Willie Llewelyn

William Dillwyn Llewelyn - who was born on April 1st, 1868, in Aberdulais, Glamorgan, Wales - was a Welsh cricketer, who played sixteen first-class matches for Oxford University between 1890 and 1891. An old Etonian, and the son of Sir John Dillwyn-Llewelyn and Caroline Julia Hicks-Beach, he played four further first-class matches, in 1893, for the Gentlemen of England and Marylebone Cricket Club, after his graduation from Oxford.  Llewelyn also became treasurer of Glamorgan County Cricket Club, then a second-class county side, in 1893.  Just a week before he was due to marry the daughter of Lord Dynevor, Llewelyn's body was found in woodland near his home in Penllergare House near Swansea.  He had shot himself in the head the previous day - August 24th, 1893.  Willie Llewelyn was just 25 years old.

Wendy O. Williams

Wendy Orlean Williams was an American singer, songwriter, and actress, who was born on May 28th, 1949, in Webster, New York, U.S.A.  At school, where she played the clarinet, Williams was recalled as a "shy and pretty girl" and "an average student".  She had the first of many run-ins with the law for sunbathing topless at the age of fifteen, and left R. L. Thomas High School in Webster before graduating.  Apparently feeling like an outcast, and misunderstood by her strict parents, Williams left home at age sixteen, hitchhiking to Colorado, and then onto Florida and Europe, taking several jobs on her travels, and also being arrested many times for shoplifting and possessing counterfeit money.  Arriving back in New York City in 1976, she met radical artist Rod Swenson, who became her manager, and she began performing in his live sex shows, and later in adult films.  Swenson and Williams became romantic partners for the rest of her life, with Swenson recruiting her to front his punk-rock band, The Plasmatics, in 1977.  Williams became known for her theatrical and sexually-provocative on-stage antics, resulting in several arrests and obscenity charges.  Although she drank and experimented with mind-altering drugs in her early-adult years, Williams later became more "straight-edge", giving up drug use and smoking, as well as being teetotal.  She had been a vegetarian since 1966.  Between 1984 and '86, Williams released two solo albums.  In 1985, during the height of her popularity, Williams was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.  In 1986, she starred in the indie-film, Reform School Girls, and in 1987 in the television show, The New Adventures of Beans Baxter.  Williams toured for the last time with The Plasmatics in 1988, and put out another solo album that same year.  She retired from the music business in 1990, and moved to Storrs, Connecticut, with Rod Swenson the following year, working as an animal rehabilitator and in a food co-op.  Williams attempted suicide in 1993 by hammering a knife into her chest, which lodged in her sternum; changing her mind, she asked her partner to take her to hospital for treatment.  In 1997, she tried again, this time by taking an overdose of ephedrine.  On April 6th, 1998, Swenson returned home to find Williams missing, having left a package for him containing some of his favourite things and sealed letters from her, including suicide notes.  Swenson began searching nearby woods for her, eventually finding Williams's dead body after about an hour as darkness fell.  She had shot herself in the head with a pistol, and had apparently been feeding wild squirrels moments before she died, as well as putting a bag over her head to spare her partner the horrible sight.  Wendy Williams was 48 years old. 

Screaming Lord Sutch

David Edward Such, who was born on November 10th, 1940, in Hampstead, London, England, was an English musician and serial parliamentary candidate.  In the 1960s, inspired by Screamin' Jay Hawkins, he changed his stage name to "Screaming Lord Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow", despite having no connections to the peerage.  Such released a series of records throughout his life, with little commercial success, and despite a self-professed lack of vocal talent; he and his band The Savages had a horror-themed stage show in which Sutch would dress up as Jack the Ripper or appear out of a coffin. Sutch's 1970 album, Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends, was voted in a 1998 BBC poll as the worst album of all time.
Sutch appeared as an election candidate for various political parties in the 1960s and '70s, before forming the Official Monster Raving Loony Party in 1983, and declaring himself leader.  In all, he appeared in 40 elections between 1963 and 1997, winning none, with his highest vote share being in the Rotherham by-election of 1994, when his party received 1,114 votes, for a 4.2% votes share.
Such had a history of depression, and committed suicide by hanging on June 16th, 1999, at his mother's home in Harrow, Greater London, England.  He was 58 years old.  At the inquest, his fiancee Yvonne Elwood said he had, "manic depression".  Such was survived by a son, Tristan Lord Gwynne Sutch, who was born in 1975 to American model, Than Rendessy.

