3. Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield’s legacy is often lost in the shadow of fellow mid-century sex symbol, Marilyn Monroe, but you could make the argument that Mansfield was more talented, better liked, and simply put, sexier. She was a Golden Globe winner, the first woman to ever bare it all in a Hollywood film, and kind of invented the publicity stunt – she purposely wore an undersized bikini which popped off at a press junket in 1955 – which led her to become one of the first Playboy Playmates. Then, on the night of June 28, 1967, while driving from Biloxi, Mississippi to New Orleans with her three children, her attorney, and their driver, they collided into the back of a tractor-trailer. The crash instantly killed all three adults in the car including Mansfield herself, but the three kids, who were sleeping in the backseat at the time of the accident, miraculously walked away without a scratch. Photographs showing the car’s roof almost completely torn off lead to rumors about Mansfield being decapitated but those were proven false, although her skull was crushed and bits of her scalp and hair were actually visible in the images.
2. Ray Combs
Ray Combs started as a stand-up in the mid to late 1970s in Cincinnati. After a few years on the scene, he took a look at the no talent schmucks around him, quit his job, packed up the wife and kids and moved to Los Angeles. And it proved to be a lucrative decision because within a few years he was appearing on The Golden Girls, Hollywood Squares and The Tonight Show. By 1988, CBS had signed him to a seven-year contract to host the revitalized Family Feud, a role he treasured and toured endlessly to promote. Which again, was a decision that proved lucrative, as the show was a big hit… at least for a few years. By 1992 ratings spiraled to the floor, and by 1994 CBS replaced Combs with Family Feud‘s original host, Richard Dawson. To add injury to insult, Combs severely injured a spinal disc in a car accident later that year, leaving him in permanent pain, add that to a multitude of financial woes along with a nasty divorce and we arrive at June 1, 1996, when police were called to his Glendale, California home to investigate a disturbance. What they found was a house destroyed from the inside by Combs, who had been slamming his head against the walls for hours. Acting swiftly, the authorities brought Combs to Glendale Medical Center and put him under a 72-hour suicide surveillance watch. Unfortunately, whoever was clocked in to keep an eye on Combs must have stepped away to the vending machine or something, because the depressed game show host wasted no time in making a noose out of the bedsheets and hung himself off of the closet in his room.
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