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12 Bizarre Ways to Kill Off Your Character

By Dee Van Dyk —First Posted January 2009

A gunshot, poison, a push off a steep cliff. Offing a character isn’t difficult, but it doesn’t need to be deadly boring either.

1. Death by Cleaning.  For theatre director Margo Jones, cleanliness was definitely next to godliness. Margo died in 1955 from exposure to the carbon tetrachloride fumes given off by her newly cleaned carpet.

2. Death by Talk Show Host. In 1971 American pioneer of organic farming, Jerome Irving Rodale, seemed to doze off while being interviewed by Dick Cavett. Confusion ensured and it was discovered that Rodale had died of a heart attack. Of course, the interview never aired.

3. Death by Misadventure. In 1973, martial arts actor Bruce Lee died after a severe allergic reaction to Equagesic, swelling his brain by about 13 per cent. His autopsy report lists “death by misadventure” as his cause of death.

4. Death by Prop Gun. Your mother was right: you shouldn’t play with guns. Actors Jon Erick Hexum and Brandon Lee (bizarre deaths being a bit of a family specialty apparently) were both accidentally killed by prop guns during filming.

5. Death by Gross Miscalculation. In 1993 Toronto lawyer Garry Hoy, died after throwing himself through the glass wall of the Toronto-Dominion Centre. How’d that happen? He was trying to prove the glass was unbreakable and, although it technically was, the glass panel popped out of its frame, dropping Hoy to his death 24 floors below.

6.  A Revolting Way to Die. In 1514, Gyorgy Dozsa, for his role in leading a Hungarian revolt, was condemned to sit on a red-hot throne, wearing a red-hot iron crown and holding a red-hot sceptre. Before he died, his partially cooked body was eaten by fellow rebels who hadn’t been fed for a week. There is no substantive evidence that this quelled future revolts.

7. Death by Gluttony. In 1771 Swedish king Adolf Frederick died of digestion problems after eating lobster, caviar, sauerkraut, smoked herring and champagne and 14 servings of his favourite dessert (semla served in hot milk).

8. Death by Bladder Burst. In 1862 baseball player Jim Creighton died after swinging a bat hard enough to rupture his bladder.

9. Death by Dummy. In 1912 tailor Franz Reichelt died after jumping off the Eiffel Tower while testing his invention, the coat parachute. Previous to the jump, Reichelt had assured authorities he would test the parachute with a dummy. Apparently he was right.

10. Death by Fatal Irony. In 1932, dejected and rejected actress Peg Entwistle committed suicide by jumping from the “H” of the Hollywood sign. The following day, a letter was delivered to her home, offering her the lead role in a play about women driven to suicide.

11. Death by Disney. Happiest place on Earth? Not according to Deborah Stone who was crushed to death between two walls inside the revolving America Sings attraction in Disneyland.

12. The Lights are on, but Nobody is Home. In 1978 French pop singer, Claude Francois, was electrocuted changing a bathroom light bulb while standing in a tub full of water.