Last night Jo and I were watching a movie. I wont mention the movie for fear of spoiling a minor plot element*. As it happens it was a recent romantic comedy.
In the movie, a certain elderly family member faked a heart attack to force the lead actor and his father to make up with each other.
It got me thinking. The elderley family member is a 'well known' actress of 87 years. She's been fairly active in Hollywood for 65 years according to wikipedia. At 87 she's likely going to be typecast in roles whose redeeming feature is that she has to die.
I'm now wondering if there is a corrolation between the number of 'death roles' an elderly actor takes and their own mortality. I.e. if you plotted these roles against a timeline of the actor's life, would you see a sharp rise in on screen deaths just before they actually popped their clogs in real life?
Likewise, could you predict celebrity deaths by checking for this trend in today's working, aging, actors? I'm looking at you Danny Glover.....
An obvious exception to any formula would be those great actors who've died young. Heath Ledger, River Phoenix, Marilyn Monroe, Kurt Cobain, Tiny Tim :o)
A quick Google effort turns up Cinemorgue but there's no graphical way to see the correlation. I could do it if I had the time or inclination, but I don't.
I've suggested the idea as a project to the people on B3ta, it's ideal material for their Friday newsletter. I'll update the blog if anyone takes on the challenge (and it reveals anything worthwhile).
*Ask me off-blog and I'll tell you.
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