Celebrities aren't immune from the dangers of the unhealthy lifestyles that can lead to heart attack, which remains one of the country's killers. Many well-known personalities battle with a lack of sleep, stress and inconsistent diets and schedules, which are often cited as contributing factors.
Here are 10 celebrities who have dealt with heart issues:
1. Larry King : He lost his own father to a heart attack at age 43, when the future talk-show host was 9-years-old. King suffered a heart attack at age 53, and needed quintuple-bypass heart surgery later that year. King has often said that he "did everything wrong." He smoked about 60 cigarettes a day, ate poorly, didn't exercise and held a high-stress job.
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King quit smoking, walked regularly and changed his diet after the scare. He has since had an angioplasty on a blood vessel, and a stent inserted to assist in blood flow to the heart. King will turn 82 in November.
2. John Candy: Well-known for his roles in "Splash," "Uncle Buck," "Planes, Trains & Automobiles" and "Stripes," Candy battled with obesity throughout his life, and often weighed more than 300 pounds. Though he quit smoking and tried to lose weight in the early 1990s, he died of a heart attack on March 4, 1994, while filming the parody "Wagons East!" He was 43, and was survived by his wife, Rosemary Hobor and two children.
3. F. Scott Fitzgerald: Author the distinctive American novels in 1925's "The Great Gatsby." Fitzgerald and wife Zelda also lived in a manner similar to millionaire Jay Gatsby and his obsession, Daisy Buchanan. A heavy smoker and drinker, Fitzgerald suffered a heart attack in November 1940, before a second one killed him one month later, while in the apartment of his mistress. He was 44-years-old.
4. John Mellencamp: The popular singer was forced to cancel the final weeks of his 1994 "Dance Naked" tour when he suffered a minor heart attack. The health crisis was the direct result of terrible lifestyle choices. "It's my fault," Mellencamp told Rolling Stone,
according to encyclopedia.com. "I'm a smoking machine ... The moral of my story is that 80 cigarettes a day and a cholesterol level of 300 is like a loaded gun."
5. Lou Costello: The portly half of the wildly successful comedy team, Abbott and Costello — who doesn't know the classic "Who's on First" routine? — Costello died of a heart attack on March 3, 1959, three days before his 53rd birthday,
according to the Los Angeles Times.
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6. Bobby Darin: The actor and singer of "Mack the Knife" and "Splish, Splash" lived a tortured life before succumbing to heart failure in 1973. He suffered from rheumatic fever as a child, while contributed to a scarred heart. In 1968, Darin learned that his "sister" Nina was actually his mother, and that knowledge affected him deeply. He suffered a minor heart attack in 1971, but continued to work. He died on Dec. 20, 1973, at age of 37, following open-heart surgery. Doctors determined that his heart was too weak to recover from the surgery,
according to Bio.
7. Gracie Allen: From the 1920s to the 1950s, Allen endured as one of America's most beloved female entertainers. Along with her husband, comedian George Burns, she helped introduce the family situation comedy, and played the part of a scatterbrained, but wholesome woman. She retired in 1958 and died at 58 on Aug. 27, 1964,
according to The New York Times. She will always be remembered for her closing catchphrase, "Say Goodnight, Gracie"
8. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: There's no mystery surrounding the death Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who created the world's most famous detective in Sherlock Holmes. A physician as well as an author, Doyle died on July 7, 1930.
9. Rue McClanahan: Though she died of a brain hemorrhage, McClanahan had heart bypass surgery in 2009, a year before her death, according to The New York Times. Television audiences remember her as Blanche Deveraux from the hit 1980s sitcom, "The Golden Girls," which also starred Bea Arthur, Estelle Getty and the still-going Betty White.
10. Jerry Garcia: The spiritual leader and one of the founders of The Grateful Dead was "Driving that train, high on cocaine" for 30 years. Rabid fans, or "Deadheads," would set their calendars according to the band's annual U.S. tours, and often followed the group from city to city. As one of the faces of the 1960s and 1970s drug culture, a healthy lifestyle was never in the cards for Garcia, who struggled with obesity, smoked nearly three packs of cigarettes a day and developed a heroin addiction. He died in 1995, at age 53, as reported by The New York Times.
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