouraged his interest in music and gave him rap and hiphop CDs — that’s him and his uncle in the black-and-white photo above. But in 1991, when Eminem was only 17, his uncle Ronnie decided to end his own life. This affected Eminem so badly that he was unable to speak for several days and couldn’t even bring himself to attend the funeral. Also at 17, Eminem fell in love with Kim, a teenaged runaway with many struggles of her own… they had a daughter together. He also raised her other daughters and a niece as a young single father, after Kim abandoned him and her own children…
Meanwhile, when Eminem was 12, his mother Debbie had another son, Nate Samara, by a man who soon bailed on her, too… so Eminem, who already carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, ended up raising his half-brother as well as taking care of his drugged-up mother. Now, aged 52, Eminem is about to become a grandfather. He’s a stable man with a stable family, and incredibly successful in the music industry. Given his background, it’s a borderline miracle he’s still around and doing as well as he’s doing.

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Among all of Hollywood’s greats, Willem Dafoe is easily one of the most unique looking character actors. It was not his face, however, that got him into ‘hot water’ while filming Lars von Trier’s Antichrist in 2009… it was another part of his anatomy altogether that made things hella awkward on set.

For a scene in the movie, Dafoe had to strip down to his Adam’s costume. He did so willingly and without a care in the world — Dafoe is a true professional, after all. Lars von Trier, however, was… disturbed. Because his leading man had an absolutely enormous dong. Von Trier famously described the man’s package as: “Confusingly large.” The Danish director felt audiences would be too distracted by Dafoe’s gigantic penis to the point where they might not be able to enjoy or focus on the story any more.
So Lars von Trier had to get a body-double to do Dafoe’s nude scene for him. Because his genitals were ‘too big’. A first in cinematic history and no doubt a highly uncomfortable thing for the director to have to explain…

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Isaac Valdez died at 26 in Texas, a few weeks ago.
Mr. Valdez, a Jehovah’s Witness, took a rather gnarly fall that left him badly injured. He was taken the hospital where he required a blood transfusion to survive after having sufffered serious blood loss . Valdez refused —the Jehovah’s Witnesses are a church that does not allow blood transfusions as part of their doctrine; they long held the belief that it is “sinful” to receive them.

Valdez refused the transfusion on religious grounds. And 23 days after his death, his church finally reversed course and came with a public statement that accepting a blood transfusion is NOT a sin after all, and allowed in certain circumstances when someone’s life is at risk. Has this decision been made a few weeks earlier, Valdez would not have died, would have accepted treatment and lived. But he fell 23 days too late, and when he died the only way to save his life was still sinful.
I cannot wrap my head around this — life-saving treatment is sinful one day, until suddenly it isn’t. And this is decided by religious elders who pretty much just pull it out their arse on the spot and coat their troglodyte worldview with a thin veneer of religiosity. Mr. Valdez deserved better, and so did thousands of others of Jehovah’s Witnesses who died similarly needless deaths in decades past.

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I don’t know what Brad Pitt thinks of it. I guess he’s likely a bit annoyed, because the whole thing is a hoax. Kind of a sad and desperate one, too. For some reason, the media loved to turn the oldest daughter of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie into a “teenaged transgender icon”. They literally wrote articles declaring her so.

That photo below is Shiloh as of right now. She wears shorts. She wears hoodies. She has long hair. Her family refers to her as “her” and “she”. This has never changed. How did the whole ‘hype’ start? As a toddler, Shiloh loved the movie Peter Pan, and wanted to be a ‘lost boy’. And insisted on being called John. The media got carried away and even made up a story about how she was supposed to be on ‘hormone replacement therapy’ already, none of it sourced or in any way, shape or form substantiated

This lasted for a while, and Shiloh grew up a tomboy with her brothers, ‘one of the guys’. But Angelina Jolie and her former husband always referred to the kid as “their daughter”. This never stopped people from making enormous assumptions and labeling the kid ‘transgender’ just for the hell of it…
Some people are so desperate for representation that they make up representation where there is none. It’s kinda gross because we’re talking about a child here who never once mentioned being transgender and yet gets labeled that way by a lot of grown people who think they somehow know her better than her own parents. Reaching much?
Fast forward a decade or so, and Shiloh Pitt-Jolie is just another teenaged girl who likes baggy and casual outfits. It doesn’t make her trans, or else what’s next, we’ll label Billie Eilish trans for also preferring baggy and casual attire?

