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Stars Who Sadly Passed Away Already In 2018

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Twenty names, one brutal stretch of months — 2018 took an unusually heavy toll on entertainment.

Nicki Swift’s rundown of the year’s losses moves fast because it has to — from a “Storm Chasers” host who died on a cruise ship in January to Stan Lee closing out the list in November, the video covers twenty career-defining figures across music, film, television and hip-hop. Some deaths were sudden and shocking, others came after long illnesses, but together they trace a year that started with quiet losses in January and ended with the kind of names that stop scrolling feeds cold. Here’s the ground the video covers, segment by segment.

• Rapper XXXTentacion was shot and killed in Florida on June 18 at age 20, while Mac Miller died September 7 at age 26 from accidental drug toxicity.
• Aretha Franklin, the “Queen of Soul,” died August 16 at 76, and Burt Reynolds followed September 6 at 82 from cardiac arrest.
• Stan Lee, the architect of the Marvel Comics universe, died November 12 at 95 from cardiac arrest and respiratory failure — the final entry in the video.

The Early Months Nobody Saw Coming

January alone claimed five recognizable names. “Fast” Eddie Clarke, the Motorhead guitarist, died January 10 at 67 from pneumonia. Blues singer Denise LaSalle passed two days earlier on January 8 at 78, the same day “Battlestar Galactica” actor Donnelly Rhodes died at 80. Jim Rodford, who played bass for both The Kinks and Argent, died January 20 at 76 following a fall, and Chicago drill rapper Fredo Santana died January 19 at just 27 from a fatal seizure.

Connie Sawyer, widely regarded as Hollywood’s oldest working actress and known to a generation for “Dumb and Dumber,” died January 21 at 105. Two days later, Discovery Channel’s “Storm Chasers” star Joel Taylor died at 38 aboard a cruise ship docked in Puerto Rico. February brought two more losses in character actor and drummer Mickey Jones, who died at 76 after complications from diabetes on February 7, and Dennis Edwards, the longtime lead singer of The Temptations, who died February 1 at 74. John Gavin, the actor and former U.S. Ambassador, rounded out the month, dying February 9 at 86.

Music’s Heaviest Losses

Hip-hop pioneer Craig Mack, best known for “Flava in Ya Ear,” died March 12 at 47 from heart failure. Then came the two deaths that dominated headlines all summer: rising rapper XXXTentacion, fatally shot in Florida on June 18 at just 20 years old, and Pittsburgh’s Mac Miller, who died September 7 at 26 from accidental drug toxicity. Both losses fit a grim pattern the industry has wrestled with before, one covered in depth in The Chilling Connection Between All These Celebs That Died Young and echoed in the aftermath explored in Avicii’s Father Confirms What We Suspected About His Son’s Tragic Death.

South Korean K-pop singer Seo Minwoo, frontman of the group 100%, died March 25 at just 33 from cardiac arrest — another young performer gone far too soon in a year that saw an unusual number of them.

Screen And Stage Farewells

Tony-winning “A Chorus Line” dancer Sammy Williams died March 17 at 69. Richard “Old Man” Harrison, the gruff patriarch of “Pawn Stars,” died June 25 at 77 following a battle with Parkinson’s disease — a loss that hit especially hard for longtime viewers who watched him build the Las Vegas pawn shop into a television institution.

The Names That Stopped Everyone

Late 2018 delivered the three deaths that dominated the news cycle far beyond entertainment circles. Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, died August 16 at 76. Burt Reynolds, the box-office star of the 1970s and ’80s, died September 6 at 82 from cardiac arrest. And on November 12, Stan Lee — the man whose fingerprints are on nearly every Marvel character brought to the screen — died at 95 from cardiac arrest and respiratory failure.

November 12, age 95, cardiac arrest and respiratory failure — Stan Lee’s death closes out a year that had already taken Aretha Franklin and Burt Reynolds within the same three months.

Lee’s death landed just five days before the video itself was published, which is why it caps the countdown rather than sitting buried in the middle of it. Twenty names in eleven months, from a cruise-ship tragedy in January to the loss of a comic-book architect in November — and 2018 still had six more weeks left to run.