Live fast .... die young

Professor Diana Kenny from the University of Sydney has proved what most of suspected .... and The Who yearned for .... rock stars tend to die younger than the rest of us. Its not all bad news, Mick Jagger is 71 and Keith Richards 70, Tony Bennett has made it to 88 and Petula Clark is 81, with Dame Vera Lynn now 97. Even Ozzy has made it to 65 and a free bus pass. But Kenny's research shows that rock stars live anything up to 25 years less than their peers. There is of course the 'curse of 27' which has snapped up such talent as Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix - although death at the age of 27 has no statistical basis - but the study of nearly 13,000 rock and pop stars from the 1950s onwards in all genres shows that popsters and rockers are twice as likely as the general public to die in an accident, six times more likely to be murdered, and twice as likely to commit suicide. The average age of death for male rock stars is in the mid fifties -  and the Beatles are a good example - one (John Lennon) murdered aged just 40, another (George Harrison) dead of lung cancer at 58 - but Sir Paul and Ringo are still rocking on aged 72 and 74 years old respectively.