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Getting old. A drinking problem. Having a bad accident. These can all cause a career to crash. This is Robert Conrad. He got old, had a drink problem and had a bad accident.
Robert, born 1935, first became very well known in the 1959-1963 series, Hawaiian Eye. His signature role then followed as James West in 1965 - 1969, The Wild Wild West. He generally acted the tough guy and tried to live up to that image, partying hard and doing his own stunts. On one episode of, The Wild Wild West he took a bad fall from a chandelier which put him out of action for a week. This is really him falling on his head.

He remained popular and busy till old age, and a bad accident. In 2003, aged 68, he was driving while drunk. He crossed onto the opposite side of the road hitting a car head on, badly injuring himself and the other driver. He pled guilty to 2 felony charges and he was placed under 6 months of house arrest and 5 years of probation. He paid over $3,600 in fines and was also required to complete an alcohol counselling program and banned from visiting bars.
Robert never fully recovered and for the rest of his life needed surgeries and physical therapy. He struggled to walk and make full use of his arms and suffered a spinal injury. He also became severely depressed.
His memory became impaired causing him to lose out on roles.
His victim also suffered from a variety of broken bones and depression. He died just 2 years later aged 28. The autopsy showed the cause of death was perforated gastric ulcers. His family blamed Conrad due to their sons constant pain and stress caused by trials following the accident.
Robert died of heart failure in 2020 aged 84.

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He was never really that respected in the first place as some others mentioned. But he was pretty big in action-movies and thrillers. Like The Thing, the escape from New York, and some side roles here and there, like the psychologist in vanilla sky. But now, he is regarded as a nut case by hollywood agents and no one wants to touch him with a stick.

Kurt is a trumpist. He believes Trump is some sort of messianic figure and he and Goldie Hawn have been rampant defenders of everything Trump have done, to and including the attempt to overthrow the capitol with violence…
So, now, no serious person wants to work with him.
Another person that have become pretty weird is Clint Eastwood. Always defending the worst kind of gun nuts.
I am myself in favor of ordinary people having guns, but not machine guns…
But Kurt is something else, and his wife Goldie Hawn has also become crazy…

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Jonathan Brandis, and it was likely at least partially responsible for his death.

Brandis started his acting career at age 6 in 1982, and he was quite talented — he gave memorable performances in films like The Neverending Story II, Ladybugs, and Sidekicks, and also the 1990 TV miniseries version of Stephen King's IT (as young Bill Denbrough). In 1993 he was cast alongside Roy Scheider in the sci-fi series seaQuest DSV, and became a bona fide teen idol, at one point receiving over 4,000 fan letters a week and requiring a security detail to escort him on and off set. However, after the show's cancellation in 1996, he found it difficult to make the transition to adult roles.

In 2002, Brandis was cast in the war drama film Hart's War, starring Bruce Willis and Colin Farrell; he was very proud of his work in the film, and hopeful that it would revive his career. But all of his scenes ended up on the cutting room floor.

Brandis became more and more depressed about his waning career, and began drinking heavily. According to friends, he spoke frequently of suicide, and also repeatedly brought up the “27 Club”, a group of actors, musicians, and artists who all died at age 27. His friends, however, said they “didn't think he would really do it.”

They were wrong. Brandis hanged himself in his Los Angeles apartment on November 11, 2003. He was still alive when he was found, and was rushed to the hospital, but he died the next day — and himself became a member of the 27 Club.

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An amusing little anecdote I came across in a biography on Robert Ryan.
In 1949 he was making a name for himself, mostly as a psychotic bully.

Then he had the chance to change and show how talented he was in a movie entitled, The Set-Up, where he played a boxer who refuses to take a fall. It called for a range of emotions and required an actor who was at the top of his game. Robert filled the part beautifully. Word had gotten around about his command of the role and a top actor went to watch some rushes.

He was so impressed by what he saw that he got into his car and drove after Robert who had left the lot.
Stopping the car, the driver got out and approached Robert, gushing with praise. In front of one of his screen idols, Robert could only stare openmouthed.

Thinking the younger actor might not recognise him, the superstar said, a little embarrassed himself,
‘’Uh, my name's Cary Grant.”
Addendum: This will be my final contribution to Quora. Over the last decade, it has been a pleasure to share my love of movies and Golden Age television with thousands of readers. However, as the platform shifts its priority toward automated, volume-driven AI output, the space for traditional storytelling has fundamentally diminished, leading to a collapse in my viewership and pretty much making my presence redundant. Thank you to all who have read, commented, and shared over the years.

