Do Celebrity Deaths Really Come in Threes?
Shannon Doherty, Richard Simmons, and Shelley Duvall died within days of each other. Which brings up the perennial question, is the Grim Reaper a trio lover? Do celebrities really die in threes?
No one knows the exact origin of this folklore, but evidence for it seems to pop up with eerie regularity.
For example, in 2009 Johnny Carson’s sidekick, Ed McMahon, died at the age of 86. A couple of days later, the Charlie’s Angels star Farrah Fawcett succumbed to cancer. She was 62.
That put people on alert. Who would be next? Then Michael Jackson moonwalked beyond the veil, at age 50.
Psychologists posit that this is all merely “confirmation bias.” We look for something, then “find” it in shaky details.
Yet there really is something about the number 3. There are three little pigs, three little words (“I love you”) and three coins in the fountain.
The third time’s the charm.
Humor is often based on the “rule of three,” to wit: A priest, a lawyer, and an Irishman walk into a bar. And the bartender says, “What is this? Some kind of joke?”
Three is significant in ancient thought. In the Bible there’s the Trinity. Jonah spends three days and nights in the belly of a fish. Jesus rises after three days. Three wise men bring gifts to the baby Jesus, described by one Sunday School child as gifts of “Gold, Frankenstein, and Murray.”
The Greek philosopher Pythagoras (b. 570 BC) was enamored of the number 3. His famous Pythagorean Theorem states that in a right triangle, the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides. (In Junior High I came up with three excuses for not turning in my geometry homework.)
Pythagoras also discovered that 3 is the only number that is the sum of all the numbers below it. Add 1 and 2, and you get 3. Can’t do that with any other number. Also, if you add 1, 2, and 3 together, you get 6. Multiply those numbers together and you also get 6. Can’t get that harmonic convergence with any other combo.
He also saw threes in life. There is a beginning, middle, and end to all things. We’re born, we live, we die. Water comes in three forms—liquid, solid (ice), and vapor.
And this is why Aristotle and storytellers talk about the three-act structure. It never fails. It’s how readers relate to story, it’s what they’re looking for. When that’s forgotten by a writer, you end up with “experimental fiction.” And the definition of experimental fiction is fiction that doesn’t sell.
Pagan myths are swimming with threes.
Euripides’ play Alcestis tells of a virtuous queen who willingly gives up her life to save the king, Admetus. Hercules, moved by her sacrifice, runs down to her tomb and fights with Death, kicks his butt, and brings Alcestis back to the king. But she is sepulchral and unable to speak—for three days. Then is “resurrected” and is queen once again.
There were the Gorgon Sisters, who were not a girl group with hit songs like “Boogie Woogie Toga Boy” and “Ouzo Barrel Polka.”
No, the Gorgons were grotesques who had bad hair days…like, every day. Because their hair was made of live, hissing snakes. And if you happened to look one of them in the face, boom! You turned to stone. (Come to think of it, maybe the Gorgons did have a hit song, “Everybody Must Get Stoned.”)
Medusa is the most famous of the Gorgons. She tried to “rock” Perseus’s world, but he tricked her by looking only at her reflection in his shield, then cut off her head with his sword.
But no matter how you slice it, there’s that number 3 again.
Three is the usual count for people to get ready, set, and go. It can be unlucky, too. Three strikes and you’re out. In World War I a superstition arose that if you lit three cigarettes with one match, one of the three guys would die soon thereafter. It was also a good argument for giving up smoking.
The American humorist James Thurber observed, “One martini is all right. Two are too many, and three are not enough.” This proved to be true throughout the 50s and 60s in the advertising culture of Madison Avenue, where the “three-martini lunch” was a staple, followed by the three-hour nap.
One of my favorite movies is 3 Days of the Condor, starring Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, and the great Max Von Sydow as a calm, cultured, and efficient assassin (see that? Three adjectives!)
I had three more points to make, but I forgot what they were.
Quote of the Week: “Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.” — Benjamin Franklin
Joke of the Week: Three vampires walk into a bar. The first one says, “I’ll have a pint of blood.” The second one says, “I’ll have a pint of blood, too.” The third one says, “I’ll have a pint of plasma.” The bartender says, “Okay, two bloods and a blood lite.”
That was amusing. See that? Three words ending with three syllables. This might have ruined my day with comparisons.
1) My wife and I married on our third date.
2) There are three-3s on record players spinning at 33-1/3 RPM
3) My daughter's age is divisible by three, the sum of the digits of her age is divisible by three, and her age is the product of the same three numbers. [Tip of the hat to Deb for the math puzzle :-) ]