Deaths in Threes: Is There Any Truth to This?

People Have Gone to Great Lengths to Prove This Curse as True and False

Look around on various message boards on the internet under this subject, and you'll find people who insist there's something to deaths in threes--especially with notable people who've been highly influential worldwide in a particular field. Others will say that it's not really a consistent pattern and is just a coincidence when it does happen. With my own eyes, I've seen evidence from both sides of the coin that's hard to deny. The fact that there's been more than a few times notable people have died in groups of threes--I'm one to believe there is something to it...without wanting to insert "VIP" next to someone significant who dies. When someone dies in the world, it's always worth noting as a sad event (sorry, I go with the early-century supposition that death is the enemy)--even if they aren't a celebrity.

It seems record-keeping for deaths in threes didn't really start until the 1960's. In my research, the first record of celebrities dying in a group of three was in 1962-63. That year, three legendary male actors died within two weeks of one another: Thomas Mitchell, Jack Carson and Dick Powell. Of course, celebrities were always dying long before that, though the 60's is when some of the first true legends of film started to drop off significantly either due to old age or paying for the years when dragging on too many cigarettes was a part of daily life. For Thomas Mitchell, he was already elderly (well, he was only 70)--yet died from cancer in late December of 1962. Jack Carson was only 53 years old when he died of stomach cancer while rehearsing a play in December of '62 and died on January 2 of '63. On that same day, producer/director/actor Dick Powell dies at age 58 from lymphoma that's blamed on his time filming "The Conqueror" six years earlier in Utah where atomic tests were taking place.