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Like many entertainers, Danny Thomas had a tough start in show business. Newly married and with a baby on the way he found jobs were hard to come by. Deeply religious he made a promise to St. Jude Thaddeus, Patron Saint of Lost Causes, ‘’Show me my way in life and I will build you a shrine.’’
Whether his prayer was answered by the saint, or it would have happened anyway, soon he was a star on radio and television.
He felt empathy for cancer-stricken children and raised funds to build a hospital where they would be treated for free. ‘’No child should die in the dawn of life,’’ was his motto. Many stars from all areas of show business gave their time to help and in 1962 he was able to open the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis.
The picture is from a fundraising event in 1957, Shower of Stars. These events, organised by Danny, raised the necessary funds. Turning up to help for this one are Lou Costello, Elvis Presley, and Jane Russell.

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Bar Stools

We are often asked when & why Bar Stools became Popular in America. Prior to National Prohibition, Bar Stools were almost unheard of. Men stood & drank at the Bar & occasionally shifted their weight by resting their feet on the "Brass Rail" at the foot of the Bar, Women...(Outside of Employees).... were not usually welcome or allowed in Saloons, Bars or Taverns & if they were, they had to use a "Ladies Entrance & were consigned to tables in their own room, away from the Main Bar. Prohibition Changed All That. It was the Great Equalizer. Women were welcome on an Equal Basis in "Speakeasies" throughout the Land & Bar Stools were provided for their ease & comfort. Bar Stools became standard after Prohibition.

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A mystery is not easily trapped. And Elvis was a mystery. His life baffled even him. Coming in off a short tour, once Elvis said

Charlie you know how much money we made for working all of 12 hours on stage?"
We headed out the back door of Graceland toward the barn to check the horses.
"How much?" I said.
"For 12 hours of music, after paying off all our expenses, we brought home a little over $800,000!" he said.
I went upstairs to his bedroom one night at Graceland. The room was as cold as a snowfield in the
Rockies. Elvis loved the air that way. One of the guys used to tell people, "It's so cold that you could
hang meat in there."
I sat down on the couch by Elvis bed and tried to keep from shivering.
Had to go in his huge closet and pull down one of his robes. Wrapped it around me. lt was one of those soft blue ones Elvis liked. With the hood you can pull over your head and that's just what I did with it. l sat back down on the end of the couch, crossed my legs like a mediating Eskimo, and smiled. He watched me.
"Charlie." he said.
"Yea, Elvis?"
He punched the big pillow and leaned back on it.
"Did you ever stop to think what one little boy from Tupelo, Mississippi, and another little boy from Decatur, Alabama, have done?" he asked.
'What's that, Elvis?"
"We entertained the whole world." he said. I nodded.
"Yea."
We had done more than 2,000 shows together Elvis looked up at the ceiling. He stayed that way along time. His smile turned, slowly as twilight falling, into a faint look of puzzlement. There
was a wrinkle of concentration between his eyes. I noticed a touch of gray at his temples. I had seen that look many times before.
He shook his head.

"It never ceases to amaze me."
(Me 'n Elvis - Charlie Hodge)

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Loretta Swit: The Woman Who Brought Major Margaret Houlihan to Life — And Left Behind a Legacy Beyond Television

Loretta Swit, the legendary actress who brought Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan to life on MASH*, was much more than the character millions of television viewers came to love. She was a talented performer, a trailblazer for women on television, and a passionate advocate for animal welfare. When she passed away on May 30, 2025, at the age of 87, the world lost an actress whose influence extended far beyond the screen.

Born Loretta Jane Szwed on November 4, 1937, in Passaic, New Jersey, to Polish immigrant parents, Loretta discovered her love for performing at a young age. She studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York and began building her career through stage productions and touring companies. Like many aspiring actors, she worked her way through smaller roles before getting the opportunity that would change her life.

That opportunity arrived in 1972 when she was cast as Major Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan in the television series MASH*. The character had previously been portrayed by Sally Kellerman in Robert Altman’s 1970 film. But Loretta made the role entirely her own. What initially began as a rather one-dimensional character gradually developed into a complex woman: ambitious, disciplined, intelligent, vulnerable, and compassionate. She helped transform Margaret Houlihan into one of television’s most memorable female characters.

Her performance earned her two Primetime Emmy Awards, in 1980 and 1982, along with ten nominations. She remained one of the show’s longest-serving cast members, appearing in all but 11 episodes throughout its 11-season run from 1972 to 1983. Through Margaret, Loretta helped challenge stereotypes about women in positions of authority at a time when television rarely gave female characters such depth.

