I know, I’m supposed to be off work recuperating from pneumonia, and I promise I will go right back to bed as soon as I get done, but I couldn’t let this go.

Stanely Kamel, who played Dr. Charles Kroger on Monk (one of my all-time favorite television shows), has been found dead in his home:

Kamel was found dead in his Hollywood Hills home on Tuesday. He was 65.

Access Hollywood has learned Kamel died of a heart attack. […]

A rep for the USA network, which airs the Emmy-winning “Monk,” released the following statement to Access Hollywood:

“USA is deeply saddened by the news of Stanley Kamel’s passing. Stanley was an amazingly talented and extremely kind man, and an important member of the USA family. He will be sorely missed.”

This makes me very sad.  One of the best parts of the show was watching Dr. Kroger and Adrian Monk interact with one another, and I always enjoyed the episodes where Monk became involved with Dr. Kroger outside of the office (such as the one where the good doctor retired after believing he was responsible for the death of his cleaning lady).  He brought humor, warmth, sensitivity, and a multi-faceted portrayal to a part which could have ended up being very one-dimensional and staid.

It’s funny how we become immersed in these shows…one of my first thoughts was, “First Trudy, now Dr. Kroger…Monk has a hard enough time, what is he going to do now?”  Silly, perhaps…but for those of us who know personally what the character of Adrian Monk goes through on a daily basis, maybe it isn’t so silly after all.  You see, I got to thinking that it could be possibly the best testament an actor can leave…to somehow break down that wall that separates actor from audience and make us think beyond a character, beyond an actor, helping us to expand our horizons and incorporate new thoughts and feelings and ideas and ways of coping into our daily lives.  Anyone can mouth words off a page, but it takes someone special to mold and squish and mesh it all together and create a new person of themselves who truly touches others.

My thoughts and prayers go out to Mr. Kamel’s family and friends.

Like mother, like son…a Bahamian jury decided Monday that Daniel Smith, son of Anna Nicole Smith, died of an accidental overdose:

The seven-member jury, which deliberated for less than two hours, recommended no criminal charges in the September 2006 death of 20-year-old Daniel Smith.

The son of the former Playboy playmate died after coming to the Bahamas to meet his new baby sister on Sept. 10, 2006. His mother died early the next year in Florida from an accidental drug overdose at age 39.

Police had said there was no evidence of homicide, and autopsies found that Daniel died from a combination of drugs, including methadone and antidepressants. But Bahamian authorities ordered the inquest amid widespread speculation over the circumstances surrounding his death.

In its ruling, the jury said the cause of death was “nondependent use of drugs,” meaning that Daniel Smith was not addicted and was not aware the drugs in his system would kill him.

Anna Nicole’s mother, however, is having none of it, and still believes Howard K. Stern had something to do with the death:

Neil McCabe, an attorney for Anna Nicole’s mother, Virgie Arthur, said she was disappointed in the ruling because she suspected foul play was involved. Arthur has claimed previously that Anna Nicole’s boyfriend and attorney Howard K. Stern played a role in both deaths, but she did not provide evidence.

“We don’t think it makes any sense,” McCabe said. “The boy was not a drug user, the judge said so. Why would he all of a sudden take a massive dose of methadone?”

Stern, who has denied giving Daniel any drugs, said outside court that he was not sure whether the jury’s decision would bring an end to the case.

“I have no control over them,” he said of Arthur and her attorneys.

What a convoluted tale.  Larry Birkhead, Anna Nicole’s former boyfriend and babydaddy, testified that Daniel struggled with drugs, alcohol, and depression, but Howard said that he was surprised by the toxicology findings and said in his testimony that he’d never seen Daniel take drugs.

If Daniel did take his mother’s methadone (he had easy access to it, and Anna Nicole caught him on videotape stealing it out of her home), it is a slow-acting drug who’s effect are not felt for a few hours.  He could have accidentally taken more than the recommended dose simply by believing that he hadn’t taken enough the first time, when in actuality the drug had not had time to kick in yet.

I’m still not convinced HKS had anything to do with it, simply because I’m not sure what he would have to gain from killing Daniel.  He knew that Daniel was Anna Nicole’s life, and to kill him would cause her great grief and sadness…which is exactly what it did.  It would have been to Howard’s best interests to have Daniel alive, in fact.  He should have done more to make sure that happened.

But there are only three people who know exactly what went on that day, and two of them aren’t talking any more.

The inquest into the death of Daniel Smith, son of Anna Nicole Smith, continues, and Larry Birkhead gave some pretty incredible testimony yesterday concerning some missing Methadone in Anna’s house:

Birkhead testified that in April 2006, Anna realized some of her Methadone was missing in her Studio City home. Birkhead said Anna had surveillance cameras in the house, checked them and found video proof that Daniel and his buddies were the culprits.

