{"id":7,"date":"2010-06-25T05:06:40","date_gmt":"2010-06-25T05:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/06\/one-year-later-reflecting-on-the-deaths-of-farah-fawcett-michael-jackson-and-ed-mcmahon.html"},"modified":"2010-06-25T05:06:40","modified_gmt":"2010-06-25T05:06:40","slug":"one-year-later-reflecting-on-the-deaths-of-farah-fawcett-michael-jackson-and-ed-mcmahon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/06\/one-year-later-reflecting-on-the-deaths-of-farah-fawcett-michael-jackson-and-ed-mcmahon.html","title":{"rendered":"One year later, reflecting on the deaths of Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson and Ed McMahon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today marks the one year anniversary of the deaths of two entertainment industry icons.<\/p>\n

Farrah Fawcett, who happened to be a practicing Catholic<\/a>, died just hours before Michael Jackson on the same June day in 2009. <\/p>\n

Here’s what I wrote about their passings (as well as that of Ed McMahon who died just a couple of days earlier) at the time for Examiner.com<\/a>.  My thoughts still apply:
 <\/p>\n

The
\ndeaths of three entertainment icons in one week (two in one day) brings
\nto mind a few thoughts on celebrity and what it means — and what it
\ndoesn’t.<\/p>\n

Michael Jackson was, of course, the
\nbiggest name of the the three yet, to the extent we can know such
\nthings, he seemed the unhappiest.<\/p>\n

Farrah
\nFawcett who died only hours earlier was the subject of a recent
\ndocumentary that seemed to set the stage for her passing being a major
\nmedia event.  It was — but, ironically, eclipsed by Michael Jackson’s
\nuntimely death.<\/p>\n

Michael Jackson, despite at one time being the hottest media star in the world, apparently died in debt. <\/p>\n

Ed McMahon, who was a TV icon for decades — primarily known as Johnny Carson’s second banana on The Tonight Show <\/em>for thirty years, he was also top banana on Star Search<\/em>
\nand numerous other shows.  To say he did well financially was probably
\nan understatement.   Yet, he too was reportedly pretty much broke when
\nhe died at the age of 86.<\/p>\n

He lived a long life.  Farrah and Michael died relatively young.  But death came to them all.<\/p>\n

And,
\nin time, their memories will fade.  What will really matter is not the
\nflashing fame and fortune they achieved but the enduring love they left
\nbehind. <\/p>\n

That’s true about any life.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Kennedy","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d80\/d801bc09698c0995d9ae402b4b55ab61x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d80\/d801bc09698c0995d9ae402b4b55ab61x96.jpg","caption":"John W. Kennedy"},"description":"John W. Kennedy is the founder and Dir. of Development of The Creative Universe Entertainment\u2122, a media consultation and development company focusing on the creation, development and support of high-quality mainstream entertainment that upholds positive timeless values, including trust in God. Current projects include \"Bryant Park\" (an uplifting romantic-comedy) and \"Photo Finish\" (an award-winning sci-fi TV pilot). He has written over 100 children's novels based on episodes of the Cartoon Network series \"Ben 10\", \"Ben 10: Alien Force\", \"Ben 10: Ultimate Alien\", \"Ben 10: Omniverse\" and \"Generator Rex\" among others. He also writes Beliefnet\u2019s \"Faith, Media & Culture\" blog. Previously, he has produced successful news and talk programming for CNN, Fox News, Pax TV and SiriusXM. Specialties: Script Writing, Movie\/TV Novelizations & Adaptations, TV Content Creation and Development, Creative Consultation, Producing and Booking News and Talk shows. He can be reached for writing, producing and consulting services at 516-640-1182.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/author\/jkennedy"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/225"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}