When MASH* ended in 1983, Loretta continued working in television, film, and theatre. She appeared in productions and popular television shows, including Murder, She Wrote, The Love Boat, and Diagnosis: Murder. On stage, she continued to showcase her versatility in productions such as Shirley Valentine and The Vagina Monologues.

But acting was only one part of her story. Loretta was deeply devoted to animal welfare. She used her public platform to advocate for animal rescue, responsible pet ownership, and protection against cruelty. In 2016, she founded the SwitHeart Animal Alliance, an organization dedicated to animal rescue and welfare. She also combined her love of painting with her activism in her 2017 book, SwitHeart: The Watercolor Artistry & Animal Activism of Loretta Swit, featuring her beautiful animal artwork.

Her connection to MASH* remained an important part of her life long after the cameras stopped rolling. The show had given her a character that audiences would remember for generations, but she never allowed herself to be defined by just one role. She continued creating, performing, painting, and supporting causes that mattered deeply to her.

Loretta Swit passed away at her home in New York City on May 30, 2025. She was 87. Her death was confirmed by her publicist, who said she was believed to have died of natural causes.

She leaves behind a remarkable legacy. She made audiences laugh, gave women a memorable character to look up to, and used her fame to speak for those who could not speak for themselves.

Loretta Swit was never just Major Margaret Houlihan. She was a remarkable actress, a compassionate human being, and a woman who made her mark on television history. Some performances entertain us for a moment. Hers will be remembered for generations.

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The Astronaut Who Nearly Drowned in the Vacuum of Space.

On July 16, 2013, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano was conducting a routine spacewalk outside the International Space Station when he felt cold water creeping up the back of his head.

Space is a vacuum, meaning there is no ambient moisture up there, so the water had to be leaking from his spacesuit's internal cooling system. He reported the anomaly to mission control, but the situation escalated with terrifying speed.

Without the pull of gravity, the accumulating water did not pool at his feet but instead clung to his skin as a thick, expanding blob. It quickly crept over his face, blinding his eyes, filling his nose, and eventually creeping toward his mouth. Parmitano lost audio communications from Houston and was effectively drowning inside a sealed, high-tech suit floating 250 miles above the Earth.

Relying entirely on his physical memory of the station's exterior and the tension of his safety tether, Parmitano blindly navigated his way back to the airlock. He managed to pull himself inside and repressurize just before the water entirely cut off his oxygen supply. Engineers later discovered that a clogged filter had caused a life-support separator to fail, pumping nearly two liters of water directly into his helmet.

It turns out the most dangerous thing in the vast emptiness of the cosmos is a plumbing leak.

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The Schoolboy Who Discovered a Physics Paradox

In 1963, a 13-year-old Tanzanian student named Erasto Mpemba was making ice cream in his school's cooking class in Magamba, Tanzania. When space in the freezer ran out, he skipped the cooling step and put his hot milk-and-sugar mixture straight in. His froze first.

He told his physics teacher. The teacher said he was confused, his observation was clearly impossible. His classmates laughed. The incident stuck. For years, other students at his school called his blunder out by name: "That is Mpemba's physics."

A few years later, Denis Osborne, a physicist from University College in Dar es Salaam, came to give a guest lecture at Mpemba's new school. At the end, Mpemba asked him directly: "If you take two beakers with equal volumes of water, one at 35°C and one at 100°C, and put them in a freezer, the one that started at 100°C freezes first. Why?" The room erupted. Osborne was caught off guard, but instead of dismissing the question, he promised to test it.

Back in his lab, Osborne asked a young technician to run the experiment. The technician confirmed hot water froze first, then added: "But we'll keep repeating the experiment until we get the right result." Repeated tests gave the same result every time. In 1969, Mpemba and Osborne co-published their findings in the journal Physics Education under the title "Cool?" The phenomenon became known as the Mpemba Effect.

The mechanism is still not settled. Evaporation, dissolved gases, convection currents, hydrogen bond dynamics, each has its proponents, none has closed the debate. A 2024 paper in the Journal of Chemical Physics proposed yet another molecular explanation. Erasto Mpemba, who spent his career as a game warden in Tanzania, died in May 2023. The question he asked in a school kitchen sixty years ago is still officially open.

He was laughed at twice for the same question, once as a child, once as a teenager. Physics has been trying to explain it ever since.

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It seems that Fred MacMurray had two happy marriages. His first was to actress Lillian Lamont whom he married in 1936. According to Joan Crawford, married four times so should know, the union was ‘’one of the few happy and well-adjusted marriages.’’

