Graham Bond

Graham John Clifton Bond - who was born on October 28th, 1937, in Romford, Essex, England - was a British rock and blues musician and vocalist, considered a founder of the English rhythm and blues boom of the 1960s.  Given up by his biological parents at a young age, he was placed into a Dr. Barnardo's home, before being adopted.  Having passed his 11-plus examination, Bond was educated from the ages of 11 to 16 at the Royal Liberty School - a grammar school in Gidea Park in the London Borough of Havering, England.  Here, he studied music, performing his first jazz concert with the Goudie Charles Quintet in 1960.  Bond first gained national attention as a jazz saxophonist with the Don Rendell Quintet, before briefly joining Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated.  In around 1963, Bond formed his own band, the Graham Bond Quartet, which soon became the Graham Bond Organisation.  Their 1965 album, There's a Bond Between Us, is considered the first rock music recording to use a mellotron.  The band was plagued by problems with substance abuse (particularly Bond's), as well as disagreements between drummer Ginger Baker and double bassist Jack Bruce.  This culminated in Bond firing Bruce, with Baker leaving soon after, and the pair ultimately forming Cream with Eric Clapton.  The Graham Bond Organisation continued as a trio, but, with Bond's physical and mental health declining, and the band achieving little commercial success, they dissolved in 1967.  After the band's break-up, Bond continued to break-down, as he suffered from manic episodes and periods of intense depression, exacerbated by drug use.  He moved briefly to America, where he recorded two albums and performed session work for other artists, before returning to England in 1969.  With his new wife, Diane Stewart - who shared his interest in the supernatural - Bond then formed Graham Bond Initiation.  In 1970, he formed the band Holy Magick, releasing two albums.  He spent short periods in Ginger Baker's Air Force and The Jack Bruce Band, before releasing the double album Solid Bond in 1970.  In 1972, Bond teamed up with Pete Brown to record Two Heads are Better Than One, and in 1973 recorded an album with the John Dummer Band, although this was not released until 2018. After the near-simultaneous collapse of both his marriage and his band, Bond formed the group Magus, although they disbanded around Christmas 1973 without recording.  Years of commercial failure had left Bond's financial affairs in chaos, as well as severely affecting his pride.  For years, he had been hampered by severe bouts of drug addiction, and he spent January of 1973 in hospital after a mental breakdown.  On May 8th, 1974, at Finsbury Park station in London, Bond threw himself to his death under the wheels of a Piccadilly line train.  Graham Bond was just 36 years old.

Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath - who was born on October 27th, 1932, in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. - was an American poet, novelist, and short-story-writer.  After having her first poem published at age eight, Plath had numerous more printed in local publications over the next few years.  At age eleven, she began a journal, and showed early promise as a painter; she was also diagnosed with an I.Q. of around 160.  Raised as a Unitarian, Plath became ambivalent about religion after her father's death when she was eight.  Graduating from high school in 1950, she then attended Smith College in Massachusetts where she became editor of The Smith Review and guest editor of Mademoiselle magazine.  Becoming depressed and angry after failing to meet poet Dylan Thomas at a meeting, Plath slashed her legs to see if she had enough "courage" to kill herself.  Following electroconvulsive therapy for depression, Plath attempted suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping tablets on August 24th, 1953.  After six months in psychiatric care, she returned to college, graduating in June of 1955.  She was then awarded a scholarship to Cambridge University in England, where she spent the next two years.  Plath met the English poet Ted Hughes in February, 1956; the two were instantly attracted, and married on June 16th that year in London.  In June of 1957, the couple moved to the U.S.A., where Plath taught at her old college and resumed psychoanalytic treatment for her depression.  They travelled across the U.S.A. and Canada in 1959, returning to live in London, England that December.  Their first child, Frieda, was born on April 1st, 1960, with Plath's first volume of poetry, The Colossus, following in October.  In February, 1961, Plath's second pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, with Plath later claiming that Hughes had beaten her two days earlier.  That August, Plath finished writing (it was published in 1963) her semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, before the couple immediately moved to North Tawton in Devon, where Plath gave birth to her second child, Nicholas, in January, 1962.  Plath and Hughes had rented their London flat to two poets, Assia and David Wevill.  Plath had a car crash in June of 1962, which she described as one of many suicide attempts.  In July, she discovered that her husband was having an affair with Assia Wevill, and separated from him in September.  Plath now entered a period of great creativity, writing at least 26 poems between then and February, 1963.  In December of 1962, Plath returned to live in London with her children, her depression worsening during one of the coldest Winters in one-hundred years.  During January of 1963, Plath spoke to her doctor about her depression; he prescribed her anti-depressants, but failed to persuade her to enter hospital, instead arranging for a live-in nurse to help her look after her children.  The nurse tried to gain access to the property on February 11th, 1963, but was initially unable to do so.  With the help of a workman, she eventually broke in, only to discover Plath dead with her head in the gas oven.  She had sealed the rooms between her and her sleeping children to prevent them inhaling the fumes.  An inquest ruled that Plath had committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning.  On March 16th, 2009, her son, Nicholas - a wildlife biologist - hanged herself after suffering from depression.  Sylvia Plath was just 30 years old.

