The hard way to become an artistic legend is to labor for decades, build up a brilliant body of work, make the occasional promotional appearance and hope the public catches on. But there’s a much easier way: Die. Preferably young. Even more preferably, with superior works left in the vault. Author Thomas Wolfe, soul singer Otis Redding, actor James Dean, artist Vincent Van Gogh and rapper Tupac Shakur were admired and respected during their lives, but they didn’t become myth until they died young. Dean’s second of three movies, “Rebel Without Cause,” didn’t come out until a month after he died at age 24 in a car accident;
Van Gogh sold just one painting in his life, but “Starry Night,” “The Potato Eaters” and others became the foundation Impressionism after his suicide. “It leaves behind somewhat of a mystique — unanswered questions, unfulfilled promises,” says Steve Hill, site manager for the Thomas Wolfe Memorial, in the author’s boyhood home Asheville, N.C. “People always ask us: ‘What would Wolfe have done had he not died young?’ I’ve never felt adequate answer that question.”
What causes an artist to ignite posthumously with the public? It’s a combination of greatness (Wolfe’s “You Can’t Go Home Again,” heavily edited from his rough manuscripts, is a classic American novel), emotion (Redding’s Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay” had an eerie, healing quality when it came out after the singer’s fatal plane crash), luck (if you can call it that) and, in rare and spooky cases, foresight. 2Pac (as rapper Shakur is also known), for example, recorded numerous songs about dying young.
“Whatever you’re going through, there’s a 2Pac song coming out that’s what you need at that particular time. He’s timeless,” says Dina LaPolt, attorney for Amaru Entertainment, the company run by 2Pac’s mother, Afeni Shakur. “It could be some poor African-American child from the ghetto ‘Keep Ya Head Up.’
So the blueprint for turning yourself from respected artist to timeless legend simple: Figure out how to predict the future, then die. Here are five artists from four genres who took off after death.
Literature
V.C. ANDREWS. Since the thriller specialist who wrote “Flowers in the Attic,” “Petals on the Wind” and many others died in 1986, ghostwriters have been putting out novels under her name on a regular basis. She’s almost as popular today as she was in life.
THOMAS CHATTERTON. The 2Pac or Jim Morrison of his era — the late 1700s — the pioneering Romantic poet published several poems before he committed suicide at age 17. He influenced Percy Shelley and John Keats, among others. THOMAS WOLFE. Fiercely protective of his own work, the author was nonetheless heavily edited throughout his career, even on his 1929 breakthrough “Look Homeward, Angel.” After he died in 1938 of tuberculosis of the brain, editors (somewhat ironically) took over his unfinished manuscripts and turned them into “You Can’t Go Home Again,” his best-known novel, and two others.
JOHN KENNEDY TOOLE. The author of “A Confederacy of Dunces,” about blustering comic hero Ignatius Reilly, committed suicide at age 32 in 1969, a few years after writing his only novel. Wrote author Walker Percy, who “discovered” Toole by answering a call from his mother: “It is a great pity that John Kennedy Toole is not alive and well and writing. But he is not, and there is nothing we can do about it but make sure that this gargantuan, tumultuous human tragicomedy is at least made available to a world of readers.”
EMILY DICKINSON. Although she wrote more than 2,000 poems in her 56 years, before dying in 1886, Dickinson sold only seven of them during her life — and two were to the Springfield (Mass.) Republican, not exactly the world’s most renowned literary journal.
Music
2PAC. Tupac Shakur was hip-hop’s biggest star in 1996, when a still-unknown gunman killed him in the MGM Grand Hotel lobby in Las Vegas. He became mythical after that; his estate won a huge settlement with his record label, Death Row Records, and 2Pac has put out a steady stream of hit material ever since.
OTIS REDDING. Although he was one of Stax Records’ biggest stars, and knocked out audiences at the Monterey Pop Festival, Redding never quite received the commercial status he deserved. That changed in 1967, when he died in a Wisconsin plane crash — and “Dock of the Bay” came out months later.
