The death of Brad Renfro last week threw newspapers into a bit of a tizzy; few, if any, had a prepared obituary on file for the actor, who was only twenty-five years old and was regarded as, in the words of reporter John Rogers, "a relatively minor celebrity." News outlets have traditionally kept obituaries ready and on file, just in case, but one company rep who spoke to Rogers, Adam Bernstein of The Washington Post, said that he "couldn't recall any on a person under thirty." There have always been cases of celebrities dying young, of course. But now there seem to be more people who are very young and very famous — or, at least, who seemed reasonable famous recently enough that their deaths still count as news. In some cases, there's also the question of just how well-prepared one should be in the case of an event that, to put it crassly, not everyone would regard as shocking if it were to happen. (Last summer, Kim Masters of Slate ran a quote from an anonymous staffer at the gossip-heavy E! cable channel saying, "People feel like [Lindsay Lohan] is going to die — and we're not helping.")
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