Annie St. John

Ann Florence Heywood - who was born on September 8th, 1954, in Blackpool, Lancashire, England - was a British television presenter.  Growing up in Blackpool, Lancashire, she attended Blackpool Collegiate Grammar School for Girls and the Rose Bruford Drama School.  As a young woman, she worked as a mahout (an elephant rider, trainer, or keeper) at the Blackpool Tower Circus, and performed at repertory theatre in Bolton, Salisbury, and at the Young Vic in London.  In 1976, she married the actor, Michael St. John.  Annie first made her name on television in 1978, working as a hostess on the first two series of the networked Yorkshire Television gameshow, 3-2-1, before joining HTV West in 1981 as a newsreader and continuity announcer.  Her popularity in the West-Country was such that viewers launched a Save Our Annie campaign when she left the station in 1983 to join Tyne Tees Television in Newcastle.  During her time at Tyne Tees, St. John continued to freelance for HTV West and also for London Weekend Television.  As well as announcing duties, she presented various regional programmes, including Ask Oscar; a weekly What's On programme; It's Nearly Saturday; and the advice series, Problems.  By the late 1980s, St. John had become one of the main anchors of the nightly regional news programme, HTV News, alongside Bruce Hockin and Richard Wyatt, whilst still pursuing her continuity role.  She also presented a request show for the local independent radio station, Radio West.  In November of 1990, after colleagues became concerned when she failed to turn up for work, HTV director of programming Derek Clark and a staff rigger went to her flat in Baltic Wharf, Bristol, where they found St. John naked and semi-conscious on a bed, clutching a teddy-bear, having taken an overdose of champagne and drugs.  She was able to confirm to an ambulanceman that she had taken 80 tablets from two bottles that were found by her bed.  Apparently, St. John suffered a heart attack shortly after arriving in hospital, which left her in a vegetative condition.  On Monday, December 10th, 1990 - 38 days after taking the overdose - she died in hospital.  St. John's funeral was held at St. Mary Redcliffe Church in Bristol, and she was cremated in the city.  Her grave is located at Carleton Cemetery in her hometown of Blackpool.  Survived by her husband of 14 years, Michael, an inquest later recorded a verdict of suicide.  It also transpired that St. John had been having an affair with Nick Kerswell, an HTV journalist, for six months before her death; although, on the evening of her overdose, she had been sharing a drink for forty minutes with her estranged husband.  Her husband later said that she had mentioned having a row with someone, but didn't want to dwell on it, and otherwise she seemed fine.  A briefcase found in her house contained several letters and photographs addressed to Kerswell, which he claimed to have destroyed after reading.  Pathologist Nicholas Rooney attributed St. John's death to bronchial pneumonia caused by a cerebral haemmorhage.  Annie St. John was just 36 years old.

