TIM MAGUIRE

James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955)

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Blonde bombshell and celebrated actress Jayne Mansfield was killed instantly
on June 29, 1967, when the car in which she is riding struck the rear of a trailer truck on U.S. Route 90 east of New Orleans, Louisiana.

Mansfield had been on her way to New Orleans from Biloxi, Mississippi, where
she had been performing a standing engagement at a local nightclub; she had
a television appearance scheduled the following day. Ronald B. Harrison, a
driver for the Gus Stevens Dinner Club, was driving Mansfield and her lawyer
and companion, Samuel S. Brody, along with three of Mansfield’s children with
her ex-husband Mickey Hargitay, in Stevens’ 1966 Buick Electra.

Jayne Mansfield (Vera Jayne Palmer)
(April 19, 1933 – June 29, 1967)

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Ernie’s 1962 Chevrolet Corvair.

On January 13, 1962, Ernie Kovacs, a comedian who hosted his own
television shows during the 1950s and is said to have influenced such
TV hosts as Johnny Carson and David Letterman, died at the age of 42
after crashing his Chevrolet Corvair into a telephone pole in Los Angeles, California, while driving in a rainstorm. Kovacs, who often appeared on
camera with his trademark cigar, was found by police with an unlit cigar,
leading to speculation that he had been reaching for the cigar and lost
control of his vehicle. The Corvair was later made infamous by Ralph
Nader’s groundbreaking 1965 book “Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-
In Dangers of the American Automobile,” about unsafe practices in the
auto industry.

Ernest Edward Kovacs (January 23, 1919 – January 13, 1962)

   
Kovacs as Poet Laureate Percy Dovetonsils.

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Cowboy-movie star Tom Mix was killed when he lost control of his speeding
Cord Phaeton convertible (above) and rolls into a dry wash (now called the
Tom Mix  Wash) near Florence, Arizona. He was 60 years old. Today, visitors
to the site of the accident can see a 2-foot–tall iron statue of a rudderless
horse (below) and a somewhat awkwardly written plaque that reads: “In
memory of Tom Mix whose spirit left his body on this spot and whose characterization and portrayals in life served to better fix memories of
the Old West in the minds of living men.” 

Mix was born in Driftwood, Pennsylvania; deserted the Army in 1902; and
was a drum major in the Oklahoma Territorial Cavalry band when he went
off to Hollywood in 1909. Before there was a Clint Eastwood and before
there was a John Wayne … there was Tom Mix.

Thomas Edwin Mix (Thomas Hezikiah Mix)
(January 6, 1880 – October 12, 1940)

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Shortly after midnight on August 31, 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales (above)—
affectionately known as "the People’s Princess"—died in a car crash in Paris
at the age  of 36.  Her boyfriend, the Egyptian-born socialite Dodi Fayed, and
the driver of the car, Henri Paul, died as well.

Princess Diana was one of the most popular public figures in the world. Her
death was met with a massive outpouring of grief. Mourners began visiting Kensington Palace immediately, leaving bouquets at the home where the
princess, also known as Lady Di, would never return. Piles of flowers
reached some 30 feet from the palace’s gate (below).

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