5 celebrities who, by pure chance, managed to avoid misfortune

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The world is aware of many disasters and sad events that occur here and there. And the story is replete with a wide variety of moments, in which there were the very lucky ones who managed to survive it or, by an amazing accident, find themselves as far away from a dangerous situation as possible in time. In this review, there are five individuals who are fabulously lucky in life.

1. Admiral Richard Byrd

Richard was scheduled to join the crew of the new ZR-2 model airship in August 1921 as it departed from Howden, London, on its first test flight. However, Byrd, who would later go down in history as the first explorer and pilot to fly over the South Pole, missed the train the day before, which is why he did not have time to appear at the airfield in time. Because of this, he was struck off the list of the crew of the airship itself.

However, the next morning he could watch the huge airship soar into the air without him. In his 1928 memoirs, he wrote:.

A day later, upon returning to London, he learned that the airship, having broken in half in the air, exploded and sank in the Humber River near the city of Hull. All 44 crew members, including the British and Americans, were killed. Later, Richard took part in other adventures, such as six expeditions to Antarctica. He died in 1957 in his own bed when he was 68 years old.

2. Kirk Douglas

In March 1958, Kirk, known to the public for his roles in films such as Lust for Life and Paths of Glory, wanted to join producer Mike Todd on a trip to New York to take his private jet. However, the Kirk family strongly opposed and had to refuse. In his 1988 autobiography The Son of Ragman, Douglas writes that he and his wife listened to car radio, from where he learned that Todd's plane crashed in New Mexico, and all the crew members were killed. Kirk Douglas is still alive and just recently celebrated his one hundred and third birthday.

3. Jean Paul Getty

People magazine at one time called Getty "The richest man in the world." And not surprising, because he was the most famous oil tycoon. In addition, it is claimed that he had booked a ticket for the luxury Italian liner Andrea Doria in 1956, but at the very last moment decided to cancel the trip. On the last day of its nine-day voyage from New York to Genoa, the ship collided with a liner from Sweden, as a result of which it sank, and most of the passengers on board died just ten hours from the place of arrival. Since the crash of the liner happened as close to land as possible, the film crews managed to get to this place quickly enough, making the crash of the Italian liner the first to be shown on television.

The 1985 biography The Great Getty, written by Robert Lenzner, claimed that Paul, a native of Minnesota and a resident of England at the time, was warned of his death by a mysterious fortune-teller, telling him that he would die trying to cross the Atlantic. This is probably why he decided not to risk it and canceled his trip. Lenzner also claims that Getty often tried to go on some kind of trip, however, as if remembering the words of the fortuneteller, at the last moment he canceled the trip.

Paul Getty died in 1976 at the age of 83 in his country mansion near London. An insane art lover and collector, he left most of his rumored $ 1 billion worth of phenomenal estate to the trust that currently operates the Getty Center in Los Angeles and the Getty Villa in California, both of the world's most popular museums. in the USA.

4. Cary Grant

Grant and George Murphy, another famous actor, were about to travel in 1943 aboard the famous Yankee Clipper, but at the last moment they changed their route. This seaplane crashed while landing in Lisbon, killing the crew and twenty-four passengers. Murphy, who would later become a US Senator in California, mentions this moment in his 1970 autobiography Say, Were You George Murphy? Among those embroidering during the crash was the famous singer Jane Froman, who will recount the incident in the 1952 biopic, With a Song in My Heart, starring Susan Hayward.

However, this case was not the only one when Grant faced various disasters. So, his wife Betsy Drake was on board the Italian liner "Andrea Doria" during a voyage in 1956. It is noted that she managed to escape at that moment, but she lost a huge amount of jewelry that Grant gave her, the total value of which exceeded 250 thousand dollars. According to a 2003 report by Richard Goldstein, the jewels were locked in the ship's safe, where they remain to this day. Grant himself died in 1986, when he was 82 years old.

5. George Halas

In 1915, Halas was a twenty-year-old college student who had a summer job at Western Electric in Cicero, Illinois. The company's annual picnic was to take place on July 24 in Michigan, Indiana. Therefore, it was decided to deliver the employees there from Chicago on one of the river steamers that ply Lake Michigan. Halas was one of those who bought a ticket for the Eastland steamer.

In his 1979 autobiography, Halas by Halas, George notes that he was late for the ship, dreaming of catching it: According to official figures, about 800 people died that day, including women and children. Since his name was listed among the passengers, it was believed that Halas was among them, somewhere inside the ship.

Halas lived a long life as the founder and full owner of the Chicago Bears, which he created from members of the Decatur Staleys football team. “Daddy Bear,” as he was nicknamed, coached athletes daily for forty seasons, and died at the age of 88 in 1983.

Continuing the theme - around which gossip constantly hovers.