"Celebreties" that you were GENUINELY sad had died.

[wobbegong]

Not very often, but here's a couple . . . .

Peter Cook
Stuart Adamson
Alan Coren


Men outstanding in their field(s).

[Zippy]

Richard Feynman
HM The Queen Mother
Pope John Paul I

[NickFitz]

Echoing others:

• Richard Feynman: I didn't really know his work at the time he died; I came to appreciate his contribution later. He could have brought so much more to the table had he lived longer. His account of teaching himself lockpicking (CalTech really need to sort out their CMS) as a way of getting around the security surrounding the Manhattan Project is wonderful. Of greater importance is his contribution to the Challenger Report (I'm looking at you too, NASA), exposing the devastating impact of management ass-covering on the safety of the Space Shuttle programme. It was awesome not just for its insight, but for the way he refused to be suppressed when the powers-that-be tried to shut him up. All scientists should treat managers and politicians that way. In fact, I'm going to repeat his final sentence here, for it cannot be said often enough: "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
  
  
• Peter Cook: I re-watched The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer a couple of weeks ago, and just a few nights ago I watched the BBC DVD of some-bits-of-what's-left-of Not Only.. But Also.... I also have the DVD of Bedazzled still in its shrinkwrap, waiting for the right mood. If nothing else, we should all prostrate ourselves in memory of the man who saved Private Eye from extinction not once but many times, for that magazine is still the only truly reliable source of facts about the way everything is being done that we have.
  
  
• Alan Coren: I was driving up a crowded motorway on a Friday evening (away from home since Monday) when he came out with that comment on The News Quiz to the effect of: "Sainsbury's? I know nothing about Sainsbury's. The only thing I know about Sainsbury's is that it keeps the riff-raff out of Waitrose." I laughed about that for many miles, finally reaching my home junction - where I went shopping in the adjacent Sainsbury's
  
  His time as editor of Punch also marked a distinct highpoint in the quality of that sadly-defunct magazine's content.
  
  Oh, and there's also the way he was always mentioning on radio and television that he lived in Cricklewood, solely because he knew it annoyed those of his more snobbish neighbours who liked to claim that they lived in West Hampstead

And for myself:

• Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise, aka Morecambe & Wise: seriously, nobody has ever come close. A few weeks ago, at a family gathering, my teenage nieces watched the bit with André Previn for the first time. They were literally doubled up with laughter, as were we all, and as were all we old folk when it first aired at Christmas 1971
  
  
• Micky Jones: Man made one of my favourite albums (Be Good to Yourself at Least Once a Day) and I'm sad that I never got to see them live.
  
  
• Adrian Henri: I owe him a pint from the time I interviewed him in 1980
  
  
• Chris Challis: well, maybe not a celebrity in the accepted sense of the word, but he was a published author and a friend of mine who died too soon, and I'm still sad at his death. If anybody here used to read the biker magazine Back Street Heroes in the 80s and 90s, he was known in there as Doc Challis. His futuristic fantasy serial Horn was very popular with BSH readers.
  
  I still have a 24-pin-dot-matrix-printed copy of the novel he wrote following on from that serial, c.1992. He had the idea that it might form the basis of a computer game, and indeed the world he had created would have worked well as an immersive RPG for a certain market; but there was no backing and the games industry was in a slump at that time so nothing ever came of it.
  
  Thinking about it, the first time I met Chris was the night I interviewed Adrian Henri, Roger McGough and Carol Ann Duffy (the latter two still being with us, thank goodness); but that's a story for another time.

[MarillionFan]

Richard Whitely
Sid James
Jesus
Graham Norton

[NotAllThere]

Jesus

Erm... Oh never mind.

Les Dawson.
Larry Norman (ok, pretty obscure in most circles)

Really, it's anyone who's work I enjoyed, who snuffed it when they still would be expected to produce.

Mark Twain.

[Drewster]

Freddy Mercury......

[MarillionFan]

Freddy Mercury......

Is he related to Freddie Mercury by any chance?

[mudskipper]

The one I remember feeling genuine shock when I heard was Princess Di.

[dang65]

I had a very emotional reaction when Syd Barrett died. But that was more because of nostalgia for the days when I used to listen to his stuff, when I was about 14 or 15. He'd been well gone for years before he actually died.

[Gonzo]

It makes no sense to get upset over old people snuffing it so while I was a bit sad to hear that Ronnie Barker had gone because of his enormous contribution to British comedy in the second half of the twentieth century, I won't put him on the list - he deserves one of his own.

As for people that we could have done with lasting longer than they did and I was sad that they didn't:

1. Peter Cook
2. Linda Smith
3. John Thaw