Charles Roberts IV

Charles Carl Roberts IV - who was born on December 7th, 1973, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. - was an American truck driver who murdered five Amish girls, before killing himself.  The son of Charles, a policeman, and Terri Roberts, he earned a diploma through a homeschooling association.  In 1990, Roberts was employed as a dishwasher at the Good 'n' Plenty restaurant in Smoketown, Pennsylvania; two of his co-workers there were subsequently convicted of the murder of 16-year-old Laurie Show in 1991.  Although neither he nor his family were Amish, Roberts later earned a living as a truck driver, working nights collecting milk from dairy farms in a heavily Amish area near his home in the tiny village of Georgetown, Pennsylvania.  On the morning of October 2nd, 2006, Roberts dropped-off his children at their school bus-stop, before driving a pickup truck to the West Nickel Mines School, a one-room schoolhouse in Bart Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.  Instructing the schoolboys to help him carry ammunition and other supplies into the school, he then dismissed them, before barricading himself inside with the female pupils.  After making two phone calls - one to his wife, Marie, and one to the police - Roberts shot dead five of the girls, injuring the other five, and then killed himself.  Although obviously grieved at the loss of their offspring, the Amish's response to the tragedy was remarkably forgiving, refusing to show hatred for Roberts, and even setting up a support fund for his family.  Roberts had left four suicide notes: one for each of his three children, and one for his wife.  One note detailed the despondency he felt over the death of his daughter shortly after birth nine years earlier, and also stating cryptically that he had recently been having dreams of doing again what he had done twenty years ago.  Roberts had phoned his wife whilst barricaded in the schoolhouse, claiming to have molested two young female relatives two decades earlier, although the people concerned later denied that these events had occurred.  K-Y Jelly, a lubricant most often used during sexual intercourse, was found amongst Roberts's belongings in the school, possibly suggesting multiple motives for the murders.  One of Roberts's suicide notes spoke of his anger against God, whilst Roberts's co-workers spoke of a "change" in his temperament in the months leading up to the killings, although he apparently became calm again in the preceding week, with Roberts's neighbours reporting him to be unusually upbeat and jovial during his last days.  Charles Roberts was 32 years old.

Imogen Hassall

Imogen Hassall - who was born on August 25th, 1942, in Woking, Surrey, England - was a British actress and model who appeared in thirty-three films in the 1960s and '70s.  Born into an affluent family of artists and businessmen, her godfather is said to have been the composer Ivor Novello.  After attending Elmhurst Ballet School and the Royal Ballet School, at the age of sixteen Hassall moved to New York City to study, before returning to England to attend the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art between 1960 and 1962, following which she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company for one season.  Hassall appeared in the comedy The Reluctant Peer at the Duchess Theatre in 1964, before gaining parts in British action T.V. series of the 1960s, including The Saint, The Avengers, and The Persuaders!.  In her first significant film role, in 1967, she played Tara in The Long Duel, and received further public attention when playing a dominant cave-girl in When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth in 1970.  Also in 1970, Hassall played major roles in Carry On Loving and the horror film Incense for the Damned, and in 1973 starred alongside David Jason in the comedy film, White Cargo.  In 1972, she gave birth to a baby girl, Melanie, but the child died after only four days; Hassall married the baby's father, the actor Kenneth Ives, in 1974, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1978.  In 1979, she married another actor, Andrew Knox, but the marriage lasted less than a year, and she lost the baby she was expecting; Knox himself committed suicide in 1987.  Hassall's private life was a regular subject of interest in tabloid newspapers.  She was known for playing sexy, scantily-clad characters on film and T.V., and this, along with the skimpy outfits she wore to film premieres, led to Hassall being dubbed "The Countess of Cleavage".  After her failed relationships, the death of her child, her miscarriage, and with her career in decline, Hassall became depressed.  Following previous suicide attempts, Hassall was found dead at her home in Wimbledon, London, England, on the morning of November 16th, 1980.  She had been due to meet her friend - the actress, Suzanna Leigh - that day for a holiday trip to Mombasa, but failed to turn up.  She had apparently taken an overdose of Tuinal sleeping tablets.  Imogen Hassall was just 38 years old.

