Morgan Earp

popular name: Ossie Davis

date_of_death: February 4, 2005

age: 87

cause_of_death: Suspected heart disease

claim_to_fame: Historical Figure

best_know_for: Ossie Davis was an American actor, director, writer, and activist. He and his wife, Ruby Dee were named to the NAACP Image Awards Hall of Fame; were awarded the National Medal of Arts and were recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors. He was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1994. Ossie David made his film debut in 1950 in the Sidney Poitier film No Way Out. He was one of a handful of black actors able to find commercial success while avoiding stereotypical roles prior to 1970, which also included a significant role in the movies The Hill, The Cardinal, and The Scalphunters. In addition to acting, Ossie Davis was considered one of the most notable black directors of his generation. Some of his best known works include directing Gordon's War, Black Girl and Cotton Comes to Harlem.

popular name: Kara Kennedy

date_of_death: September 16, 2011

age: 51

cause_of_death: Heart attack

claim_to_fame: Historical Figure

best_know_for: Kara Kennedy was born into a public family, the daughter of the Senator Edward M. Kennedy and Joan Bennett Kennedy, but was a private person who was able to live her life outside the public glare. After graduating from the National Cathedral School in 1978, Kara worked on her father’s 1980 Presidential campaign before matriculating at Tufts University. Following the receipt of her degree in 1983 she pursued a career in television, working at Fox News in New York and at an evening news magazine in Boston. She also successfully co-managed her father’s 1988 re-election campaign with her brother Patrick. Her lung cancer diagnosis came in 2002, and the prognosis was grim. But with her trademark determination, she went through aggressive surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, and had been in remission from her cancer since that time. Her family has speculated that her heart was weakened by the aggressive cancer treatments she received when she passed away at the young age of 51.

popular name: Michael Kennedy

date_of_death: December 31, 1997

age: 39

cause_of_death: Blunt force trauma from skiing accident

claim_to_fame: Historical Figure

best_know_for: Michael LeMoyne Kennedy was born into a very public family as Robert F. and Ethel Kennedy's middle of 11 children. He graduated from Harvard in 1980 and then went to law school at the University of Virginia, where he earned a law degree in 1984. In 1988 he took over as chairman of Citizens Energy Corp., the nonprofit fuel company founded by his brother, Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy II, that discounts home heating fuel for the poor. He also chaired Citizens Conservation Corp., which provided energy consulting services to low-income, multi-family housing. Through Citizen's Energy subsidiaries, Kennedy also coordinated relief missions to West Africa in 1989 and 1992, founded the U.S.-Angola Chamber of Commerce and helped establish a Catholic university in that country. Kennedy also co-chaired the Walden Woods Project, an effort to preserve a forest near Walden Pond in Concord, and Stop Handgun Violence Inc., a group that works to raise awareness about handguns. All that work, however, was overshadowed when reports said he had a 3-year affair with his children's 14-year-old baby sitter. Robert F. Kennedy's 39-year-old son died on New Year’s Eve Day 1997, playing football while skiing Aspen Mountain’s Copper Bowl. It was a game that the Kennedy family had enjoyed for over three decades, and was considered daring, if not dangerous. This time, Kennedy was caught off-balance and too close to the treeline, lost an edge, and went into a tree head first. He had not been wearing a helmet. He was the second of Robert and Ethel Kennedy's sons to die young. In 1984 David Anthony Kennedy died of a drug overdose at age 24.