This Week In Showbiz History: Roman Polanski Jumps Bail & More

Know your Hollywood trivia with this week's past events, including the grizzly deaths of a few scream queens.

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Complex Original

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The first week of February is colder than Bernie Lomax, but it's got more than its share of off beat movie and television history. A banner day for comedian birthdays, the anniversary of one of the most famous bail jumpings of all time, and a couple of scream queens meet unfortunate real life ends, all in this week's edition of This Week In Showbiz History...

2/1/88: Poltergeist child star Heather O'Rourke dies
• O'Rourke starred in all three Poltergeist franchises (uttering the instant classic lines "They're here!" and "They're ba-ack!") but died during the filming of the third. Diagnosed with Crohn's Disease, she in fact had an intestinal blockage, and died at the age of 12 of a heart attack brought on by septic shock (which sounds like just about the most painful way to die, ever). She was one of four cast and crewmembers of the original Poltergeist to die young, prompting talk of a Poltergeist curse.

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2/3/03: B-movie vixen Lana Clarkson killed
• Unfortunately, Clarkson is famous for two things, neither of them all that good: 1) getting raped in Roger Corman's b-movie turd Barbarian Queen, and 2) getting killed by Phil Spector. R.I.P., and we hope you're someplace without torture racks and oddly coiffed superproducers.

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