Robin Douglas-Home

Cecil Robin Douglas-Home - who was born on May 8th, 1932, in London, England - was an English-born Scottish aristocrat, jazz pianist, and author.  He was the eldest son of the Honourable Henry Douglas-Home from his first marriage to Lady Margaret Spencer; the nephew of the former British Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home; and the older brother of Charles Douglas-Home, the editor of The Times newspaper.  Douglas-Home was a jazz pianist and a leading society figure in the 1950s and '60s.  In the 1950s, he had a relationship with Princess Margaretha of Sweden, but was apparently refused permission to marry her by her mother, Princess Sibylla.  However, Margaretha's nanny later stated in her memoirs that the reason for the couple's breakup was simply that the princess did not want to marry him.  Douglas-Home instead married the 18-year-old fashion model Sandra Paul in 1959, and in 1962 they had a son, Sholto, who was conceived at Frank Sinatra's mansion in Palm Springs, Florida.  A talented writer, Douglas-Home was invited by Sinatra to write his first authorised biography, which was published in 1962, and he subsequently wrote four novels, the first of which, Hot for Certainties, won the Authors' Club's Best First Novel Award in 1964.  He also wrote articles for journals and magazines such as Queen and Woman's Own.  Shortly after the birth of his son, Douglas-Home fathered a son by Nicolette Vane-Tempest-Stewart, the Marchioness of Londonderry, the truth about which would remain secret until the late 1990s.  In 1965, Douglas-Home divorced his wife, the breakup being the subject of a documentary by Alan Whicker.  Around this time, he began a relationship with Princess Margaret, the sister of Queen Elizabeth II.  Margaret was at this time concerned about the deterioration of her own marriage to Antony Armstrong-Jones, Lord Snowdon, and sought solace in a one-month affair with Douglas-Home.  Their liaison ended rather abruptly, when the princess decided to try to salvage her relationship with Snowdon.  Eighteen months after his split with princess Margaret, and having suffered with clinical depression for some years, Robin Douglas-Home took his own life on October 15th, 1968, at his country home in West Chiltington, West Sussex, England.  He was just 36 years old.

Mary Millington

Mary Ruth Maxted (née Quilter) - who was born on November 30th, 1945, in Kenton, Middlesex, England - was an English model and pornographic actress.  Quilter was born out of wedlock, growing up without her father, and had to nurse her terminally-ill mother for more than ten years; she began her porn career to pay for her mother's care.  She was bullied at school due to the stigma of being 'illegitimate', and suffered from low self-esteem throughout her youth.  Quilter left school at age fifteen, and married Robert Maxted in 1964.  Being too short at four feet and eleven inches to be a fashion model, she became a glamour model instead, appearing in various pornographic magazines and films in the late 1960s and early '70s.  In 1974, she met the adult magazine publisher David Sullivan, with whom she began an adulterous affair, and took on the stage name Mary Millington.  She continued to appear in his films and magazines for the rest of the 1970s.  Millington's final film appearance was in the Sex Pistols' The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, which was released in March, 1980.  She had always been prone to neurosis and depression, which was exacerbated by her cocaine habit.  After reaching the age of 33, Millington found herself being replaced in Sullivan's magazines by younger models, and increasingly found herself working behind the counter in her own sex shop, which was frequently raided by the police.  Her mother's death in 1976 also affected her deeply, resulting in unpredictable mood swings and a breakup with Sullivan.  Millington's life thereafter descended into a downward spiral of depression and drug use.  A few months before her death, she received a large tax bill, which she was unable to pay, and she also became increasingly kleptomaniacal, with arrests for shoplifting in June of 1979, and another for stealing a necklace on the day before she died.  On August 19th, 1979, Millington was found dead on the bed of her home in Walton-on-the-Hill, Surrey, by her husband.  She had taken an overdose of the tricyclic antidepressant anafranil, paracetamol, and alcohol.  Four suicide notes found near her body essentially blamed the police and the taxman for hounding her into an early grave.  Mary Millington was just 33 years old.

