Whitney Houston joined a tragic group of singers—including Billie Holiday, Amy Winehouse, and Judy Garland—who never lived to see 50.
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Though Whitney Houston had been in and out of rehab for substance abuse over the years, her death on Saturday, at the age of 48, shocked the music world because she had “looked happy” and healthy, and was awaiting the August release of her comeback movie, Sparkle. A coroner’s report won’t be issued for several weeks, but for now it appears that the queen of pop may have drowned in her bathtub at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, where prescription drugs were reportedly present. At the Grammy Awards the night after Houston’s body was discovered, Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson performed a tribute to her idol and spoke for fans around the world when she sang “I Will Always Love You.”
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As Billie Holiday lay dying of liver and heart disease in 1959, she was arrested in her New York hospital room for illegal possession of narcotics. A month later, the 44-year-old jazz legend died penniless—except for $750 taped to her leg, a payment from a magazine for her life story. Thirteen years after her death, Diana Ross portrayed Holiday in Lady Sings the Blues, which earned her an Academy Award nomination for best actress.
With her death in July 2011, Amy Winehouse became the latest musician to join the fateful “27 Club” of iconic artists who never lived to see their 28th birthday. Despite her early exit, Winehouse won a posthumous Grammy for her duet with Tony Bennett on the same night Whitney Houston was memorialized. Accepting the award, Mitch Winehouse celebrated his troubled daughter, saying: “Long live Whitney Houston, long live Etta James, long live Amy Winehouse. There’s a beautiful girl group up in heaven.”
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For nearly 40 years there has been an urban legend surrounding the death of Cass Elliot, lead singer of the Mamas and the Papas, that refuses to die. But there is no truth to the story that “Mama Cass” choked on a ham sandwich. Rather, the coroner ruled that the hefty singer had died of complications from obesity—she had a heart attack at 33.
Like John Lennon's before her, the death of Selena became a cautionary tale for celebrities and their fans. In 1995, Selena—“the Mexican Madonna”—was shot to death at the age of 23 by the president of her fan club. Having sold more than 20 million albums in her brief life, the queen of Tejano was immortalized two years later in a biopic that featured the movie debut of an unknown actress in the title role—Jennifer Lopez.
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In 1961, months after releasing one of her biggest hits, “I Fall to Pieces,” Patsy Cline was in a head-on collision that sent her flying through the windshield of her car. Miraculously, the queen of country music survived. But nearly two years later, at the age of 30, Cline died in a private-plane crash that also killed her manager. Her life story was told in Sweet Dreams, a 1985 movie for which Jessica Lange, playing Cline, was nominated for an Oscar.
Another member of music’s “27 Club,” Janis Joplin died of a heroin overdose in 1970. The lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company, the young queen of rock and roll grew up in Port Arthur, Texas, where one of her high-school classmates, future Dallas Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson, gave her the nickname “Beat Weeds.”
Aaliyah’s debut album at 15—the aptly titled Age Ain’t Nothin’ but a Number—sold more than 3 million albums. (That same year, she also secretly married her musical mentor, R. Kelly, though their union was annulled because Aaliyah was underage.) Six years and one album later, Aaliyah broke into movies with Romeo Must Die, and she had just finished filming Queen of the Damned when the 22-year-old princess of R&B was killed in a plane crash in the Bahamas. An investigation later revealed that the twin-engine Cessna exceeded its maximum weight by 700 pounds and was carrying one extra passenger.
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Judy Garland had been in show business for a lengthy 45 years when she died in 1969, but consider that she got her start at the age of 2. By 16, Garland had already starred in her signature role as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, and at 39 she became the youngest recipient of the Golden Globes’ Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement. A few years later, Garland, who was already suffering from cirrhosis of the liver from excessive drinking, died of an accidental overdose of barbiturates. At her funeral, Ray Bolger, who played the Scarecrow in Oz, said of her, “She just plain wore out."
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Freddie Mercury’s four-octave voice gave him a range that any diva would envy. His 1991 death from AIDS-related pneumonia at the age of 45 came one day after the lead singer of Queen acknowledged he had the disease. And more than 20 years after his death, Queen fans are still waiting for his second coming. Earlier this month, it was reported that American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert would join the legendary rock band as its new frontman, but Lambert later downplayed the possibility, saying he could never replace Mercury. "That's impossible," he told Rolling Stone. "The way I'm choosing to view it is that it's a great honor and one I'm in no way going to shirk."
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