While Birkhead was under oath, he was asked about statements he made to the cops back in 2006, when he was at war with Anna. He had told police he saw Howard K. Stern smoke pot with Anna and Daniel. During his testimony, Birkhead said he was not completely clear on what he saw.

UPDATE: Birkhead also told cops Anna had given Daniel Ecstasy, but on the stand Birkhead said he couldn’t say this actually happened.

Birkhead said Daniel’s personality completely changed between January 2006 and May. He saw Daniel throw a TV through a window. Daniel often stayed out all night long and Anna was worried.

Also, Daniel was admitted to an L.A. hospital for misuse of valium in mid July, 2006.

What, you mean people make up and exaggerate claims to the police when they are angry with someone?  Shocking!

Methadone is often used for people trying to break other drug habits:

This medication is a narcotic pain reliever and is used for severe pain. It is also used in the treatment of narcotic addiction as part of an approved program. Methadone is a potent narcotic substance. It can cause serious side effects and toxic reactions if used by someone other than the person for whom it is prescribed. Do not share this medication with others.

However, in recent years people have become addicted to methadone in place of other drugs, such as heroin:

In North Carolina, deaths caused by methadone increased eightfold, to 58 in 2001 from 7 in 1997 - an “absolutely amazing” jump, said Catherine Sanford, a state epidemiologist. In Maine, methadone was the drug found most frequently in people who died of overdoses from 1997 to 2002. It was found in almost a quarter of the deaths. In the first six months of last year, methadone killed 18 people in Maine, up from 4 in all of 1997. Dr. John H. Burton, medical director for Maine Emergency Medical Services, said hospital emergency rooms were seeing “a tidal wave” of methadone-related cases.

The increase in methadone overdoses and deaths has floored many drug experts because methadone, which does not provide a quick or potent high, has long been considered an unlikely candidate for substance abuse. It can be hours before a user feels any effect, and it works more like a sedative than a stimulant.

And because methadone is considered such an important and affordable tool for treating addiction and pain, health and law enforcement officials are facing a quandary: how to stop methadone abuse without curtailing its valuable uses — and especially without driving addicts back to drugs like heroin. […]

Naïve users might be “people who are just at a party and someone will give them some methadone,” said Dr. Burton, the emergency medicine specialist in Maine. “They might mix it in with a beer or with some other drug. They take it thinking it’s just like any other drug and will give them a buzz, and they end up either dead or deeply unconscious.”

Methadone’s delayed narcotic effect and its lack of a potent high are important reasons the drug can be so dangerous, experts say.

“By the time they’ve actually overdosed, no one is with them to see what’s happening,” said Kimberly Johnson, director of the Maine Office of Substance Abuse.

Joseph Haddock, an analyst for the Justice Department’s National Drug Intelligence Center, said some people, unaware of the drug’s delayed effects, “take methadone, don’t get the effect that they want, take more methadone, still don’t get that reaction, and they take more methadone, so they end up overdosing.”

Since Daniel died in his mother’s hospital room late one night when he was visiting his mother and newborn sister, it could be that he took the drug several hours before even arriving at the hospital, and it was only later that the serious effects of the drug kicked in.  He also had Zoloft and Lexapro in his system at the time of his death.

Yet another example of something that is supposed to be used for good, being perverted and used for harm.  There’s nothing wrong with using medications to treat various disorders, be they an illness or a mental problem or even to break a drug habit (after other options have been exhausted).  However, like anything else, often people use the medications in ways they were never supposed to be used, or mix them with medications they were never meant to be used in conjunction with.  The medications themselves often are not bad, it’s when people use them for reasons they were never intended to be used for that the problems start.

I don’t even want to go into what might have caused Daniel to turn to drugs.  What makes any kid do something like that?  Although, I do have to point out that Anna Nicole certainly did not live what you might call a “normal” lifestyle, and life in a fishbowl might have turned out to be too much for the shy Daniel to cope with.  All you have to do is watch a few episodes of the ANS show to see his weariness with the everpresent cameras in his life.

Howard K. Stern is scheduled to testify today, so that should create some fireworks.

Two doctors are being investigated in the death of actor Heath Ledger.  Federal drug authorities are looking into the drugs prescribed, because Heath’s death was blamed on an accidental mixture of prescriptions:

The doctors - one in California, one in Texas - are believed to have supplied the “Brokeback Mountain” star with the powerful painkillers Oxycontin and Vicodin, law enforcement sources said. Authorities want to know if the drugs were prescribed illegally. “It’s an ongoing investigation,” a law enforcement source told The News Tuesday. “It’s not clear if there was any wrongdoing.”