Kelly Jean Van Dyke

Kelly Jean Van Dyke - who was born on June 5th, 1958, in Danville, Illinois, U.S.A. - was an American actress and adult film performer.  From an acting family, she was the daughter of Jerry Van Dyke and his first wife, Carol Johnson; the niece of Dick Van Dyke; and the first cousin once removed of Shane Van Dyke.  As a child actress in the 1960s, Van Dyke appeared in the television series My Mother The Car and Accidental Family.  Under the stage name Nancee Kelly, she later emerged as a star of various pornographic movies.  She married Jeffrey Archer in 1981, before divorcing, and then wedded the actor Jack Nance in May of 1991.  In an unpublished magazine interview from 1990, Van Dyke claimed she was raped by her father Jerry Van Dyke from the age of 12, and that he would bring over his actor friends, Robert Mitchum and Martin Landau, to join in the fun.  She claimed that she began taking sleeping pills at that time to numb the pain, and that she had been addicted to some kind of drug ever since.  It was reported that - on November 17th, 1991 - Van Dyke was expressing suicidal thoughts whilst talking on the phone to her husband.  Unfortunately, a lightning storm knocked out the telephone lines in Bass Lake.  Her husband called the police, who broke into her Los Angeles apartment forty-five minutes later, only to find that Kelly Van Dyke had hanged herself.  She was just 33 years old.

Martyn Rogers

Martyn Rogers - who was born on January 26th, 1960, in Nottingham, England - was an English association-football player.  After an outstanding record as a schoolboy, Rogers signed as a trainee for Manchester United in May, 1976, and as a professional in January, 1977.  He made his debut for United, at the age of 17, standing in for Arthur Albiston at left-back, on October 22nd, 1977, in a 0-4 away defeat at West Bromwich Albion.  This was to be Rogers's only first-team game for the club, and he was sold to Queen's Park Rangers - then managed by former United manager, Tommy Docherty - for £7,500 in July of 1979.  Rogers's career at Q.P.R. was equally short-lived, as he only made two first-team appearances, in the last two games of the 1979-80 season, both of which were won.  In May of 1981, he was given a free transfer to Australian club Sydney Olympic.  In five years at Sydney, Rogers helped the club win the Australian NSL Cup twice, in 1983 and 1985, before returning to England.  On Saturday, February 29th, 1992, Rogers made two phone calls: one to his mother, whom he told he was in Singapore; and one to a female friend, whom he told he was in Australia.  Later that same day, Rogers's lifeless body was found in a hire-car in a car-park in Ringwood, Hampshire, after he had fed the exhaust fumes through the window of his vehicle.  He had committed suicide at the age of 32.  Coincidentally, that same month, another Manchester United player of around the same age, Alan Davies, had killed himself in similar circumstances.

Sophie Gradon

Sophie Hannah Gradon - who was born on October 25th, 1985, in Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, north-west England - was an English model and marketing manager.  After graduating with a degree in Media, Culture, and Society from Northumbria University, Gradon won the Miss Newcastle title in 2008, and became Miss Great Britain in 2009.  Working as a marketing manager, she was a promoter of the NE1 campaign in Newcastle city centre, raising money for charities and soliciting financial support for the Great North Run.  In 2012, Gradon appeared on Sky Sports in support of "The Great North Fitness Revolution" campaign.  She was a contestant on Love Island in 2016, developing relationships with both a male and a female, and subsequently being referred to as "openly bisexual".  In 2008, she had dated Wayne Lineker (the brother of former footballer, Gary), and in 2013 had had a relationship with England rugby player, Danny Cipriani.  In an interview with Radio Aire in March, 2018, Gradon claimed she had been the victim of cyberbullying and internet trolls.  On June 20th, 2018, Gradon was found hanged at her home in Ponteland, Northumberland, England, by her boyfriend and his brother.  An inquest concluded she had taken her own life by hanging, after ingesting alcohol and cocaine; toxicology tests showed she had a blood alcohol level of 201mg per 100ml - about three times the legal driving limit.  Police said she had previously experienced mental-health issues - such as low self-esteem and anxiety (for which she was taking medication at the time of her death) - and had recently expressed suicidal thoughts.  About twenty days after Gradon's death, her boyfriend -  25-year-old Aaron Armstrong - also killed himself after ingesting cocaine and alcohol.  Sophie Gradon was 32 years old.

