(no subject)
This will be part of a series of editorials that will follow. They will be a bit different than the entries that I put together. Bear in mind that the topic is not for the faint of heart.
As you may have recalled, I wrote an entry about the death of actor David Carradine. I then wrote a separate entry about the subject of suicide because people speculated that David Carradine had committed suicide. His family had vehemently and strongly denied that this was the case.
Around February of 2010, the winter Olympics had taken place in Vancouver, Canada. Unfortunately for Canada, the event and its problems were overshadowed by a separate tragedy that gained more media attention than the Olympics. A young struggling actor named Andrew Koenig had been missing for over a week, while he was visiting Vancouver.
If you never heard of Andrew Koenig, don’t worry. You are not alone. Even I found myself on “dumb-mode”. If you remember the TV show Growing Pains back in the 1980s, he had a recurring role there and is good friends with actor Kirk Cameron. What I did not know was that he is the son of actor Walter Koenig, the very same person who played Chekov in the original Star Trek TV series in the 1960s. I only learned about this now. This was clearly not a good/positive way to learn all this.
The story was that Andrew Koenig was fighting a long battle against depression. His father, actor Walter Koenig, was diagnosed with schizophrenia. It is not uncommon for some families to have a history of depression, such as bipolar syndrome (manic depression). Sadly, Andrew Koenig lost his battle against depression and committed suicide. His body was found deep inside Stanley Park.
As if this tragedy did not need even further bad news, a separate -but unrelated- suicide occurred in Los Angeles. The 18-year old son of singer Marie Osmond committed suicide by jumping off a building. Both suicides occurred within a week. This was clearly a bad omen. As a service to the general public in the U.S. and Canada, I have decided to write this entry to help those dealing with suicide.
My earlier entry:
http://jackluzwrites.livejournal.com/14246.html#cutid1
Link (and plea):
http://www.walterkoenigsite.com/
1968-2010