Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Actress Brittany Murphy dead at 32

This is topic Actress Brittany Murphy dead at 32 in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by John Lasher (Member # 968) on 12-20-2009, 03:08 PM:

Source: TMZ

quote:
Brittany Murphy died early this morning after she went into full cardiac arrest and could not be revived, multiple sources tell TMZ.

She was 32.

A 911 call was made at 8:00 AM from a home in Los Angeles that is listed as belonging to her husband, Simon Monjack, the Los Angeles City Fire Department tells TMZ.

We're told Murphy was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center where she was pronounced dead on arrival. Her time of death was listed as 10:04 AM.

Murphy starred in such films as "Clueless," "8 Mile," and "Don't Say a Word." Murphy was reportedly fired from last film, "The Caller," after reports she was problematic on set.

UPDATE 3:11 PM ET -- Sources tell TMZ Brittany Murphy's mom discovered her unconscious in the shower. We're told when paramedics arrived, they quickly determined Murphy was in full cardiac arrest and immediately administered CPR. They continued CPR in route to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center -- several miles away -- and Murphy was unresponsive. She was pronounced dead at the hospital.

We're told the LA County Coroner's is picking up Murphy's body from Cedars later today and will launch an investigation.

Story developing ...

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 12-20-2009, 03:31 PM:

Pretty tragic news. I'll go ahead and state the obvious. Considering Murphy's young age and the circumstances leading up to this chances are strong her death is due to a drug overdose.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 12-20-2009, 05:58 PM:

My bet: Diet pills.

Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 12-20-2009, 06:42 PM:

This is just too bad...that girl had some talent. She sure looked thin in recent pictures. My guess is anorexia and drugs.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 12-20-2009, 11:11 PM:

She was a lovely girl. [Frown]

I don't think I ever really knew her from anything other than Luanne in "King of the Hill."

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 12-20-2009, 11:21 PM:

Btw, she had diabetes, which increases the risk for a heart attack and/or stroke.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 12-21-2009, 12:15 AM:

Well, diabetes certainly increases the odds of death being natural causes. You really have to maintain that condition. My cousin Adam has the really bad type of diabetes. His father died of it, losing his sight, both arms and both legs to amputation before succumbing to the disease. I know a few people who have the less severe, but still really serious adult-onset variety. Often that comes from being overweight. One of my coworkers who is diabetic used to be a very overweight guy, but he dropped much of the tonnage yet the diabetic condition still persists.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 12-21-2009, 12:27 AM:

Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes are two different diseases. There's a lot of money to be made off of the Type 1 kind, so don't look for a cure soon.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 12-21-2009, 12:38 AM:

That brings up the Chris Rock joke about America's health care system. We don't cure shit anymore. We gotta getcha on the comeback. There's lots more money to be made from that. You don't make lots of money by curing a condition. You make a fortune by having to treat it for the rest of the patient's life.

I don't remember the name of the doctor/scientist from Australia who proved most ulcers are caused by a certain kind of bacteria. He came up with the cure for the problem, even using himself as a human guinea pig for the tests. The American "Big Pharma" industry set out to ruin this guy. They sued the living hell out of him and tried to ruin his professional reputation. American drug companies wanted to charge patients more than $100 per month for acid reducing bullshit drugs forever (you can now buy these same drugs over the counter for cheap to treat heartburn -the only thing those drugs are suitable for treating). They did not want to properly treat the problem. The American drug companies only wanted to maintain the problem. Nothing more. There's lots more profit to be made by only maintaining a medical problem and keeping it in its present state.