Del Shannon

Charles Weedon Westover was an American rock 'n' roll and country musician and singer-songwriter, best-known for his 1961 U.S. Billboard No.1 hit, Runaway. Born on December 30th, 1934, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S.A., Westover had several jobs, and played guitar and sang in several bands, before changing his name to Del Shannon, whereafter he had his biggest hit with his co-written song, Runaway, which hit number-one in several countries. After several more hits, Shannon's career began to stall in the 1970s, partly due to his alcoholism; and, despite continuing to record and perform, he began to suffer from depression during the 1980s.  On February 8th, 1990, Shannon shot himself dead with a .22 calibre rifle at his home in Santa Clarita, California, U.S.A.  He was cremated, and his ashes were scattered.  He was 55 years old.

Tom Evans

Thomas Evans, Jr., was an English musician and songwriter.  Born on June 5th, 1947, in Liverpool, England, Evans was a guitarist and vocalist for the British band, Badfinger, and co-wrote the classic song, Without You, with Pete Ham.  After great success with Badfinger in the 1970s, financial problems led to lead singer Ham committing suicide in 1975.  Evans later joined other reincarnations of Badfinger, but without much commercial success.  After a disastrous U.S. tour in 1982, Evans returrned to Britain, where he was sued for $5 million in damages for abandoning his touring contract. On November 19th, 1983, following a dispute with former bandmate Joey Molland over royalties to the song Without You, Evans hanged himself in his garden in London, England.  He was 36 years old.

Pete Ham

Peter William Ham, who was born on April 27th, 1947, in Townhill, Swansea, Wales, U.K., was a Welsh singer, songwriter, and guitarist.  The son of William and Catherine Ham, he formed his first rock group, The Panthers, around 1961.  Undergoing several name changes, they became The Iveys in 1965, moving to London the following year after being talent-spotted by The Mojos' manager, Bill Collins.  With Ham becoming the band's chief songwriter, they toured around the U.K. for the next three years, coming to the attention of both The Kinks' Ray Davies (who produced some of their early tracks) and The Beatles' personal assistant Mal Evans (who signed them to The Beatles' Apple Records label).  Changing their name to Badfinger, the band's first single release was a Paul McCartney composition, Come and Get It, which became a worldwide top-ten hit.  They followed this with three more Ham-composed singles in 1970 and '71, which all did well around the world.  Ham's greatest success as a songwriter came with the song Without You, co-written with bandmate Tom Evans, which became a worldwide number-one hit for Harry Nilsson in 1972, and has become a widely-covered standard; Ham received two Ivor Novello songwriting awards related to the song in 1973.  In 1974, Badfinger transferred to Warner Brothers Records, releasing possibly their finest album, Wish You Were Here.  Shortly thereafter, Warner Bros. sued the band's manager, Stan Polley, after an advance payment vanished, and, after Polley disappeared, the band were left penniless.  Ham found himself unable to pay mortgage payments on the new house which he shared with his pregnant girlfriend, Anne Herriot, and her son.  Believing that his finances had been wiped out, Pete Ham hanged himself in his garage in Weybridge, Surrey, England, on April 24th, 1975.  Five weeks after his death, Anne gave birth to Ham's daughter, Petera.  Fellow bandmember, Tom Evans, also committed suicide by hanging in 1983.  Only three days before his twenty-eighth birthday, Pete Ham was just 27 years old.

