The Last Days of Dead Celebrities

No one is better qualified than Fink to tell these stories. Working with an extraordinary level of access -- and the cooperation of the stars families and friends, all on the record -- he has unearthed exclusive and moving material. He portrays here the broad range of emotions these very sympathetic icons experienced.

Our cultural obsession with celebrities verges on the macabre. Now Fink answers that obsession literally, telling of his subjects physical, emotional, and spiritual journeys to the end of life. He talked to Yoko Ono about the optimism of John Lennon's final week; Dan Aykroyd and Judy Belushi about the frenzy of John Belushi's debauched ending; David Bloom's NBC colleagues about the acceptance, even peace, he found in the chaos of war in the desert.

Describing John Ritter's last few days on the set of his hit television show, Fink focuses on the camaraderie and warmth that Ritter created -- as remembered by pals Henry Winkler and Peter Bogdanovich, who happened to be guest stars that week. Fink's tender profile of Warren Zevon chronicles the bittersweet year during which the musician faced his mortality in his iconoclastic fashion, embracing a sex-drugs-rock-&-roll attitude, before greeting his death completely on his own terms. Mitchell Fink has captured the intimate moments and sets the record straight on these very human, very vulnerable public figures.