Saddest Deaths of the 1950s

The Top Ten
1 Emmett Till Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was a 14-year-old African American who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after being accused of offending a white woman in her family's grocery store. The brutality of his murder and the fact that his killers were acquitted drew attention to the ...read more.
2 Buddy Holly Buddy Holly, born Charles Hardin Holley (September 7, 1936 – February 3, 1959) was an American musician and singer-songwriter who was a central figure of mid-1950s rock and roll. He was a rising star when a tragic plane crash struck him down at age 22. ...read more.
3 Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory of relativity, but he also made important contributions to the development of the theory of quantum mechanics. Relativity and quantum mechanics are together the two pillars of modern physics. His mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2, which arises from relativity theory, has been dubbed "the world's most famous equation". His work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of science. He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical ...read more.
4 Ritchie Valens Richard Steven Valenzuela (May 13, 1941 – February 3, 1959), known as Ritchie Valens, was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. A rock and roll pioneer and a forefather of the Chicano rock movement, Valens' recording career lasted eight months, as it abruptly ended when he died (aged 17) in ...read more.
5 James Dean James Byron Dean was an American actor. He is a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause, in which he starred as troubled teenager Jim Stark.
6 Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing was a pioneering English computer scientist, mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and theoretical biologist.

Suicide and being threatened because of homosexuality, what's sadder than that? He was a genius, and one of the most important person in WW2.

7 John Hodiak
8 Carmen Miranda
9 George VI
10 Eva Peron María Eva Duarte de Perón was the second wife of Argentine President Juan Perón and served as the First Lady of Argentina from 1946 until her death in 1952. She is usually referred to as Eva Perón, or by the affectionate Spanish language diminutive Evita.
The Contenders
11 Billie Holiday Eleanora Fagan, professionally known as Billie Holiday, was an American jazz musician and singer-songwriter with a career spanning nearly thirty years.
12 Constance Collier
13 Mary of Teck
14 Laika
15 Frida Kahlo Frida Kahlo de Rivera (July 6, 1907 – July 13, 1954), born Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón was a Mexican painter known for her self-portraits.
16 Ona Munson
17 Humphrey Bogart Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American screen actor whose performances in iconic 1940s films noir such as The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, and The Big Sleep earned him status as a cultural icon.
18 Theda Bara Theda Bara, born Theodosia Burr Goodman (July 29, 1885 – April 7, 1955) was an American silent film and stage actress. Bara was one of the most popular actresses of the silent era, and one of cinema's earliest sex symbols. Her femme fatale roles earned her the nickname The Vamp (short for vampire), ...read more.
19 John von Neumann John von Neumann was a Hungarian-American pure and applied mathematician, physicist, inventor, computer scientist, and polymath.
20 Mary McLeod Bethune
21 Bertolt Brecht Eugen Bertolt Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956) was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director of the 20th century. He made contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter through the tours undertaken by the Berliner Ensemble – the post-war theatre company ...read more.
22 Lou Costello
23 Cecil B. Demille Cecil Blount DeMille was an American filmmaker. Between 1913 and 1956, he made a total of 70 features, both silent and sound films.
24 George C. Marshall
25 Dylan Thomas
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