Afterlives of the Rich and Famous (19 page)

The Wailers reunited, made more fairly unsuccessful records, and, most significantly for the rest of Bob’s life, became devout Rastafarians, largely due to Rita’s influence and the continued teachings of Mortimer Planner, one of the faith’s most highly regarded elders. Bob adopted and, through his music, began spreading such basic Rastafari tenets as peace and brotherhood, vegetarianism, and the spiritual use of cannabis.

The Wailers finally attracted the attention of Chris Blackwell, who signed them to his influential label, Island Records, in 1972, and their album
Catch a Fire
was their first to be marketed outside of Jamaica. Their second Island Records album,
Burnin’,
included a Bob Marley song called “I Shot the Sheriff,” which was recorded by British superstar Eric Clapton and helped to elevate Bob’s and the Wailers’ notoriety, and in
1973
the Wailers set out on their first overseas tour.

By the end of 1973 Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingstone had left the Wailers to pursue solo careers, and Bob “regrouped,” expanding his instrumental section and recruiting a female trio that included his wife, Rita, to form Bob Marley and the Wailers, who successfully toured Europe and the United States. By 1978 they’d achieved several hits in both England and the United States, and their albums
Rastaman Vibration
and
Exodus
soared into the top twenty on America’s pop music charts.

Bob’s popularity and influence back home in Jamaica had long since given him significant importance not only as a musician, but also as a spokesman on public issues. On December 3, 1976, he, his wife, and his manager, Don Taylor, were shot two days before Bob Marley and the Wailers were due to perform a free concert in support of the progressive Jamaican prime minister Michael Manley. All three survived what was generally believed to be a politically motivated assassination attempt, and Bob appeared at the concert as scheduled and then promptly left for England.

In mid-1977, shortly after the release of the
Exodus
album, Bob discovered that an unhealed wound on his toe was a malignant melanoma. Doctors urged him to have his toe amputated, but his religious beliefs impelled him to refuse. The
Exodus
promotion tour was abbreviated, but in
1978
the band was back in action, recording the album
Kaya
and performing in Jamaica’s One Love Peace Concert; later that year Bob was presented with the United Nations’ Peace Medal of the Third World.

In 1980, after producing several more albums and resuming tours of the United States and Europe, Bob fell ill during a New York City concert in early September and collapsed the next day while jogging through Central Park. He was rushed to the hospital, where doctors discovered that the cancer that started in his toe had spread to his liver, his stomach, and his brain. The prognosis was that he had less than a month to live.

He bravely and brilliantly performed a concert in Pittsburgh on September 22, but to his profound disappointment he was unable to continue the scheduled U.S. tour. He traveled to Miami and was formally baptized at the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and from there he and Rita flew to a treatment center in Germany in an effort to prove the New York doctors wrong.

When it became apparent that the controversial German therapy wasn’t working, Bob and Rita set out for Jamaica, attempting to honor Bob’s wish to die at home. They got no farther than Miami, where Bob was rushed from the airport to Cedars of Lebanon Hospital. He died there on May 11, 1981, at the age of thirty-six.

Bob Marley was honored with a state funeral in Jamaica attended by the Jamaican prime minister along with hundreds of thousands of mourners. He was laid to rest in a chapel mausoleum in his hometown of Nine Miles. Among his many posthumous honors are his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the BBC’s “Song of the Millennium” award for his classic “One Love,” and
Time
magazine’s “Album of the Century” award for
Exodus
.

From Francine

Bob, one of our most highly advanced spirits, began making regular trips Home while he was still in Germany.
I’m sure there are those who would confirm that he was having conversations with many of his friends here months before he finally left his body once and for all, which actually happened during his flight to Florida.
There were throngs of friends from Home and from his forty-four past lives waiting to greet him, including his father.
The two of them have an interesting relationship—they shared a previous incarnation as half brothers in Kenya who lived in separate homes and were never particularly close.
Bob grew up more advantaged than Norval and supported him from a distance throughout his life out of respect for their familial connection.
The two of them charted a very similar dynamic for themselves in this most recent lifetime.
Norval repaid his karmic debt to Bob while still keeping his distance—like some kindred souls, Bob and Norval are very good at fulfilling specific, important purposes in each other’s lives, but they bring out the worst in each other when they spend too much time together.
It’s interesting that Bob’s remarkable influence on your world was partially a result of the strength he gained from growing up without his father and refusing to define that fact of his life
as a disadvantage.
He entered his final incarnation with great clarity about his life themes of Harmony and Justice, which gave him an unusual insight and sense of direction about obstacles that would have discouraged less focused spirits.

Bob arrived Home with that same clarity, joyfully looking forward to resuming his full life here.
He lives communally with a large, fluid group of friends on what corresponds to your island of Tasmania, where he continues composing beautiful songs of peace and unity and infusing them to a young Rastafari musician named Muata, who
lives in western Ethiopia.
Bob is also one of our most popular performers, joining a wide variety of other musicians from Jim Croce and Jimi Hendrix to Louis Armstrong and Andrés Segovia for brilliant concerts throughout the Other Side.
It might interest you on earth to know that Bob’s song “One Love” is as familiar and beloved at Home as it is here.
He’s an avid soccer and lacrosse player and, always a passionate master craftsman, has begun creating his own bass guitars to give to his many music students.

Bob quickly resumed his position as an esteemed member of our network of peace councils—never believe there aren’t constant efforts on the Other Side to find realistic solutions to your world’s problems.
His other great passion here is his work with and on behalf of animals, researching cures for common and often fatal viral diseases among the earth’s animals and also exploring the vast potential of stem cells in the treatment of a variety of orthopedic challenges.

