Editor’s Letter
The Hollywood death has always had a grim, global allure, the death that feels so much bigger than life. To die in Hollywood is not just to reinforce the understanding that the Faustian pact is sometimes too much of a burden, but it also somehow reinforces just how famous you are. To die unnaturally in the 90210, 90068 or 90069 area codes is to have your death included in the pantheon of Hollywood Babylon, an example of the celebrity trade-off. In the 21st century, one would have thought social media would have diminished this feeling, but in a very real sense it’s actually done the opposite, by exacerbating the distance between the famous and those mediating that fame. Just because you have the ability to mediate someone’s death doesn’t mean you have…
