1.) John Belushi
[Age 33] was an American comedian, actor and musician, notable for his work on Saturday Night Live, National Lampoon’s Animal House and The Blues Brothers. On March 5th, 1982, Belushi was found dead in his room at Bungalow #3 of the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. The cause of death was a speedball, an injection of cocaine and heroin. On the night of his death, he was visited separately by friends Robin Williams (at the height of his own drug exploits) and Robert De Niro, each of whom left the premises before Belushi overdosed.
2.) Sid Vicious
[Age 21] was the former bassist of the influential punk rock group the Sex Pistols. Sid died of an extremely pure heroin overdose after being charged and released from prison for the murder of his longtime girlfriend Nancy Spungen.
3.) Layne Staley
[Age 34] was the lead singer and co-lyricist of the rock group Alice in Chains. The autopsy report concluded that Staley died after injecting a mixture of heroin and cocaine known as a “speedball” on April 5th, 2002.
4.) Hillel Slovak
[Age 26] was the original guitarist and founding member of the Los Angeles rock band the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Slovak was found dead of a speedball overdose on June 27, 1988.
5.) Brad Renfro
[Age 25] was an American actor, best known for his roles in The Client and Sleepers. Renfro was found dead on January 15, 2008 in his Los Angeles apartment due to acute heroin and morphine intoxication.
6.) Dee Dee Ramone (Douglas Glenn Colvin)
[Age 50] was a founding member of punk rock band The Ramones. Colvin was found dead on the evening of June 5, 2002, by his wife Barbara at his Hollywood, California apartment. An autopsy performed on Colvin established that a heroin overdose was the cause of death.
7.) River Phoneix
[Age 23] was an American film actor best known for his roles in Stand By Me, My Own Private Idado and Sneakers. On October 31, 1993, Phoenix collapsed from a drug overdose of heroin and cocaine (speedball) outside the Viper Room, a Hollywood night club partially owned by actor Johnny Depp.
8.) Jim Morrison
[Age 27] was an American singer, songwriter, poet, writer and film maker. He is best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the band The Doors and is widely considered to be one of the most charismatic frontmen in rock music history. While the exact details of Morrison’s death are unclear, it widely recognized the an overdose of heroin was the primary cause of his death on July 3, 1971.
9.) Chris Farley
[Age 33] was an American comedian and actor. Farley is best known for his time on the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live and comedic films Billy Madison, Tommy Boy, and Black Sheep. On December 18, 1997, his younger brother John found Farley dead in his apartment on the sixtieth floor of the John Hancock Center in Chicago. An autopsy later revealed that Farley had overdosed on a combination of cocaine and morphine (a speedball).
10.) Charlie Parker
[Age 34] was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Parker is widely considered one of the most influential jazz musicians of all time. He acquired the nickname “Yardbird” early in his career, but became known simply as “Bird”. Though the official causes of death was lobar pneumonia and a bleeding ulcer, Parker’s demise was undoubtedly hastened by heroin and alcohol abuse. The coroner who performed his autopsy mistakenly estimated Parker’s 35-year-old body to be between 50 and 60 years of age.
11.) Brad Nowell
[Age 28] was an American musician who served as lead singer and guitarist of the popular band Sublime. Nowell died from a heroin overdose shortly before the release of Sublime’s self-titled major label debut.
12.) Janis Joplin
[Age 27] was an American singer, songwriter, and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company, and later as a solo artist. Janis was found dead on the floor of the Landmark Motor Hotel (since renamed the Highland Gardens Hotel) on October 4th 1970. The official cause of death was an overdose of heroin, possibly combined with the effects of alcohol.
13.) Pete Farndon
[Age 30] was an English bassist and founding member of the rock band The Pretenders. Farndon was found dead on April 14h 1983 by his wife after passing out and drowning in his bathtub after a heroin overdose.
14.) Curt Cobain
[Age 27] was an American musician who served as lead singer, guitarist, songwriter and frontman for the grunge band Nirvana. On April 8, 1994, Cobain’s body was discovered at his Lake Washington home by an electrician who had arrived to install a security system. Apart from a minor amount of blood coming out of Cobain’s ear, the electrician reported seeing no visible signs of trauma, and initially believed that Cobain was asleep until he saw the shotgun pointing at his chin. A high concentration of heroin and traces of Valium were found in his body.
15.) Billie Holiday
[Age 44] was an American jazz singer and songwriter. On May 31st, 1959, she was taken to Metropolitan Hospital in New York suffering from liver and heart disease caused by chronic heroin usage and other narcotics. Holiday remained at the hospital until she died from cirrhosis of the liver on July 17th, 1959.