Arthur Woodcock

Arthur Woodcock - who was born on September 23rd, 1865, in Northampton, Northamptonshire, England - was an English cricketer.  When only a few months old, he moved to Leicestershire, where - as a right-arm fast bowler and a tailend batsman - he played 121 first-class matches for his adopted county between 1894 and 1908, as well as appearing for the short-lived London County Cricket Club in 1900. Woodcock's first engagement as a player was, in 1887, for Mitcham Cricket Club in Surrey.  His form there was so good that he was recommended as a cricket coach to Haverford College in Pennsylvania, U.S.A.; and he took up employment there between 1888 and 1894, continuing to play English County Cricket between July and September during these years.  In 1895, Woodcock became a member of the Lord's groundstaff, and during that season took 102 wickets at an average of just over 19 runs apiece; this was his most-successful season.  Woodcock was a poor batsman - averaging 8.31 over the course of his career, with a highest score of 62 against Lancashire at Old Trafford in 1898 - but was, during his prime in the late-1890s, considered the second-fastest bowler in England, shaded only by Charles Kortright.  In all, he took 548 wickets at an average of 22.28, with best figures of 9-28 against M.C.C. at Lord's in 1899.  As his county career wound down, he continued to play for M.C.C., and  also umpired some first-class matches in 1906. Woodcock was severely hampered by knee trouble during his later career; so much so that he was forced to drop out of the Leicestershire side in the 1903 season.  On May 14th, 1910, at Billesdon, Leicestershire, England, Arthur Woodcock committed suicide by "self-administered poison".  He was 44 years old.

Dave Clement

David Thomas Clement - who was born on February 2nd, 1948, in Battersea, south-west London, England - was an English footballer.  Clement signed as a professional with Queens Park Rangers in 1965, making his debut in the 1966-67 season - a memorable one for Q.P.R., as they won the Third Division Championship by a twelve-point margin, and became the first Third-Division side to win a major trophy - the League Cup - by defeating West Bromwich Albion 3-2 at Wembley.  A right-sided full-back, Clement played a total of 472 games for Q.P.R. between 1965 and 1979, scoring 28 goals.  During this time, he also won five full international caps for England.  He was sold to Bolton Wanderers in 1979, before moving on to Fulham in 1980.  He played a further nine games, scoring two goals, for Wimbledon during the 1981-82 season, leaving him with a career total of 532 league games and 30 goals.  As his football career wound down, Clement began to become depressed; and, on March 31st, 1982, he committed suicide by ingesting weedkiller.  He was 34 years old.  Dave Clement's son, Neil Clement, who was only three years old at the time of his father's death, also became a professional footballer, spending the majority of his career at West Bromwich Albion.  His eldest son, Paul, became a non-league footballer, and later a professional coach and manager, becoming head coach at Swansea City in Wales.

Mark Saxelby

Mark Saxelby was an English cricketer who was born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, England, on January 4th, 1969.  A tall left-handed batsman, who bowled right-arm medium-pace, Saxelby started his career with his native county, Nottinghamshire, where he enjoyed several successful seasons, often averaging in the mid-thirties as a batsman, although continual shoulder and back injuries gradually curtailed his bowling.  He then moved to Durham, where he scored 181 on his County Championship debut for his new team.  However, patchy form saw him drop down the batting order, and he soon moved into Minor Counties cricket, winning the MCC Trophy whilst playing for Cheshire in 1996. He played one game for Derbyshire in 2000.  After suffering from depression, Mark Saxelby died in the Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham, England, on October 12th, 2000, after ingesting weedkiller.  He was 31 years old.