This kind of makes me think about why there is no cure for HIV/AIDS after all these years. We're fixing to be in the year 2010 when intelligent robots were supposed to be doing all our routine labor for us. We were supposed to be flying to work in flying cars (or battling in some post-apocalyptic hellish scenario). At least that is the vision the movie industry and popular culture painted for us 20-30 years ago. 2009 doesn't seem a whole lot different from the late 1980s except for our personal computers, TV sets and phones being more fancy. So we have people afflicted with AIDS managing to survive with the condition for decades, but paying a giant fortune worth of money to keep the condition maintained. This is the whole damned scam. Yeah. Chris Rock was right. Our medical guys these days don't cure shit. There's no money in it.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 12-21-2009, 01:35 AM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
I don't remember the name of the doctor/scientist from Australia who proved most ulcers are caused by a certain kind of bacteria. He came up with the cure for the problem, even using himself as a human guinea pig for the tests. The American "Big Pharma" industry set out to ruin this guy. They sued the living hell out of him and tried to ruin his professional reputation.

You've got some correct info in there but the wrong info is just massively wrong.

1)The pair of doctors didn't prove that ulcers are caused by H. pylori; they merely discovered the bacteria and proposed that it might be related to Peptic Ulcer Disease.
2)They were not sued.
3)There was no conspiracy against them. If there were, you would've expected the researchers (who are usually funded by Big Pharma) would've ignored them and not bothered. But instead, the research community was abuzz with this new research and verified their initial findings pretty shortly.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 12-21-2009, 08:45 AM:

Back in the late 1990s 60 Minutes had a feature about this topic and the Australian scientist responsible for much of the breakthrough on ulcer treatment. According to that feature, American drug companies did indeed set out to ruin the guy. He was threatening their multi-billion dollar business of selling worthless acid reducing medicines as ulcer treatments. It was only after others had confirmed this guys findings about stomach bacteria that those same American drug companies did an about face.

Posted by Joshua Waaland (Member # 287) on 12-21-2009, 09:22 AM:

After I first read this thread last night I told my wife about it. The first thing she said was, "I bet it is drug related". Just her overall look of dark eyes, peppy behavior and her thin appearance gave the impression that she was strung out even if she wasn't.

I think Bobby is on to something though with our scientists not wanting to find an actual cure for anything. Someone told me one time that the American Cancer Society was the top grossing charity in the world. Now that is completely hear say so I can't say for sure if that is true, but my point is that diseases are a huge money maker in health care. Why can we send people to the moon but after all of these years we can't find a better way to treat cancer or even find a cure. The best things we have come up with is injecting people with poison to kill the cancer or shoot them with radiation. Brilliant! [Roll Eyes]

Just follow the money trail......

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 12-21-2009, 09:24 AM:

Doctors only make money when we are sick.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 12-21-2009, 12:10 PM:

First thing I thought when I heard the news report which stated that it "appeared she died of natural causes," was, "Natural causes at her age -- who are they kidding and how did they get to that conclusion before any autopsy?" Autopsies and coroner's official statements usually take weeks before a cause of death is made public. Here the "handlers" made this statement out of the gate, based on what?

The natural death thing is just so much Hollywood BS.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 12-21-2009, 12:14 PM:

Well... IF she took a handful of pills, NATURALLY she would die! [Wink]

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 12-21-2009, 12:59 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
Back in the late 1990s 60 Minutes had a feature about this topic and the Australian scientist responsible for much of the breakthrough on ulcer treatment. According to that feature, American drug companies did indeed set out to ruin the guy. He was threatening their multi-billion dollar business of selling worthless acid reducing medicines as ulcer treatments. It was only after others had confirmed this guys findings about stomach bacteria that those same American drug companies did an about face.

1) Just because a show makes a claim it doesn't make it true
2) The person in question has said stuff like "In the beginning everyone was against me" (paraphrased) but throughout most of the time that the research was being done he was among those who were extremely cautious. Also, in 1995 Marshall himself conceded that Koch's postulate (which is the standard by which a microbial cause of a disease is demonstrated) had not been fulfilled.
3) Also, the problem with saying that there was a conspiracy against him is that even if there were one, it was most clearly a resounding failure from the get-go considering the massive amount of research that came out shortly after the initial results.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 12-21-2009, 03:18 PM:

Sad news. I didn't recognize the name (that in itself doesn't mean anything as I'm terrible with names), but upon checking her IMDB entry it seems that I have seen her in some stuff.

