Why we mourn George Michael and Carrie Fisher
As 2016 closes, an entertainment industry insider mourns the stars we have lost
When a famous person dies unexpectedly – as pop icon George Michael did – there are, aside from the general outpouring of sadness and remembrances, a few other expected reactions.
In newspaper offices across the world, whoever is on duty at the time scrambles to put together a comprehensive obituary. World leaders, old movie stars, fast-living socialites – these kinds of people are already surrounded by the expectation that they may die unexpectedly, so most newspapers have ready-made obituaries and mini-biographies set to go at a moment’s notice. But when someone dies suddenly, it’s a mad dash to compose a decent and respectful death notice and it often falls to whoever is in the office at the time, however junior or untested.
There’s an old story about a newspaper’s “death file” of prepared obituaries, which had been painstakingly updated and maintained by an unhappy and disgruntled editor. As he prepared anticipatory death notices for the regular suspects – presidents and former presidents, decrepit high court judges and so on – he couldn’t resist adding one or two sentences of mischief to each one. One former president was, he wrote, “known for his falsetto voice and sensual dance moves”. A highly respected judge, he inserted, was “a notorious card cheat and financial fraudster”. His theory, apparently, was that when these notices were needed, the copy editor on duty would read them over, chuckle at the joke, remove it, and send the clean copy along to be printed.
You can imagine what happened. Late one night one of the high court judges died, and the (clearly lazy) junior copy editor on duty simply plucked the ready-togo obituary out of the file, unread, in time to be printed in the next morning’s paper, which it was, to universal dismay (and not a small amount of laughter).
On the technology side, Netflix and Spotify brace themselves – and their servers – for a sudden, massive increase in downloads and streaming requests of the newly, and surprisingly, deceased notable. George Michael’s song catalogue, for instance, experienced a 3,000 per cent increase following the news of his death. People wanted to hear the music of a man who had recorded so many hit songs — songs they had listened to at important or memorable times in their lives.
Popular music is like that. We remember songs not so much because of the sound or the beat, but because of who we were when we heard them first. A big part of the cascade of Tweets and Facebook posts surrounding Michael’s death were from people remembering who and where they were when they first heard, say, Careless Whisper or Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go. (For the record, I was in boarding school, walking past the closed door of one of the cooler and more mature boys in my dormitory, when I heard Wham! for the first time.)
That’s why, when a famous person dies, there is also one rather small group of people – maybe six or seven at the most – who spring into action.
These are the editors and producers of the various entertainment industry awards ceremonies that take place each year – mostly around January and February. The Oscars, the Golden Globes, the various Guild awards – these all have a prominent “In Memoriam” moment in their awards ceremony broadcasts, usually consisting of a montage of the famous (and not so famous) folks who have died in the previous year.
This year, for instance, at the music industry’s big night, the Grammy Awards, there will doubtless be testimonials to George Michael as well as David Bowie.
Wait. Also Prince. I forgot him. And also Frank Sinatra Jr, who I suppose should be included because he recorded and produced some of his father’s records as well as some of his own. But if you’re including him, you’d better not forget folk legend Leonard Cohen. Or Leon Russell. And while Sharon Jones of Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings wasn’t a household name, she was a powerhouse R& B singer and widely respected by her peers.
Whoops. I forgot Merle Haggard, the country music superstar. Have to add him in there, somewhere.
Do you see the problem? A lot of people die in a year, and it’s hard to keep track of them all. And it’s even harder to make distinctions about who gets to be in the montage and who doesn’t make the cut. After all, there is only so much time available for what is, when you get right down to it, a depressing sequence. Each year, like clockwork, the awards shows miss someone or make time-necessary edits to their “In Memoriam” montages, outraging and insulting the devoted fans of whomever was left out.
But when someone’s music or performance has touched you and stirred up memories, it really doesn’t matter if they were a big star or not. They were a big star to you, and you want them remembered.
As I wrote these words, I learnt that Carrie Fisher, who embodied the role of Princess Leia in four instalments of the Star Wars saga as well as wrote hilariously blunt memoirs, has died. I remember her in her white robes, in the original Star Wars movie, which I saw in the cinema. I was 11 years old. What about you?