Susan Fassbender

Susan Fassbender - who was born as Susan Kathryn Whincup, in Wibsey, Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, on April 30th, 1959 - was an English singer, songwriter, and musician. Fassbender was classically trained in piano, clarinet, and timpani, and later also played synthesizers.  In early adulthood, she teamed up with guitarist Kay Russell (later Kay Brown), who had been a member of Bradford-based New-Wave outfit Ulterior Motives; the two became songwriting partners for the rest of Fassbender's career.  After impressing their future manager Alan Brown at a record shop in Bradford, the duo signed up with the independent record label, Criminal Records, and released the single, Twilight Cafe, in 1980.  Following two appearances on Top of the Pops in January, 1981, the song climbed to No. 21 in the British Charts that February.  Despite appearing on various television programmes in Britain and Germany to promote two follow-up singles, Stay and Merry-Go-Round, they both failed to chart.  This disappointment led to the band's second manager to split up Fassbender-Russell, thinking Susan would be more successful as a solo act, with his own musicians as a backing band.  Demos were made, with a view to releasing them as an album at the time, but nothing came of it.  Fassbender and Russell then faded from the music industry, both marrying.  Fassbender married in 1983, raising three children, and taking on her new husband's surname, Baggio.  The two women wrote further songs, both together and apart, but they received no interest from the recording industry.  Tragically, Susan Fassbender committed suicide on May 2nd, 1991. She was just 32 years old.  A collection of early Fassbender-Russell songs - Twilight Cafe (The Demo Collection 1981-1985) - was finally released on Platform Records in 2012; with a follow-up collection - Building A Dream - issued on the same label in 2016.

Dana Plato

Dana Plato - who was born as Dana Michelle Strain, on November 7th, 1964, in Maywood, California, U.S.A. - was an American actress and model.  She was born to Linda Strain, an unwed teenager, but was adopted by Dean and Florine Plato in June, 1965.  At the age of three, her adoptive parents divorced, and she was raised by her mother.  Plato was included in a list of VH1's "100 Greatest Kid Stars", and became best-known for playing Kimberley Drummond in the popular television sitcom, Diff'rent Strokes, which aired from 1978 to 1986.  From the age of seven, Plato began appearing in T.V. commercials - over 100 in all - before going into acting.  Whilst a teenager starring in Diff'rent Strokes, she struggled with drug and alcohol problems, using cannabis and cocaine, and taking an overdose of diazepam at the age of 14. Later in her career, Plato appeared in various B-movies, while also posing for Playboy, and starring in softcore pornography films.  In December, 1983, she moved in with her boyfriend, rock guitarist Lanny Lambert, and married him on April 24th, 1984; she gave birth to her only son soon afterwards, which led to her being written out of Diff'rent Strokes.  After a series of personal problems, including her mother's death and her own divorce, Plato held-up a video store in 1991 with a pellet gun, demanding she be given the money from the cash register.  For this, she was given five years' probation.  In 1992, she was arrested again, this time for forging a diazepam prescription, serving 30 days in jail, and entering a drug rehabilitation programme.  Plato subsequently moved to Las Vegas, where she struggled with unemployment and poverty, and twice became engaged, including to her manager, with whom she lived in a motor-home in Florida.  On May 7th, 1999, Plato appeared on the Howard Stern Show, talking about her personal problems.  The following day - May 8th, 1999 - Plato took a lethal overdose of Lortab (a painkiller) and Soma (a muscle-relaxant), whilst visiting her fiancee's mother's home in Moore, Oklahoma, U.S.A.  She was 34 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.

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.