RIP.

Posted by Chris Hipp (Member # 1788) on 12-21-2009, 04:59 PM:

Maybe "appears" to be natural means....oh I dunno, it "appears" to be natural. Hence the word appears and not definitely.

Maybe she died of an overdose, but what difference does it make? What is the point of making accusations and assumption? Does it make everyone feel better that they get to continue living their minute lives while someone famous died early? Sometimes young people die, shocking, I know. I had a friend a few years ago that died in his sleep at age 22. My cousin had a friend that had a heart attack at 18 while watching tv in her living room, no one even realized that she died at first. But hey if this girl dying somehow makes you guys feel better about getting another day to sit on your computers, then I guess there is at least a silver lining.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-21-2009, 05:03 PM:

Natural causes is only used if the dead person is over 80, or when they don't want to tell the "real" cause of death. On the other hand, it's nobody's damn business anyway so what's the difference?

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 12-21-2009, 05:03 PM:

No, my point was about how Hollywood seems to drive people toward a drug-induced early death, not about any feeling of shadenfreude at her early passing.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 12-21-2009, 05:40 PM:

Great post, Chris (Hipp)!

One NEVER knows when their earth time is up...at ANY age or for what reason!

AND, that's a good thing!

Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 12-21-2009, 06:06 PM:

Really great post Chris Hipp. I was going to reply to this thread with the same thoughts, only in a more sarcastic way [thumbsup]

Not sure why, but when a celeberity dies, it's a mad rush for people on film-tech to see who can post it first. I could understand if they were friends or family or had worked together, not just because they were famous.

quote: Bobby Henderson
I'll go ahead and state the obvious. Considering Murphy's young age and the circumstances leading up to this chances are strong her death is due to a drug overdose.

Unless you knew her or have other info, how can you even say that?

Oh yeah what the fuck does

quote: Randy Stankey
feeling of shadenfreude

mean?

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 12-21-2009, 06:59 PM:

quote: Richard Hamilton
Unless you knew her or have other info, how can you even say that?

How? Answer: there is a long list of young movie and music celebrities who have died by abusing drugs & alcohol (not to mention abusing a lot of people around them).

Also, some of the news reports suggested Murphy's career was in a state of decline due to difficult on set behavior. With one report saying she was fired from her last film The Caller, it's difficult for me not to think of a young, self-centered drug abusing lady just showing up for work whenever she felt like it. Hell, there's lots of young people all over this nation who tweek their brains into a lump of scar tissue and then not be able to hold down a damned job.

By the way, I don't feel good at all about Murphy dying. Anyone wanting to accuse me of that directly or indirectly can politely fuck off. Drug and alcohol abuse is a pretty serious thing that has negatively affected some of my personal friends and relatives. This past August my next door neighbor died of liver failure as a long term consequence of alcoholism. She was only 42. One of my cousins lost his wife to suicide 2 years ago. She was abusing drugs which compounded her severe bipolar condition she was neglecting. So one day, which turned out to be her daughter's birthday, she walked out into the back yard with a shotgun and fired it into her face. Really nice.

I'm very aware of my own mortality. I have seen people die in front of me for real. That stuff scares me. It doesn't make me feel good at all when a celebrity like Brittany Murphy or Heath Ledger or even Michael Jackson dies. Instead, it just feels like a needless wasteful tragedy that could have been prevented. But no, let's just party party party and take stupid chances instead. Screw moderation. Drinking or even doing drugs in moderation is for pussies!

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 12-21-2009, 07:01 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
She was only 42

I thought she was 32. She looks 42, maybe 52.

Anyway, people die all the time. I am in the camp that believes that we shouldn't try and make people live forever. Live better, yes. Longer, who cares? The world is already much too overpopulated as it is, though that does give us a good excuse to explore space and other planets. [Smile]

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 12-21-2009, 07:03 PM:

I was talking about my next door neighbor. My next door neighbor was only 42 when she died this past August.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 12-21-2009, 07:04 PM:

Sorry. I basically just skimmed your post.

