MICHAEL JACKSON was a pop legend in his own time and his musical genius will be greatly missed with his untimely death.

While a second group of pathologists put the pieces together to find the actual cause of death, there are disturbing reports about the star's dependence on prescription drugs.

Celebrities and prescription drugs or otherwise tend to spell a fatal combination. Through the years many screen and stage icons have succumbed to overdoses leaving their fans only memories and memorabilia.

Jimi Hendrix

• Full Name: Johnny Allen Hendrix
• Born: Nov 27, 1942
• Birthplace: Seattle, Washington
• Died: Sept 18, 1970 (Drug overdose)
• Best Known As: Performer of Purple Haze

Hendrix enlisted in the United States Army in 1961. Even as a soldier, he found time for music, creating a band named The King Casuals. Hendrix served in the army until 1962 when he was discharged due to an injury. In 1966, Hendrix met Chas Chandler who became his manager. Chandler convinced Hendrix to go to London where he joined forces with musicians Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell to create The Jimi Hendrix Experience.  Released in 1967, the band's first single, Hey Joe, was an instant smash in Britain, and was soon followed by other hits such as Purple Haze and The Wind Cried Mary.

Hendrix tried his luck with another group, forming Band of Gypsys in late 1969 with his army buddy Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles. The band never really took off and Hendrix began working on a new
album tentatively named First Rays of the New Rising Sun, with Cox and Mitch Mitchell from the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Unfortunately Hendrix did not live to complete the project.

Hendrix died on Sept 18, 1970. According to reports, he overdosed on sleeping pills and drank too much red wine and choked on his own vomit in a London hotel.

Heath Ledger

• Full Name: Heathcliff Andrew Ledger
• Born: April 4, 1979
• Birthplace: Perth, Australia
• Died: Jan 22, 2008 (Accidental overdose)
• Best Known As: The Brokeback Mountain star who died at age 28

Ledger kicked off his career byplaying the warrior hero Conor in the Dark Ages TV series Roar (1997). The series lasted only one season, but established Ledger as an up-and-coming heartthrob. He enhanced that reputation in the teen movie Ten Things I Hate About You (1999, co-starring Julia Stiles). He also played a fictionalised version ofJacob Grimm in the 2005 Terry Gilliam film The Brothers Grimm. That same year he co-starred in the daring western Brokeback Mountain (directed by Ang Lee), with Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal playing cowboys in love.

Ledger was found dead in his Manhattan apartment on the afternoon of Jan 22, 2008. Anautopsy determined that he had suffered an accidental overdose of prescribed anti-depressants, painkillers and sleeping medications.

Marilyn Monroe

• Full Name: Norma Jeane Mortenson
• Born: June 1, 1926
• Birthplace: Los Angeles, California
• Died: Aug 4, 1962 (Drug overdose)
• Best Known As: Hollywood's most famous blonde sex symbol

Early in her film career she starred as a dumb blonde in movies like How to Marry a Millionaire (1953). Her va-va-voom beauty made her an international celebrity, and she won acclaim as a talented actress in the films Bus Stop (1956) and Some Like It Hot (1959, co-starring Jack Lemmon).

Her personal life was  famously untidy; her husbands included baseball star Joe DiMaggio (1954) and playwright Arthur Miller (1956-61). Her last film was Miller's drama The Misfits (1961, co-starring Clark Gable). She was found dead in 1962 of an overdose of sleeping pills and her death was officially ruled a probable suicide.

Monroe was married three times in all: to Jimmy Dougherty (1942-1946), whom she married when she was 16; to Joe DiMaggio (1954), and to Arthur Miller (1956-1961). Elton John's memorial tribute to Lady Di, Candle in the Wind, was originally written for Marilyn.

Anna Nicole Smith

• Full Name: Vickie Lynn Hogan
• Born: Nov 28, 1967
• Birthplace: Mexia, Texas
• Died: Feb 8, 2007
• Best Known As: The blonde bombshell celebrity who died suddenly in 2007

Smith became the stuff of  talk show one-liners after she married 89-year-old oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall in 1994. He died the next year, leaving Smith to battle his family for control of his fortune. The legal wrangling seemed finished in 2002, when federal judge David Carter awarded Smith US$88.5 million (RM313.3 million) as her share of  Marshall's estate, but later legal challenges kept the case alive.

In 1992, career took off after she was chosen by Hugh Hefner to appear on the cover of the March 1992 issue of Playboy, where she is listed as Vickie Smith, wearing a low-cut evening gown. Smith's well-known battles with her weight also led  to her role as a spokeswoman for TrimSpa diet products. Smith also starred in the The Anna Nicole Show, a "reality" TV series about her life which aired from 2002 too 2003. The show cemented her reputation as a celebrity more famous for being a celebrity than for anything else. Smith gave birth to a daughter, Dannielynn Hope, in September 2006. The event was marred when Smith's 20-year-old son Daniel died suddenly while visiting her in the hospital three days later.

Legal battles involving the paternity of her daughter followed her into 2007, and she was also named in a class-action lawsuit against TrimSpa. Smith was found unconscious in her hotel room in Hollywood, Florida on the afternoon of Feb 8, 2007 and rushed to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead. The
medical examiner's report eventually blamed Smith's death on a fatal combination of the sedative chloral hydrate and several other prescription drugs.

Elvis Presley

• Full Name: Elvis Aaron Presley 
• Born: Jan 8, 1935
• Birthplace: Tupelo, Mississippi
• Died: Aug 16, 1977 (Heart attack)
• Best Known As: The King of Rock ‘n Roll

Presley hit the charts as a rock ‘n roll rebel in the 1950s. His Sept 9, 1956 appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show (with Presley shown only from the waist up to hide his hips) turned him into one of the era's biggest stars. His many hits included Jailhouse Rock, Hound Dog and Blue Suede Shoes.

He also appeared in dozens of lighthearted movies designed to let him cavort and play the guitar onscreen, including King Creole (1958, co-starring Walter Matthau) and Blue Hawaii (1961, co-starring Angela Lansbury).

In the late 1960s, after a period of declining fame, he remade himself into "The King," a melodramatic icon known for his sequined karate-style jumpsuits and mega concerts. Presley died on Aug 16, 1977 in the bathroom of his Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee.The official coroner's report lists "cardiac arrhythmia" or a stopped heart as the cause of Presley's death but this was later admitted to be a ruse by the Presleyfamily along with autopsy physicians to cover up the real cause of death, a cocktail of 10 prescribed drugs, taken in doses no doctor would prescribe.