Scoff if you will at the hoary, dubious, yet neverending generalization about celebrities dying in threes, but the past few weeks have offered an alarming series of back-to-back demise trifectas. If you overlooked the fine print in your local newspaper or your mom’s favorite tabloids, you may have missed a few recent passings of people who were celebrities to someone out there:

* Comedian Fred Travalena passed away June 28th at age 66 after a long battle with cancer and several appearances on the 1980s version of Hollywood Squares.

* Legendary (read: “ooooold, old-time”) actress Gale Storm passed away June 27th at age 87 from natural causes. This reporter had never heard of her prior to her death, but sources insist she qualified as a celebrity.

* Comedic actress Mollie Sugden, costar of the interminable Britcom Are You Being Served? and other shows available only to PBS junkies here in the States, passed away July 1st at age 86 from a common medical condition known only as Long Illness.

Besting everyone this side of Bob Hope and George Burns is Academy Award winner Karl Malden, who once held his own on the silver screen against the formidable Marlon Brando in both On the Waterfront and A Streetcar Named Desire, then redirected his talents into television with a varied resumé, the apex of which was five seasons of the crime drama Streets of San Francisco alongside Kirk Douglas’ little boy. Malden passed away July 1st at the same age as Brad Renfro, Sid Vicious, Ritchie Valens, Heather O’Rourke, and Pedro Zamora combined.

Celebrate the life of the greatest American Express spokesman of all time in our Movies forum today! Our more macabre and tasteless readers may wish to check out the current standings in our annual Dead Pool thread, where several members are losing out on a wealth of 2009 points due to genetic illiteracy.

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