Unfortunately there was a tragedy waiting. Lillian was for a long time in poor heath. She was unable to have children so they adopted a girl and later a boy. Suffering from kidney problems, heart trouble and bulimia she died in 1953 leaving a broken-hearted Fred to raise the two children. He said he would never remarry.

His friend, John Wayne had other ideas. He invited Fred and a young lady named June Haver to a Christmas party. June had also been through a lot. Her fiancé had also suffered from a serious illness and died a short time before. She had been so distraught and disillusioned with life that she, briefly, joined a nunnery. She was with Laurence Harvey for most of the evening but was strongly attracted to Fred whom she had worked with a decade earlier. A romance blossomed and they married.

June was eager for a child of her own and wanted to adopt a little girl. Fred was reluctant as he felt his two children were enough and felt really too old to go through it again. But June persisted. Realising the old adage was true, ‘’A happy wife means a happy life,’’ he soon acquiesced. As a married man myself, I can attest to the veracity of this axiom.
Here they were when they picked up the children. It seems one wasn’t enough when they were introduced to twins Kathryn and Laurie.

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The Last Citizen of the Soviet Union.

On May 18, 1991, Soviet cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev launched aboard Soyuz TM-12 for what was supposed to be a routine five-month mission aboard the Mir space station.

While he floated 250 miles above Earth, the country that sent him into space quietly ceased to exist.

The Soviet Union dissolved on December 26, 1991. His hometown of Leningrad became St. Petersburg. The newly formed Russian space agency, crippled by economic chaos, literally could not afford a return flight.

Krikalev was stranded.

To raise desperate funds, Russia began selling seats on supply missions to other nations, sending up an Austrian cosmonaut and a Japanese journalist, but Krikalev was told he had to remain on board to keep Mir running.

His mission stretched on with no clear end date in sight.

Finally, after 311 agonizing days in orbit, more than double his original plan, a German-funded mission provided the capsule needed to bring him home on March 25, 1992.

When he stepped out onto Kazakh soil, he was still wearing a flight suit with the flag of a nation that no longer existed.

He had left Earth as a Soviet citizen.

He returned a year later as a Russian one.

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In an interview, Mel Brooks was asked——“Was there a secret to your marriage?”
Mel replied, “I don’t know if there was a secret. I don’t know what you’d call a secret. I think we….from the first moment I saw her I fell in love and it…..”—-
On the surface, Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft couldn’t have seemed more different.
She was tall and striking and he always referred to himself as short and homely.
When Mel told his Jewish mother he was marrying an Italian, she said, “Bring her over! I’ll be in the kitchen—with my head in the oven”—
All joking aside, theirs was one of Hollywood’s most enduring romances.
They did bicker and disagree, but they also agreed a lot, and they always ended things with a laugh.
The party ended in 2005 after 41 years when Anne died of uterine cancer at 73.

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The film that put Morgan Freeman on the map was——- “Driving Miss Daisy”/1989.
He reprised his character “Hoke”—the gracious chauffeur from the Broadway show.
Miss Daisy’s son hires Hoke, also rapidly approaching elderly, as her driver against her wishes.
The audience gets to see Morgan Freeman age 20+ years during the course of the film.
This gave directors a wonderful opportunity to see Mr. Freeman’s range.
I had a friend who lived in the same apartment building as Mr. Freeman when he did stage work in NYC.
I brag, every chance I get, “I knew Morgan Freeman when he had a rental apartment on West End Ave and 92nd St.”

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Tom Cruise just has excellent PR.
His people are good, so damn good… remember when he did that stunt a few years for one the Mission Impossible films and he broke his ankle jumping between two buildings, and he carried on like a trooper anyway and finished the shoot on pure adrenaline so production wouldn’t be delayed?

Anyway, the thing was filmed and Cruise’s people don’t hesitate a minute, they IMMEDIATELY send a video of the incident to all major news outlets and celebrity social media accounts and it goes massively viral. Boom! Great publicity, right there. Jackie Chan broke just about every bone in his body doing stunts, too, as did Brendan Fraser, but we don’t see footage of it most of the time. Then again, they’re not in a cult. Cruise really needs the goodwill. And he makes sure to consistently get it, because he works hard and his people work hard for him, and make sure we see him working hard.
Aside from this, Tom Cruise genuinely is charismatic as hell. So he has great publicity and his own persona doesn’t hurt. Not bad for a man who has been the public face for a shady cult for over twenty years, whose own youngest daughter hasn’t spoken to him in twenty years. Just make good films, be seen doing cool stunts and keep your mouth shut about your weird cult, that’s how it’s done.