Tony Hancock

Anthony John Hancock - who was born on May 12th, 1924 - was an English comedian and actor. Born in Hall Green, Birmingham, England, Hancock was the son of John Hancock, who was also a comedian and entertainer. Hancock had a high profile in Britain during the 1950s and 1960s, with his show, Hancock's Half Hour, being popular on radio and later television.  After parting with his scriptwriters, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, Hancock's career went into gradual decline, and he began to turn to drink in an attempt to cope.  His alcoholism started to affect his performance, and he collapsed after suffering a liver attack on January 1st, 1967; and, in December of the same year, while recovering from a broken rib after a drunken fall, he became ill with pneumonia.
Hancock arrived in Austalia in March, 1968, under contract to make a 13-part series for the Seven Network.  However, only three episodes were completed, and these remained unaired for nearly four years.  On June 25th, 1968, Hancock committed suicide by overdose at his flat in Bellevue Hill, Sydney, Australia.  An empty vodka bottle and a scattering of amylo-barbitone tablets were found by his side. He was 44 years old. 

Robin Williams

Robin McLaurin Williams was an American actor and comedian.  Born in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A., on July 21st, 1951, Williams rose to fame in the 1970s in the sitcom Mork and Mindy.  He subsequently had a very successful career as a stand-up comedian and a film actor, including being nominated for four Academy Awards, winning the award for Best Supporting Actor in the 1997 film, Good Will Hunting.  In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Williams was addicted to cocaine, and later identified as an alcoholic.  In 2009, he had heart problems, having surgery to rectify the defects.
On August 11th, 2014, Williams committed suicide by hanging at his home in Paradise Cay, California, U.S.A., at the age of 63.  After Williams's death, his publicist, Mara Buxbaum, stated that Williams had been suffering from severe depression before his death; and his third wife, Susan Schneider, stated that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease shortly before he died.  An autopsy revealed he had diffuse Lewy body dementia, which may have contributed to the sudden appearance of anxiety, insomnia, memory loss, paranoia, and delusions, which became apparent in the year before his death.

Margaux Hemingway

Margot Louise Hemingway was an American fashion model and actress.  She was the daughter of Byra Louise (nee Whittlesey) and Jack Hemingway, the eldest son of the writer Ernest Hemingway, and was the older sister of actress Mariel Hemingway.  Born on February 16th, 1954, in Portland, Oregon, U.S.A., she became a successful and popular supermodel in the mid-1970s, appearing on many magazine covers, and becoming the spokesmodel for Babe perfume. She also had a career as an actress, appearing in various films between 1976 and 1996.  After a skiing accident in 1984, Hemingway gained 75 pounds in weight, ending up at nearly 200 pounds (about 14 stone), and became increasingly depressed.  In 1987, she checked into the Betty Ford Center for persons with substance dependence.  Attempting a comeback, she appeared on the cover of Playboy magazine in May, 1990, and took roles in several B-movies.  She was married twice, the first at age 21, the marriages lasting only three and six years, respectively.  Hemingway had fraught relationships with family members, and struggled with alcoholism, depression, bulimia, and epilepsy, as well as suffering from dyslexia.  It was also variously alleged that she had been molested by her Godfather and father. On July 1st, 1996, Hemingway's badly-decomposed body was found at her penthouse apartment in Santa Monica, California, U.S.A. The coroner's toxicology report ruled she had died from an overdose of phenobarbital, an epilepsy medication. Hemingway, who was the grand-daughter of Ernest Hemingway and the grand-niece of Leicester Hemingway - whose family had a history of drug abuse and suicide - was 42 years old.

