Gone, but not forgotten. The loss of a Hollywood great is never easy, but in certain cases, a star’s passing comes long before it was their time to go.
Talents like Amy Winehouse, Prince, Whitney Houston, Cory Monteith and Robin Williams all left this world abruptly and without warning.
“Oh, Robin, still, his passing still hurts deeply,” Pierce Brosnan told Esquire in May 2019 about his former Mrs. Doubtfire costar nearly five years after Williams died by suicide in August 2014. “I miss him.”
The Mamma Mia! actor added: “His humanity was so far-reaching, and joy of people, and love of life, bountiful. … Robin was brilliant.” The Good Will Hunting actor was 63 when he passed away, leaving a hole in many people’s hearts.
Stars including Chadwick Boseman, Willie Garson and Norm Macdonald all fought private battles with cancer.
“I did not know that I could miss both his laughter and his silence in equal measure,” Lupita Nyong’o, who worked with Boseman on Marvel’s Black Panther, wrote via Instagram in August 2021. “I do. I do… One year after his passing, the memory of @chadwickboseman remains this alive in me.”
Boseman was diagnosed with stage III colon cancer in 2016. After quietly fighting the disease — and filming numerous movies, including Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom — he died in August 2020 at the age of 43.
While some of Hollywood’s greatest talents were taken too soon, including Bob Saget, who passed away in January 2022 at age 65, other stars left fans wanting more … even if they lived into their 90s. That was the case when Betty White died on New Year’s Eve 2021 at age 99.
“Even though Betty was about to be 100, I thought she would live forever,” her agent and close friend, Jeff Witjas, said in a statement at the time. “I will miss her terribly and so will the animal world that she loved so much. I don’t think Betty ever feared passing because she always wanted to be with her most beloved husband Allen Ludden. She believed she would be with him again.”
The Mary Tyler Moore alum was just a few weeks shy of turning 100. “The world looks different now. She was great at defying expectation,” Ryan Reynolds, who worked with White on The Proposal, tweeted after her passing. “She managed to grow very old and somehow, not old enough. We’ll miss you, Betty. Now you know the secret.”
Scroll down to see what other greats went too soon: