Decidedly Grim

Today’s Legitimately Prescribed Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

In early January 1998, Sonny Bono and his wife Mary took their two children (four-year-old Chianna and seven-year-old Cesare) to Lake Tahoe for a vacation at the Heavenly Resort. On January 5, they were out on the slopes of South Lake Tahoe on the Upper Orion ski run. About 1:30 P.M., the family was skiing on an intermediate slope. Four-year-old Chianna took a slight tumble, and Mary and seven-year-old Cesare stopped to assist her. Sonny told Mary he was going to go down in another direction, and then skied off the path and in among the trees – which adept skiers often do. Thereafter, no one heard anything from Sonny. But six hours later, news came that a body had been found on the mountain. Mary demanded to be taken to the site, and her worst fears proved to be true when she saw Sonny’s frozen face. He had died of massive head injuries from skiing head-on into a 40-foot-high pine tree. At the time, it was a mystery why Sonny would have done what he did on the slopes. There was speculation that he might have been high, but there was no official evidence of drug or alcohol abuse. But, as his wife would tell TV Guide magazine in November 1998, “When he died, his blood level was in the therapeutic range for Vicodin and Valium. He had taken what had been prescribed legitimately by a doctor. But you know these drugs come with a warning. DO NOT OPERATE MACHINERY or whatever.”

Culled from: The Hollywood Book Of Death

Everytime I think of Sonny Bono’s death I’m reminded of the immortal Eminem lyric: “Skibbedy-be-bop, a-Christopher Reeves, Sonny Bono, skis, horses and hittin’ some trees”.

Facts