He was so eager to see his mother, Cedella, when she left her body that he actually traveled through the tunnel to hold her hand and personally bring her Home, and she now lives with him in his island commune.
He closely follows his wife’s work with her foundation, and he thanks his son, Ziggy, for his ongoing efforts with the documentary about his life and urges him not to get discouraged by the “inevitable frustrations.” He was disappointed that he didn’t live long enough to fulfill his intention of writing his autobiography, and he’s hard at work on it now—when he’s satisfied with it he’ll be infusing it to a woman he says his son has met, but doesn’t know well yet, who will make herself apparent to Ziggy at the appropriate time, and the two of them will see it through to fruition.

John Ritter

W
onderfully gifted actor and comedian John Southworth Ritter was born on September 17, 1948, in Burbank, California. His performing talent came naturally from his mother, actress Dorothy Fay, and his father, legendary country singer and actor Tex Ritter. John’s older brother, Tom, was diagnosed as a child with cerebral palsy, triumphed over it, and grew up to become a lawyer.

John was student body president at Hollywood High School and, after a very brief diversion appearing as a contestant on
The Dating Game
and winning a vacation two hundred miles from home, headed on to the University of Southern California, where he majored in psychology and minored in architecture. At the end of his sophomore year, curiosity drew him to an acting class taught by actress Nina Foch. He knew he’d found his niche and changed his major to theater arts. Between studies, in
1968
and
1969
, he gained valuable acting experience by performing in a series of plays throughout Europe, and he graduated in
1971
with a bachelor’s degree in drama.

His first TV guest spots read like a history of television in the 1970s—
Hawaii Five-O, The Waltons, M*A*S*H, The Bob Newhart Show, The Streets of San Francisco, Kojak,
and
The Mary Tyler Moore Show,
to name a few. While working on
The Waltons,
on January
2, 1974
, he received the devastating news that his father had died suddenly of a heart attack in Nashville.

In 1975 ABC-TV bought the rights to the Americanized version of a British comedy series called
Man About the House
. John was the first to be cast in the new sitcom. Joyce DeWitt joined the cast after a poorly received first pilot was shot. Suzanne Somers was hired after a poorly received second pilot was shot. And finally the right combination of characters and chemistry came together for the hit show
Three’s Company,
which ran for a very respectable eight seasons with John as the culinary student and ladies’ man Jack Tripper, who pretended to be gay to keep the landlords from objecting to his living with two attractive female roommates. During those eight years he began building his film career, with appearances in such moderate hits as
Hero at Large, Americathon, Wholly Moses!,
and
They All Laughed
. He also emceed the
1977
United Cerebral Palsy Telethon with his brother, Tom, which became one of his treasured annual traditions, raising many millions of dollars for a cause that was understandably close to his heart.

When
Three’s Company
had run its course and John had done his best in the inevitable short-lived spin-off
Three’s a Crowd,
he had no problem making the transition right back to film again, with roles in almost thirty films between
1986
and
2006
. In those same years his television appearances, including guest spots, specials, TV movies, and series, numbered almost sixty, making him one of the busiest, most versatile, and most sought-after actors in Hollywood for nearly three decades. He was rewarded with a Best Actor Emmy out of six nominations and a Best Actor Golden Globe Award out of five nominations.

John’s personal life was refreshingly quiet and scandal-free. He married his first wife, actress Nancy Morgan, in 1977. They had three children—Jason, Tyler, and Carly—with whom John remained very close after he and Nancy divorced in 1996. John and his second wife, Amy Yasbeck, originally met in 1990 when they costarred in an episode of
The Cosby Show
. They officially began dating in the late
1990
s, shortly before costarring in the hilariously tongue-in-cheek
1998
TV movie
Dead Husbands
. They were married in
1999
, a few months after the birth of their daughter, Stella.

In 2002 John began shooting a new television series,
Eight Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter,
which won the
2002
People’s Choice Award for Best New Comedy. On September
11, 2003
, he was rehearsing with his close longtime friend Henry Winkler, who was guest-starring on that week’s episode, when he suddenly fell ill. He was rushed to nearby Providence St. Joseph Medical Center, where he died at
10
:
45
that same night. The cause of death proved to be an aortic dissection, a tear in the wall of the aorta caused by a previously undiagnosed congenital heart defect. He was buried at Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery, after a private service at which John’s family and close friends said a reluctant good-bye to one of the industry’s most endearing, prolific, and highly respected actors.

From Francine

John is every bit as beloved, kind, and hilarious here as he was on earth, and although the suddenness of his Homecoming was a surprise, a huge crowd, led by his father, quickly gathered to welcome him.
He was understandably a little disoriented, but a long embrace from his father and the sight of so many treasured friends calmed him into a quiet, joyful acceptance of what had happened and where he was, and there was no need for Orientation or cocooning.
He worried about the grief his wife and children were going through and quickly began visiting them to reassure and comfort them and to let them know how blessed he felt to have lived such a wonderful lifetime and then to have had the luxury of being in the midst of doing what he loved, with Henry by his side, when he began his trip Home.
While death was never a subject that preoccupied him, he says that, when he did think about it, he hoped he would go quickly, as his father did, and it fascinated him that both he and his father went Home so close to their respective birthdays.
[Tex Ritter died ten days before his sixty-ninth birthday, John six days before his fifty-fifth.]