Tragedies that were Almost Celebrity Tragedies

     We have all heard about celebrities who almost died, either from a car accident, a drug overdose, or just general run-of-the-mill health scares.  I am not particularly interested in these type of near-death experiences, though.  Everyone has a friend or a cousin who could have died in a car accident, or a drug overdose, or from a brain aneurism (not that I am trivializing your pain).  I am more interested in hearing about celebrities who nearly died in some major event that captured the world's attention.  I am sure that there are too many instances to count, but I stumbled across three examples on IMDb of celebrities who could have died in these events, thus making them even more newsworthy (if that is even possible). 

     I read about my first example a few weeks ago, when I looked up "The Fighter" on IMDb.  If you haven't seen it, come back to Earth and rent "The Fighter".  Good movie.  Anyways, I flipped to Mark Wahlberg's page, and found out that Mark Wahlberg and some friends were originally going to be on one of the plane's that crashed in to the World Trade Center.  They were supposed to be on the flight from Boston to Los Angeles, but instead decided to charter a flight to Toronto for the Toronto International Film Festival.  Yes people, movies saved this man's life. What a wonderful thing.  As I was writing this blog today, I actually saw on the news that Marky Mark has been taking some heat from his critics (can you believe that people could criticize celebrities for anything?) for some comments he made about how he would be braver than all of the other people on the planes that crashed in to the World Trade Center.  Well, he did not say that (exactly), but he did say, "We certainly would have tried to do something to fight. I've had probably over 50 dreams about it."  You heard it here; Marky Mark would have been a hero.  Just keep telling yourself that, Mark. 

     I also recently learned about another celebrity who could have died on 9/11.  Gabourey Sidibe was nominated for an Oscar for playing Precious in the 2009 Oscar winning film.  On September 11th, she slept in when she was supposed to attend class at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, which is located across the street from where the World Trade Center buildings were. Like I have done (once or twice) she figured that since she already was going to be late for class, she would just watch some television instead of rushing in.  Soon after, a plane hit the World Trade Center, and debris from the building hit her school.  Teachers and students were killed.  Gabourey Sidibe, however, survived because she decided to stay home to watch some t.v.

     Another tragic event that two Hollywood stars escaped was the Manson murders in Hollywood in 1969.  Murphy Brown (or as she probably would rather be called, Candice Bergen) was in a relationship with Terry Melcher, a Hollywood record producer.  In 1969 they rented their house out to Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate.  Charles Manson was crazy angry at Terry Melcher (he wasn't just crazy, and he wasn't just angry, he was crazy angry) and decided that he wanted to "send him a message".  Knowing that Melcher did not actually live there anymore, Manson sent his crazy disciples (they weren't angry... just crazy) to kill anyone who was there.  I think we all know how horrible the story turned out.  But, Candice Bergen had moved, and Roman Polanski was out of town, so both of these huge stars went on to other endeavours; Bergen to "Murphy Brown" and "Miss Congeniality", and Polanski to... statutory rape? Has he done anything else that is noteworthy? Debatable.  

        Anyways, I think that the moral of this story is that being a hugely rich and important celebrity (no offense intended to Gabourey Sidibe) will not save you from being killed in a horrible and tragic incident; apparently they have to rely on good old-fashioned luck, just like us!