He lost three of his kids and one son-in-law, before he died in 2010.
Trigger Warning: This story mentions suicide which may be disturbing to readers.
Art Linkletter was a Canadian-born radio and television personality with a career that spanned several years and was well known for his show, Art Linkletter's House Party. The host had the talent to get both young and old people to say some of the most random things on the show.
His career thrived, but the same couldn't be said for his personal life because it was one marred by tragedies.
The first time the family experienced loss and grief was on July 15, 1969, when John Zweyer, the television host's eldest daughter, Dawn's husband, shot himself in the head, per CDNC. After his passing, people believed that he was depressed due to his insurance business.
Unfortunately, just as the family was healing from the loss, tragedy struck them again. In October 1969, Linkletter's daughter Diane ended her own life as well. Per the Colorado Historic Newspaper, the then 20-year-old woman had jumped to her death from a window of her apartment located in West Hollywood.
Edward Durston, Diane's friend, told detectives that the night before Miss Linkletter was "extremely emotional, extremely despondent and very irrational at times, in fact, most of the time" in the hours before her death.
He tried to grab her when she jumped out the window but was too late.
Diane's death came as a huge shock to Linkletter, but he was just not ready to accept that she had ended her own life. He claimed that she was murdered by people who manufactured and sold LSD. According to Linkletter, his daughter moved with the crowd but was unable to handle it. She had a bad trip and was worried the drug was destroying her mind.
Grief hit them once again, on September 12, 1980, when Linkletter lost a second child, his son, Robert. The young man, who was 35 years old at the time, was involved in a fatal head-on crash on Santa Monica Boulevard, per UPI. Robert suffered chest injuries due to the accident, which ultimately led to him losing his life.
Twenty-seven years after Robert's death, Linkletter lost another child. The host was forced to bid farewell to Jack in 2007, who died of lymphoma. He died at his home in Cloverdale, California. He was aged 70, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Like his father, Jack too had ventured into broadcasting, hosting such TV shows as Hootenanny and special events as the Miss Universe pageant.
Three years later, Linkletter bid farewell to the world himself, after a lifetime of loss and suffering. He was 97 at the time of his death, per NY Times.
References:
https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=DS19690716.2.18&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN--------1
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/jack-linkletter-son-art-linkletter-157601/
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/arts/27linkletter.html
Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Photo by Newsmakers
