Elvin Shepherd

popular name: Bobby Fuller

date_of_death: July 18, 1966

age: 23

cause_of_death: Homicide by inhalation of gasoline (disputed)

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: "I fought the law and the law won". These words became an anthem for a generation of disaffected youth during the turbulent 60s. Written and sung by Bobby Fuller fronting the Bobby Fuller Four, like so many young talent of those unsettling times was destined to die a tragic death. A death that is a source of controversy and speculation today.

popular name: Franco Ventriglia

date_of_death: November 28, 2012

age: 90

cause_of_death: Natural causes

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Franco Ventriglia was an opera singer who sang bass in every major European opera house during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Serving in the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing in the South Pacific during World War II upon return stateside Franco was working at his brother's filling station in Easton, Connecticut when Mario Pagano, a maestro de Canto at the American Theatre Wing Professional School heard from one of Ventriglia's coworkers about his singing talent. Ventriglia passed an audition and went on to attend the school on the G.I. Bill. After Pagano's death, Ventriglia and his wife Jean boarded the ocean liner SS Constitution for Italy. On board, after singing Ol' Man River for a group in first class, he met a businessman who asked him to contact Toti Dal Monte, a great coloratura soprano who also taught voice in Rome. Ventriglia took singing lessons from Dal Monte and eventually made his operatic debut in Palermo, singing in the Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. He later sang with Luciano Pavarotti in La bohème and Rigoletto. He performed in Samson and Delilah at La Scala, a performance he considered the highlight of his career. He returned to the U.S. in 1978, where he continued to perform at venues including Carnegie Hall, and traveled to perform in southeast Asia, until his retirement in 2001 at age 79.

popular name: Michel Berger

date_of_death: August 2, 1992

age: 44

cause_of_death: Heart attack

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Michel Berger was a popular French singer and songwriter and a leading figure of France's pop music scene for two decades as a singer. As a songwriter he was active for such artists as his wife France Gall, Françoise Hardy and Johnny Hallyday. Berger first became known to the French public in the 1960s as singer of hit song Salut les copains, after which he became record producer and songwriter. In the early 1970s he produced the early albums of Véronique Sanson, and Allah once again in 1989. In 1973, he was responsible for producing the album Message personnel, the title track of which relaunched Françoise Hardy's career. He also produced the single Je suis moi for Hardy. Berger started writing for France Gall in 1974, produced all her albums from 1975 on, and married her the following year. In 1978, he composed the musical: Starmania, with lyrics by Luc Plamondon. The musical starred Gall, Claude Dubois, Daniel Balavoine, Diane Dufresne, Nanette Workman, Éric Estève and Fabienne Thibeault and was a big success in France in the 1980s and 1990s. Unfortunately his career stalled when his next two productions failed and he was under pressure to deliver another best seller. But at the age of 44, Berger suffered a heart attack while playing tennis, and despite the pleas of friends and family, he made his way up the hill to his home in Ramatuelle, France and suffered two more heart attacks in bed. He died waiting for the ambulance that was stuck in traffic from all the tourist in St. Tropez.