Sonny Bono – Death by Tree

The shorter half of '60s/'70s duo Sonny and Cher, Bono transitioned into a career in politics in the late 1980s -- first becoming mayor of Palm Springs, Calif., and later being elected to the US House of Representatives.

Not long after, in an effort to become even more like a Kennedy, he took up a short-lived career in skiing badly.

While hitting the slopes at Lake Tahoe in the winter of 1998, Bono hit something else: a tree. He died from his injuries.