Tragic,sad and shock ending to his life. No matter what, he’s truly entertainer, irreplaceable and all his successful story will be remembered.

So they were famous for different things, but each seemed to yearn desperately for what the other had—Farrah strived to achieve a higher level of creative talent where Michael seemed to form an obsession with achieving some sort of Barbie doll beauty. While Farrah achieved some success in her creative endeavors, it was really her beauty that was her talent, and which she seemed to take for granted. Perhaps it’s easy to be beautiful—you are just born that way. But I would venture to say that she had a talent to project an irresistible energy in front of the camera that really reflected a unique talent. As for the creative endeavors, the acting, the “painting”, they simply paled in comparison to the talent that was Farrah in front of a camera. But she seemed dissatisfied being known just for that.

Michael, on the other hand, continued to perform creatively for most of his life, but in later years, that seemed to take a backseat to his face sculpting project that he eventually took to a rather grotesque extreme. I don’t think he ever anticipated that in all his efforts to achieve his ideal of beauty, he would achieve much the opposite. And furthermore, the pain he must have endured with so much surgery must have been quite distracting from his creative efforts. His struggles to deal with this pain through medication so that he could focus on his work may have ultimately been what led to his demise.

In the end, Michael’s story seems to be the more tragic, but both reflect a lot about our perfection obsessed culture today. We simply cannot accept ourselves as we are and embrace our true selves, our true talents, and be satisfied with that. We need to strive for an unattainable perfection in every arena—academic, professional, physical, intellectual. I don’t mean that it’s wrong to strive to better ourselves—of course that’s the American way—but I do think that, overall, we as a society have begun to take our desire for perfection to a dangerous extreme.

They were all celebrities – but Michael was waaaay more than that. He literally changed the world of entertainment, and was a true pioneer, innovator. His troubles would never make news without his sheer genius.

On a side note, I don’t know if Michael and Farrah ever met, but they shared a connection through Tatum O’Neal, who dated Michael in her teens, and is of course, the daughter of Ryan O’Neal