Fans knew Carole Lombard as the “screwball queen” and the “profane angel,” but when she wasn’t providing the laughs on screen she was living the glamorous high life, engaging in behind-the-scenes scandals as racy as any of her contemporaries. Sadly, a tragic accident took her far too soon—but even though she lived to just 33, her story is as jaw-dropping as it gets.

Since Fred Rogers first stepped out into the world, he noticed a profound lack of enriching children’s entertainment, especially in the budding medium of television. Taking this as his calling, he created a series almost entirely from his own mind, teaching children how to overcome life’s greatest struggles. Against the fear and uncertainty of the world, he provided a much-needed comfort—making his loss all the more heartbreaking.

Paul Simon once sang, “I am a rock, I am an island”—and he wasn’t lying. Simon’s songwriting brilliance is as complicated as the man himself. Beneath the chart-topping, era-defining music, he was a minefield of neuroses: obsessed with control, wracked with self-doubt, and locked in one of music’s most outrageous feuds with his angel-voiced partner, Art Garfunkel. Behind the hits lay a trail of controversy, failed love affairs, wild, substance-fueled nights with Princess Leia, and a genius who couldn’t stop unraveling.

Of all the tragic Hollywood stories—and there are a lot—the story of Audrey Munson may well be the most devastating. Many consider Munson to be the first supermodel, but instead of posing in the latest fashions for the camera, she was standing still for sculptors. It was when Munson tried to parlay her fame into a movie career, however, that things went south. There was no quick crash and burn for Munson, and a devastating series of events led her to a truly dark and unforgettable end.

Before he wore the bucket hat and stumbled into slapstick glory, Bob Denver was a shy kid with stage fright and a dream. From his beatnik start as Maynard G Krebs to his iconic turn as bumbling Gilligan, Denver carved a spot in pop culture history—and there’s way more to him than coconuts and pratfalls.

Peter Sellers always claimed that underneath his colorful roles and funny voices, there was nobody—that he “did not exist” as a person. The truth, however, was so much darker.