Alan Davies

Alan Davies was an English-born Welsh international footballer. Although born in Manchester on December 5th, 1961, Davies's Welsh parentage qualified him to play for Wales, for whom he won 13 international caps between 1983 and 1990, as well as playing six times for the Wales under-21 side.  Signing as a trainee for Manchester United as a 16-year-old in July of 1978, he put pen to paper on his first professional contract just five months later.  Davies made his first-team debut for United in a 1-0 home win against Southampton on May 1st, 1982.  He only played ten competitive games for The Red Devils, but did play both games in the 1983 F.A. Cup Final, when United beat Brighton and Hove Albion in a replay, resulting in him winning the only major medal of his career.  Unfortunately, after this success, Davies suffered a bad injury in a pre-season friendly, which resulted in him being out of first-team contention for six months during the 1983-84 season.  He returned to the team in memorable fashion, scoring his only goal for the side when coming on as substitute in a 1-1 draw with Juventus in a European Cup Winners' Cup semi-final first leg at Old Trafford.  Sadly, he only played three more league games that season, and none the following season, and was sold to Newcastle United in 1985, also playing on loan for Charlton and Carlisle whilst with The Magpies.  He later had two spells at Swansea City, either side of a spell with Bradford City in 1989-90.  During his second spell at Swansea, he found himself a key player in a side that was struggling towards the bottom of the Third Division.  On February 4th, 1992, Davies dropped-off his daughter, Katie (aged 4), at school, before driving out to Horton on the Gower Peninsula, where he committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning.  Although no-one knows for certain what made him kill himself, it later transpired that Davies - like fellow Welsh international footballer, Gary Speed (who also committed suicide) - had been coached as a youngster by serial paedophile, Barry Bennell.  Six weeks after Davies died, his second daughter, Sophie, was born to his wife, Deborah.  Both his daughters have since competed in running events to raise money for a mental-health charity.  Alan Davies was 30 years old.

Justin Fashanu

Justinus Soni Fashanu was an English footballer, who played for Norwich City and Nottingham Forest, amongst other teams. He was born in Hackney, London, England, on February 19th, 1961, to a Nigerian barrister and a Guyanese nurse, and was the older brother of fellow footballer, John.  Fashanu was most famous for scoring BBC's Goal of the Season in 1980, with a spectacular effort for Norwich against Liverpool.  He excelled at Norwich, his first club, scoring 40 goals in 103 senior appearances for The Canaries, and was selected six times for the England under-21 side.  Fashanu's 19 league goals in the 1980-81 season were not enough to prevent Norwich's relegation from the First Division, and he was sold to Nottingham Forest in August of 1981, becoming Britain's first black million-pound footballer in the process.  His career then stalled, after Forest manager Brian Clough became disturbed by finding out about Fashanu's visits to gay nightclubs and bars.  His confidence and form deserting him, Fashanu scored just three goals in 32 league games for Forest in the 1981-82 season.  He was loaned to Southampton, who were prevented from buying him by lack of funds.  Fashanu was sold to Notts County for £150,000 in December, 1982.  He scored 20 goals in 64 games for The Magpies, but this was not enough to stop the club having back-to-back relegations.  Soon after joining Brighton and Hove Albion in June, 1985, Fashanu suffered a knee injury which looked to have ended his career.  After travelling to the U.S. for surgery, he subsequently played for a number of clubs in England, Scotland, the U.S.A., Canada, and Sweden.  In an interview with The Sun newspaper on October 22nd, 1990, Fashanu came out as homosexual, becoming the first (and, so far, only) prominent player in English football to do so, and thereafter struggled to find regular employment as a professional footballer, as well as becoming the subject of crowd abuse.  His brother, John, described Justin as an "outcast" after his admission.  On April 13th, 1992, whilst playing for Torquay United, Fashanu received a £265 fine and was banned for driving for 28 days after being fund guilty of speeding and failing to produce his driver's licence.  In March, 1998, after moving to the United States, Fashanu was alleged to have sexually assaulted a 17-year-old boy after a night of drinking.  Homosexual acts were illegal at the time in the state of Maryland, where Fashanu was living.  Fashanu fled back to England, where - on May 3rd, 1998 - his body was found hanged in a lock-up garage in Shoreditch, London.  His suicide note denied the charges, claiming the sex act was consensual, and that he had returned to England as he wouldn't get a fair trial in the U.S. due to his homosexuality.  The Times and the B.B.C. reported that an arrest warrant had been issued by Howard County District Court on April 3rd, that he had been charged with second-degree sexual assault and first-degree assaults punishable by up to 20 years in jail, and that Howard County police would have requested his extradition had they known he had fled to England.  Justin Fashanu was just 37 years old.