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Kirk Douglas!!

And this one is particularly dark, so I am warning you ahead of time. Some of this is circumstantial but Kirk was, by all accounts, a very nasty guy, a notorious womanizer and a sleazebag. In his biography, Kirk himself stated that it was only after he suffered a stroke in 1996 at the age of 80, that he finally become faithful to his wife of sixty years!
There are, however, a lot of dark and twisted stories floating around regarding Kirk Douglas. Stories that go well beyond a mere life of hedonistic debauchery, as he portrays it, but are down right evil.
Kirk Douglas raped Natalie Wood when she was just a teenager. He invited her to his hotel room, at a point in time where he was an incredibly powerful star at the box office, a true money making machine, fav of the public and darling of the press… he was also a very sexually aggressive man, a man who could not accept the word no. He made his way through dozens of starlets, impregnating many and forcing them to undergo abortions. One of them was Natalie Wood, when she was just sixteen… and she wasn’t just raped, she was in fact attacked so brutally she had to see a doctor because of the internal damage and it almost cost her her career. Lana Wood, sister of Natalie, has promised to name the man who raped and ruined her sisters’ life but only after the perpetrator has died, as she still fears the powerful hand of Hollywood and the man’s connections being that he is a hero of Hollywood’s Golden Age… She has not yet named the one, as he is still alive… but what major Hollywood name with a shady reputation who was alive and world famous in the early 1960s when Natalie Wood was raped, is still alive today? No one, that’s who. No other star has the longevity of Spartacus. For Natalie, justice would come too late anyway; she tragically drowned at an early age, her own death under suspicious circumstances.
Now for the truly horrifying part; Kirk Douglas’ involvement in the disappearance of actress Jean Spangler, a young starlet.
[1]Her body never found, there was a note in her wallet that said:

“Kirk: Can't wait any longer, Going to see Dr. Scott. It will work best this way wile mother is away.”
Police thought the note hinted at an abortion Spangler may have been planning to have. Before Kirk Douglas was even on their radar as a suspect, he phoned the police first. And in doing so, managed to make himself a suspect. But alas, the body was never found. Jean Spangler’s mother recalled her daughter having dates with an actor by the name of Kirk, who picked her up in his car frequently, but he never visited the house and the mother never had a good look at the man. No other suspects turned up, no body, no eye witness, so Douglas walked free and ended up becoming a major star in the years that followed.
The creepy thing with the whole case is that Jean Spangler bore a striking resemblance to the Black Dahlia murder two years prior, in 1947, causing quite a few people to suspect the two cases are connected and may be the work of a serial killer. Kirk Douglas, at the time a married father of two sons with a growing career, might have seen his career sink if several young women came forward with illegitimate children, abortions and rumored affairs… but they never came forward. Instead, they died.
So, Kirk Douglas, alive today at age 103 and doing quite well by all accounts, might be the Hollywood star with the darkest past. Hell, he might be an actual serial killer for all we know because he can be linked to the death of at least one starlet. Of course, in those days, Hollywood was almighty and the studio fixers would have taken care of everything before any real connections could be made.

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Ozzy Osbourne gave his last concert on July 5, 2025. “Back to the Beginning”, he called it. He was together again with the full lineup of Black Sabbath, the band he formed over half a century ago, in 1968.
Ozzy Osbourne arranged for his final show to be broadcast on TV and online. You could pay to see it. And the proceeds were over 140 million dollars.

Every single cent of those 140 dollars is meant for charity. Half will go to a children’s hospital in Birmingham, the rest will go research to end Parkinson’s Disease.

Ozzy Osbourne was 76 years old, and unable to walk. He sat in a black leather throne, a bat behind his head. And he still gave it his all. His body had failed him. But there was still a fire inside this man that burned brightly. To do that, all that, on the brink of death? That’s impressive. He could have not done it. He could have stayed home. The man was in near-constant physical pain, but he gave it all he got, one final time, for a good cause. And that’s not something a bad person would do. Was he, once upon a time, a drugged up madman, an absolute animal, a crazed rock demon? Oh, yes. He was a legend. He did what he had to do. The scene demanded it. The audience wanted it. And he delivered. Always.
Ozzy Osbourne died today, July 22, 2025. He was 76 years old. He was by all accounts a good husband, father and grandfather. He was a great and legendary performer. And he died doing what he loved best, until the very end. Like a boss.