Robert Enke

Robert Enke, who was born on August 24th, 1977, in Jena, East Germany, was a German football goalkeeper.  He played most-notably for the German club Hannover 96, as well as winning 8 caps for the German national team.  He was also team captain of Hannover 96 from the 2007-8 season until the end of his career, and was twice voted best goalkeeper in the German Bundesliga.  Enke had been expected to be Germany's number-one 'keeper during the 2010 World Cup, but he had been struggling to cope with the death of his daughter in 2006, and had been treated by a psychiatrist after suffering from depression.  On the night of November 10th, 2009, Enke committed suicide by standing in the path of a regional express train at a level crossing in Eilvese, Neustadt am Rubenberge, Germany. He was 32 years old.

Revilo P. Oliver

Revilo Pendleton Oliver was an American professor of classical philology, Spanish, and Italian, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  Born on July 7th, 1908, in Corpus Christi, Texas, U.S.A., he later became a writer, becoming known as a polemicist for white-nationalist and right-wing causes. Oliver attracted national notoriety in the 1960s, after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, when he wrote an article suggesting that Kennedy's murderer, Lee Harvey Oswald, was part of a Soviet conspiracy against the United States, for which he was called to testify before the Warren Commission investigating the murder.  On August 20th, 1994, suffering from leukemia and extreme emphysema, Oliver committed suicide in Urbana, Illinois, at the age of 86.

Leicester Hemingway

Leicester Clarence Hemingway was an American writer.  Born on April 1st, 1915, in Oak Park, Illinois, U.S.A., he was the youngest of six siblings, his older brother being the writer, Ernest Hemingway.  Leicester Hemingway wrote six books, including his first novel, The Sound of the Trumper, in 1953, based on his experiences in France and Germany during World War II.  In 1961, he published a well-received biography of his brother - My Brother, Ernest Hemingway.  This book brought Leicester recognition in his own right as a writer, as well as significant financial rewards.  In July, 1964, with the money earned from his work, Hemingway created the micronation of New Atlantis on a barge 12 miles off the coast of Jamaica.  He utilised the 1856 Guano Islands Act to claim half of the barge as a new nation, and half for the United States.  Hemingway also "wrote" a constitution, which was a copy of the U.S. Constitution with the words "New Atlantis" substituted for "United States".  New Atlantis's purpose was to generate money for oceanographic research by selling coins and stamps.  In 1966, the micronation was ravaged by a storm and then ransacked by fishermen.  After suffering for some years from Type II diabetes, which necessitated several amputations, Leicester Hemingway committed suicide by shooting himself in the head on September 13th, 1982.  His sister, Ursula, his brother, Ernest, as well as Ernest's grand-daughter, Margaux Hemingway, also committed suicide.  He was 67 years old.

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American writer, who was born in Oak Park, Illinois, U.S.A., on July 21st, 1899. Renowned for an economical and understated writing style, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.  Hemingway almost died after two plane crashes in 1952, which left him in pain and ill-health for much of the rest of his life. Hemingway - whose brother, Leicester, and sister, Ursula, also committed suicide - killed himself with a shotgun in the early-morning hours of July 2nd, 1961, at his home in Ketchum, Idaho, U.S.A.  He was 61 years old.