Posted by Tony Gallimore (Member # 5358) on 12-21-2009, 07:05 PM:

One of the newscasts this evening went so far as to mention cocaine abuse in it's report, not only by Brittany, but also other family members.

Posted by Jeremy Jorgenson (Member # 2989) on 12-21-2009, 07:31 PM:

quote: Richard Hamilton
Not sure why, but when a celeberity dies, it's a mad rush for people on film-tech to see who can post it first. I could understand if they were friends or family or had worked together, not just because they were famous.

A good many F-T members have jobs that, whether directly or indirectly, just happen to relate to the Hollywood film industry pretty heavily. If a member of that industry dies, it seems reasonable for a post about that person's death to appear in the forums.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 12-21-2009, 09:42 PM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
Natural causes is only used if the dead person is over 80, or when they don't want to tell the "real" cause of death.

From wikipedia

quote:
In medicine, death by natural causes is a loosely-defined term used by coroners describing death when the cause of death was a naturally occurring disease process, or was not apparent given medical history or circumstances.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 12-21-2009, 10:03 PM:

Sure, but is it the coroner who said Natural Causes in this case? Or was it the family/media? (Since I barely know who Brittany Murphy is, I haven't paid any attention to the news reports.)

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 12-21-2009, 10:44 PM:

Could there be a lot of "yellow journalism" with all what the media shoots at us?

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 12-21-2009, 10:57 PM:

Yeah, unfortunately the mass media is always on point to shoot us the most salacious, repugnant, sensational guess on what the real news may be and try as hard as they can to spin it as fact. Furthermore, they want to get that oddly spun story out first before the other news channel/organization tries to feed their strangely flavored version. Today's media is more about distributing myth than telling any sort of objective truth. And this judgment goes for EVERYONE, whether they're spouting bullshit spun for the left or the right. They're ALL full of shit.

I remember a lot of the hell my father had to go through in studying photo-journalism at Crouse College in Syracuse University. The professors there were sadists about keeping the writer's opinion removed from the story as much as possible. Just the facts, asshole. That was the deal. Today's "journalists" would be getting an F grade. Or if they took Professor Demarest's course they would fall further from an F. They would get grades like "N" or "S" or "GG". A single misspelled word was called "an error in fact" and worthy of an automatic "F" score; any other errors following would drop further letter grades. One bad paper could ruin you for the semester. My father got a "B" in that guy's course and it pissed him off but good because he earned "A" grades in everything else.

At any rate, I'm surprised the media is taking the "she died of natural causes" note. I figured any hint of drug abuse would be amplified to caricature proportions in the reporting. Still, this story has not run its course. So we'll see how sensational the media can be on this one.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 12-22-2009, 12:38 AM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
Sure, but is it the coroner who said Natural Causes in this case?

Assistant Chief Coroner.

His exact words were that the death "appears to be natural."

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 12-22-2009, 02:01 AM:

"Natural causes" has always had an odd connotation for me (as I twist the meanings of words around in my mind). If I drive a motorcycle 100 miles an hour and clip the back of a dump truck, I will go flying into a hundred bloody pieces and, naturally, die. I didn't defy the laws of physics. As the natural world around us dictates, it was simple cause and effect. Natural.

[Razz]

Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 12-22-2009, 02:08 AM:

but Tim, if you did that, then we would just have to assume that you were under the influence [thumbsup]

Posted by Chad Souder (Member # 343) on 12-23-2009, 08:39 PM:

quote: Richard Hamilton
Not sure why, but when a celeberity dies, it's a mad rush for people on film-tech to see who can post it first. I could understand if they were friends or family or had worked together, not just because they were famous.

I have noticed the same, and also would like to add some have adopted a VERY loose definition of the word celebrity.