The revelation came more than a month after the 28-year-old Australian heartthrob’s naked body was found in his SoHo loft.

The city’s medical examiner ruled Ledger died on Jan. 22 of an accidental overdose of six prescription drugs, including the two painkillers, sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration has subpoenaed the medical examiner’s findings as part of its probe into the doctors, the sources said.

Do they always have to say he was found naked?  Like that in and of itself is some sort of crime or weirdness.  Lots of people sleep naked.

It may or may not be that these doctors are guilty of any wrongdoing.  However, it is only prudent of physicians to check what prescription or OTC medications a patient is already taking, and writing new prescriptions accordingly or advising patients on the safety of taking one medication with another.  Heath may or may not have told his doctors of any other medications he was taking.  It may come out that he purposefully obtained the prescriptions without the doctors knowing of each other.  Or, it might be as simple as he just didn’t realize the dangers of taking one with the other.

Heath had fought a long battle with drug use, but by all accounts he was trying to get clean when he died, and illegal drugs played no part in his death.  He also suffered from severe insomnia, which led him to take a prescription sleep aid that turned out to be not much help to him.  Plus, at the time of his death, he was suffering from pneumonia, which undoubtedly weakened his immune system.

Always check with your doctor before mixing any sorts of medications, and make sure you know what you’re taking and what it does to your body.

UPDATE:  These two doctors have been cleared:

Federal officials have ruled out two L.A. and Houston-based doctors as the providers of the OxyContin and Vicodin that played a part in the accidental overdose of Heath Ledger, reports the New York Post.

After questioning the docs, the Drug Enforcement Agency found they had prescribed the Brokeback Mountain star other medications, just not the heart-stopping drugs that resulted in the 28-year-old death in NYC on January 22.

This is exactly what I was alluding to in my earlier post about the inherent snobbery which goes into the selection process of the Academy Awards. Character actors are often ignored for their great performances for what can only be what Academy voters deem as a lack of versatility, or even popularity by the masses. If the people voted for whom they deemed to have given the best performance, I am sure the outcome would be different more often than not.

Actor Brad Renfro appeared in 21 films before his tragic death on January 15, from a heroin overdose. Brad was 25 at the time of his death, and his recent life had been marred by substance abuse problems, including an arrest in 2005 for attempting to purchase heroin. This however, does not diminish his talent or his previous work, which garnered him critical acclaim at the time. His first role was in the blockbuster The Client, a film adaptation of a book by John Grisham. (I love his books btw)

He also starred alongside the likes of Brad Pitt, Dustin Hoffman, Robert de Niro and Kevin Bacon in Sleepers, and with Scarlett Johannson in the indie classic Ghost World. In 1995, he won Hollywood Reporter’s “Young Star” award, and was voted nominated in the People’s “Best 30 Under 30.”

My point is, while Brad had derailed his career at the end, he was hardly a nobody and was certainly someone people in the industry respected for having talent and potential. They didn’t ignore Heath Ledger who died because of an accidental overdose, but of course, he’d been nominated for an award.

The Academy has released a statement to Us Magazine, stating:

“It was really an editing decision because we can’t fit everyone in,” a rep for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences tells Usmagazine.com. “There was no specific reason.”

That’s some BS right there. Heath Died AFTER Brad, and how hard would it have been to stick Brad’s picture in there? Seriously, this industry takes these young people, throws them into a world of excess, practically plies them with drugs, sucks them of their soul and then discards them like yesterday’s trash.

Tell me Academy, how about you edit this, you buttlicks!

In what is being reported as an apparent suicide, 39 year-old Clearwater resident Shawn Lonsdale, an outspoken local critic of Scientology, was found dead in his home on Saturday.

The St. Petersburg Times has more details:

But wait, there’s more…

Almost five years after his death, the wife of actor John Ritter is taking her suit to civil court.  On September 11, 2003, John felt sick on the set of his show 8 Simple Rules For Dating My Teenage Daughter and went to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead four hours later:

The physicians failed to properly diagnose Ritter’s pre-existing heart problem, according to Lebovits. He said doctors treated Ritter for a heart attack, using methods that worsened his actual condition, a tear in his aorta.

Lebovits cited statistics showing that 66% of patients with Ritter’s aortic problem survived 24 hours when left untreated, and as many as half survived 48 hours.

“They did everything wrong,” Lebovits told jurors. “Everything gets bad. Everything gets worse.”

Defense attorney Stephen Fraser countered that the case is based on “flawed science, wrong assumptions, speculation upon speculation upon speculation, all wrapped up in the obvious aura of celebrity.”

Fraser said he would show that three years before he died, Ritter was turned down for life insurance because a medical evaluation showed “incredibly abnormal” blood levels, specifically his triglyceride level was seven times the normal level. Fraser said the actor ignored the warnings and missed appointments for follow-ups with doctors.

While his wife, actress Amy Yasbeck, has won millions of dollars in suits against the hospital and certain defendants, she contends that John’s earnings would have been around $67 million dollars had the show continued.  The show was in the second season when he died.

I can understand wanting to hold people accountable for the unexpected and possibly avoidable death of a loved one, and I was very sad when John died.  He was one of my favorite actors on television, hugely funny and very unappreciated, and I personally believe that his death was preventable.  And while I think someone should take responsibility, I’m not so sure that they will.  It’s sad that John is gone, but all the money in the world won’t bring him back.

But I do have to step back, remove the tragic death aspect of this, and wonder just what it is that actors do that would earn them in the neighborhood of $70 million dollars.  As funny as John was, and as much joy and laughter as he brought into people’s lives over the course of his career, he was just acting.  In a time when teachers can barely eke out a living because of budget cuts and doctors work tirelessly trying to find cures for cancer and AIDS, we have actors in Hollywood earning this kind of money, and spouses of deceased actors going after it.

Today marks one year since Anna Nicole Smith died of an accidental overdose of prescription medicine. Anna was 39 years old at the time of her death.

A mere six months prior to Anna’s death, the model-turned-reality star was blessed with a joyous occasion, the birth of her second child Dannielynn, only to face the worst moment any parent could ever face a mere three days later, the death of her son, 20-year-old Daniel.

Anna’s never been easy to pigeonhole or analyze as a media figure. She’s either engaged or disengaged. When Anna was engaged with the world, she was vivacious, stunningly beautiful and charismatic. When she was disengaged she seemed confused, unfocused and randomly distracted.

But wait, there’s more…

I really don’t want to dwell on the tragic details of Heath Ledger’s death. More than enough attention had been paid to those details and not nearly enough to his accomplishments or for the respect of his family to grieve in peace.

The toxicology reports have confirmed what most everyone suspected shortly after Heath’s tragic death at age 28, the actor died of an accidental overdose from prescription medications. The toxic mixture of Valium, Oxycontin, sleep aids, painkillers and anti-anxiety meds were at the root cause of Heath’s death.

His family wishes to be left alone, the mother of his only child wishes to be left alone — and honestly — that’s good enough for me.

R.I.P Heath, I look forward to a moving tribute in your honor at the Oscars and I will happily pay homage to watching your last films.

A sad story just gets sadder.  Actress Michelle Williams, mother of Heath’s daughter Matilda, has released a statement:

“Please respect our need to grieve privately. My heart is broken. I am the mother of the most tender-hearted, high-spirited, beautiful little girl who is the spitting image of her father. All that I can cling to is his presence inside her that reveals itself every day. His family and I watch Matilda as she whispers to trees, hugs animals, and takes steps two at a time and we know that he is with us still. She will be brought up with the best memories of him.”

Reportedly, Heath and Michelle broke up because she could not handle his drug-taking, and there were whispers of another woman.  Heath, for his part, was attempting to kick drugs, which leads me to the second part of this story.

Entertainment Tonight and The Insider paid big bucks (I’ve heard upwards of $200,000US) for a grainy video showing Heath allegedly engaged in drug use while at a party.  They’ve already shown a teaser, which didn’t tell the whole story:

A behind-the-scenes campaign happened aggressively on Wednesday to pressure the shows not to broadcast that Heath Ledger video everyone was talking about.

Several top publicity companies threatened to never give the shows access to their star clients again. They caved.

However, we’re told that many are still upset because ET and The Insider made it seem like Heath was doing drugs in the video.

He was not, a person who has seen the full clip tells us.

Additionally, when the shows aired a preview of the video, they showed a clip of Ledger saying, “I used to smoke five joints a day for 20 years.”

However, what they didn’t show you was that afterwards, he said , “and that’s why I got this tattoo [an M, for daughter Matilda] to remind me never to smoke weed again.”

It’s sad that these shows would feel the need to use this man’s death as a reason for ratings, but I guess that’s the nature of the show business beast…I went into my local Blockbuster a couple of nights ago, here in the middle of 40th and Plum, and they had a display at the checkout area.  I took a closer look, and it was a selection of movies Heath had been in.  For rental or purchase, own a piece of a dead man!

I did not partake.