Kurt Cobain

Kurt Donald Cobain was an American singer, songwriter, and musician, who was born on February 20th, 1967, in Aberdeen, Washington, U.S.A.  One of two children of Margaret (a waitress) and Donald (a mechanic) Cobain, Kurt came from a musical and artistic family, becoming interested in drawing and music from an early age.  At the age of nine, his parents divorced, which had a profound negative effect on Cobain.  Initially living with his father and his new wife, for the next few years he had an unsettled life, spending periods also living with his mother and with other family and friends.  When he failed to graduate from high school, Cobain's mother threw him out, and he subsequently had periods of homelessness in his late teens.  After forming musical bands with friends, Cobain eventually founded the group Nirvana in 1987.  They produced their debut album, Bleach, in 1989, although it failed to chart on initial release.  However, the 1991 follow-up, Nevermind, propelled by its lead single, Smells Like Teen Spirit, entered the mainstream, popularising what became known as "grunge" music.  Following relationships with Tracy Marander and and punk-rocker Tobi Vail, Cobain met Courtney Love of the band Hole in 1989 or 1990.  The pair married on February 24th, 1992, with Love giving birth to their daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, on August 18th of that year.  The Los Angeles County Department of Children's Services took the couple to court, claiming that the Cobains' drug use made them unfit parents.  Cobain had chronic bronchitis and severe pain from an undiagnosed stomach condition.  He began dabbling in drugs at the age of thirteen, and became addicted to heroin by the end of 1992, claiming the heroin helped alleviate his stomach pain.  In 1993, Nirvana released their third and last studio album, In Utero, which topped both the U.S. and British charts.  Despite these successes, Cobain continued his alcohol, drug, and solvent abuse.  He overdosed on heroin several times.  Whilst on tour in Munich, Germany, in March of 1994, Cobain was diagnosed with bronchitis and severe laryngitis, and flew to Rome for medical treatment.  The next morning, March 4th, his wife awoke to find Cobain had overdosed on champagne and Rohypnol.  After five days in hospital, Cobain was released and returned home to Seattle.  His wife claimed this was his first suicide attempt.  On March 18th, Cobain's wife called the police, saying he was suicidal and had locked himself in a room with a gun; police arrived, and confiscated several guns and a bottle of pills.  A week later, Cobain's wife organised an intervention, with Cobain eventually agreeing to travel to a rehabilitation centre in Los Angeles.  On March 31st, after one night at the centre, Cobain absconded from the facility and flew back to Seattle.  Over the next couple of days, Cobain was spotted at several locations around the city.  On April 8th, 1994, an electrician, who was visiting Cobain's property in Lake Washington Boulevard, Seattle, Washington, found the singer's dead body lying on the ground.  He had committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.  A high concentration of heroin and traces of diazepam were found in his body.  A coroner's report suggested he probably died on April 5th.  Kurt Cobain was just 27 years old.

Peter Roebuck

Peter Michael Roebuck was an English cricketer, who was born in Oddington, Oxfordshire, England, on March 6th, 1956.  One of six children, his younger brother Paul played 22 first-class matches for Cambridge University, Gloucestershire, and Glamorgan.  Peter played, mostly-notably, for Somerset County Cricket Club between 1974 and 1991, a team he also captained.  Mainly used as an opening batsman, Roebuck played a total of 335 first-class matches for Somerset, scoring 17,558 runs at an average of 37.27 with 33 centuries and a highest score of 221 not out.  He also took 72 wickets at an average of 49.16 with his spin bowling.  In 298 one-day games, he scored 7,244 runs at 29.81, and took 51 wickets at 25,09.  Captaining Somerset for two seasons between 1986 and 1988, Roebuck became a controversial figure when he was instrumental in terminating the contracts of the county's two overseas stars, Joel Garner and Viv Richards.  The ensuing rumpus resulted in star all-rounder Ian Botham leaving the club for Worcestershire.  In 1988, Roebuck was one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year.  Whilst working as a commentator in South Africa in 1999, Roebuck met three young black cricketers, offering to coach them whilst they lived at his home in England.  He warned them beforehand that he would use corporal punishment if they broke his "house rules".  He caned all three 19-year-old men at different times on their clothed buttocks for misbehaviour, and in 2001 was given a suspended jail sentence for common assault.  After a ten-year spell playing Minor Counties cricket for Devon between 1992 and 2002, Roebuck moved to Australia, where he became a respected cricket writer and broadcaster.  He became an Australian citizen, and also owned a house in South Africa.  On November 12th, 2011, Roebuck was visiting South Africa to report on a cricket match, when police arrived at his hotel, desiring to speak to him about an alleged sexual assault on a 26-year-old Zimbabwean man.  Roebuck then returned to his hotel room, where he jumped from his sixth-floor balcony.  He subsequently died from severe head injuries.  He was 55 years old.