When an actor or actress dies, either literally or figuratively, they are quickly replaced by someone who fits the shoe. Fans proclaim sadness, but really it's just disappointment that the entertainer won't entertain them anymore and it's this unexplainable desire for people to want to have a piece of a news story. Like, "Hey I saw her in this movie so I knew who she was so you should feel sorry for me because I'm experiencing a loss." If the guy down the street that you didn't know develops a drug habit that kills him, well then he's a lousy junkie that died. But if some actor or actress like Brittany Murphy, Heath Ledger, River Phoenix, Bam Bam Bigelow or whoever else you care to reference becomes a junkie and dies, it's sad? Sorry, but I'm not buying it.

quote: Bobby Henderson
Yeah, unfortunately the mass media is always on point to shoot us the most salacious, repugnant, sensational guess on what the real news may be and try as hard as they can to spin it as fact.

That's usually because the mass media knows what kind of lifestyles these people are living before they die and they're often right. Rarely is it a real shock to those that knew the deceased. The paparazzi make a living following celebs every day of their lives. They know what clubs they frequent, the company they keep, and what drugs they take. I don't believe it's a guess at all. Like you said, Bobby, there is a long list of Hollywood junkie deaths. Maybe Murphy just added to the list, maybe she didn't. I didn't know her and she wasn't a box office draw, so I couldn't care less.

Tim has it right with the natural causes. There is always a cause of death. If it was indeed a cocaine overdose, Murphy didn't die from cocaine, she died because her heart stopped, restricting sufficient oxygen flow to the brain, causing death. Getting shocked or being hit hard in the chest can make your heart stop too. Different origins, same result.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 12-23-2009, 09:13 PM:

quote: Chad Souder
Bam Bam Bigelow

Who the fuck...?

Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 12-23-2009, 09:27 PM:

Bam Bam Bigelow was a WWF wrestler from a few years ago.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 12-23-2009, 11:27 PM:

His death means nothing to me.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 12-24-2009, 01:02 AM:

What gets me about "pro" wrestler write ups is they say stuff like: 'In the fall of 2003, Billy Ray defeated Joe Blough for the Mid-City International World Belt Title at Wrestle Mania 14, using his double-secret nut-slam hold from the rafters'... like they're real fights or something!

Posted by Christian Volpi (Member # 2370) on 12-24-2009, 08:12 AM:

As a licensed mortician, I have seen countless death certificates and have sat in on numerous autopsies. "Natural Causes" is usually listed when an autopsy is unable to determine the cause of death and foul play is immediatley ruled out. This is primarily seen in the elderly when the body simply shuts down due to age and deterioration. Most death certificates (each state has their own) has three lines to list causes of death. The top line is the final cause of death, in Ms. Murphy's case, it will most likely say "Cardian Arrest". The following lines then list conditions that ultimately led to that happening. For instance, Ms. Murphy's might include "Cardiac Arterial Thrombosis" on the second line and "Type ? Diabetes" on the third line. Not exactley sure where I was going with all of this, but there you go.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 12-24-2009, 10:35 AM:

You have my esteem, Christian. I am always thankful that there are people around who can do that sort of work. [Wink]

I absolutely could not handle it emotionally. I would be crying all the time.

Although, there IS great job security. Back when the theatre circuits there were making their big non-union pushes in the mid-80s, I knew a projectionist in Houston who went into mortuary science simply because it was a profession that could not be automated.

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 12-24-2009, 12:55 PM:

One of the captains I flew with at Scenic was studying at the time to be a mortician. He saw it as a great fallback to the increasingly unstable and unrewarding future of being a professional pilot.

As for Ms. Murphy, it doesn't really matter what caused her death. But it was way too soon. May she rest in peace.

Posted by Jason Black (Member # 684) on 12-27-2009, 12:03 AM:

It's sad that she died at such a young age.. but it's just as sad that there appears to be so much 'chest thumping' in this thread.

I think The Hippinator hit the nail on the head... You guys keep beating your chests... It doesn't change the fact that a life was lost, regardless of the cause!