NIRVANA. Like the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Nirvana wasn’t exactly unknown at the time of its frontman’s death, but singer Kurt Cobain’s eerie moans on Leadbelly’s “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” and other “Unplugged” performances dominated MTV for days after he committed suicide in 1994. That’s when the depressed Seattle grunge icon graduated from talented singer of a talented band to “voice of a generation.”
EVA CASSIDY. In life, Cassidy was one of those purist folk singers who refused to let a record company turn her into the next Lisa Loeb or Suzanne Vega. On her own terms, she slowly built up her career before learning she had cancer in 1996. After her death that year, at age 33, a British deejay spread the word, and miraculously, the singer-songwriter’s CD “Songbird” sold more than 1 million copies in England. ROBERT JOHNSON. Although he had recorded originals such as “Sweet Home Chicago” and “Hellhound on My Trail” for Columbia Records, the blues singer died a pauper — it wasn’t until the ’60s that he became recognized as one of the greats, a key forebear for electric Chicago blues and rock ‘n’ roll.
Art
VINCENT VAN GOGH. The tortured artist sold one work, “Red Vineyard at Arles,” during his lifetime of poverty; he cut off his own ear, attempted suicide in 1890, and died two days later at age 37.
AMEDEO MODIGLIANI. The influential Italian painter, whom actor Andy Garcia portrayed in the 2004 film “Modigliani,” lived in poverty until about 1919, when his showings started to draw major buyers — he used the proceeds to buy his first house. But the rival of Pablo Picasso died less than a year later, of tubercular meningitis. His pregnant wife, Jeanne, jumped from a window two days later.
HENRY DARGER. The “outsider artist” of Chicago’s North Side died a pauper in 1973. He was virtually unknown until his landlord searched his apartment and discovered thousands of watercolor, comicbook-style paintings of children — mostly naked, mostly girls and mostly tormented by soldiers and dragons. Today, museums regularly display his work.
EDITH HOLDEN. Although she was a painter and art teacher during life, the prolific diarist became far more famous for writing “Nature Notes for 1906” — published in 1977 as “The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady,” 57 years after she drowned in the Thames. The notes became a British TV mini-series in 1984.
PAUL GAUGUIN. A former stockbroker, this almost-as-depressed friend of Van Gogh got such little recognition for his brightly colored, post-Impressionist paintings that he moved to Tahiti. He died 12 years later, in 1903, at 55. Afterward, a Paris exhibit made him famous, as did support from Picasso and Matisse.
Movies
JAMES DEAN. He filmed a total of three movies in his 24 years — “Giant,” “East of Eden” and “Rebel Without a Cause” — before dying in his Porsche after an accident en route to a race. The latter two movies came out after his death, in 1955. PETER FINCH. A 35-year stage and screen veteran, British-born Finch didn’t win an Oscar (for his Howard “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” Beale performance in “Network”) until after his death.
MASSIMO TROISI. The veteran Italian actor and comedian literally poured his essence into 1994’s ” “The Postman (Il Postino),” about a mail carrier who serves (and deifies) poet Pablo Neruda. He died of a heart attack about 12 hours after the filming; “Il Postino” was later nominated for an Academy Award.
ED WOOD. The cross-dressing writer of such classics as “Glen or Glenda” and “Plan 9 From Outer Space” was a Hollywood outcast during his life, but Johnny Depp played him in the 1994 bio “Ed Wood” and he has been a cuddly cult hero ever since. Wood, 54, died of a heart attack in 1978.
BRUCE LEE. While alive, the martial-arts hero had a small but devoted audience, but he had the foresight to finish “Enter the Dragon” just before he died in 1973 at age 33. The movie, still a classic of the genre, influenced generations, from director Quentin Tarantino to rappers the Wu-Tang Clan.
