15 Famous People Who Allegedly Died of Food Poisoning

Henry I of England, the fourth son of William the Conqueror, ruled from 1100 to 1135, and was known as a harsh but effective monarch. According to a chronicler, he died in the Normandy town of Lyons-la-Forêt – supposedly after eating too many lampreys (a type of jawless fish with sharp teeth) against his physician’s advice, though many historians are convinced that it was food poisoning that claimed his life..

Pope Clement VII was head of the church from 1523 until his death in 1534, and oversaw a particularly turbulent and consequential political, military, and religious era at the tail end of the Italian Renaissance. He is best known for approving Copernicus’s theory that the earth revolves around the sun and commissioning Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment” fresco in the Sistine Chapel. After months of illness, which included liver failure and blindness, he died at age 56, and while his death was attributed to eating poisonous mushrooms at the time, the cause is debated among modern historians.

The Holy Roman Emperor and ruler of the Austrian Habsburg monarchy Charles VI was in power from 1711 until his death in 1740. After a day spent hunting in cold and wet conditions, Charles fell ill and died; the official cause of death was eating poisonous death cap mushrooms. His death sparked the War of the Austrian Succession, which plagued his successor, Maria Theresa.

Anton Fils was a German composer who penned at least 34 symphonies and about 30 concertos in his short life (he died at age 26). In an odd bit of classical music trivia, a biographer attributed his death to a habit of eating spiders, which he claimed tasted like strawberries.

Johann Schobert was an Alsatian composer and harpsichordist in the household of Louis François I de Bourbon, prince de Conti, and is best known as a major early influence on Mozart. In 1767 he went mushroom picking with his family. Two restaurant chefs turned him away when he asked them to cook what he’d foraged, because they recognized the mushrooms as poisonous. Schobert refused to believe them, and a doctor friend reinforced that belief, so he made them into a soup at home. Schobert, his wife, the doctor, and all but one of his children died as a result.

A popular military leader and hero of the Mexican-American War, Zachary Taylor was elected president in 1848 but only served for 16 months before dying of a stomach ailment. He fell ill after consuming lots of cherries and iced milk during a fundraising event for the Washington Monument and died of acute gastroenteritis several days later. His specific cause of death remains debated.

William Stephens was the Dean (or head) of Winchester Cathedral, in the English city of Winchester, from 1895 to 1902. At a mayoral banquet in that year, Stephens ate oysters that had been contaminated with raw sewage, and he died six weeks later from the typhoid fever he’d contracted as a result.

Brother of the famed film director Georges Méliès, Gaston Méliès was a noted (if unsuccessful) director in his own right, who spent several years filming around the Asian Pacific before moving to Corsica with his wife in 1913 – where he died from shellfish poisoning two years later at age 63.

Hersal Thomas was an American blues pianist and composer who recorded several songs in 1925 and ’26, including a session with young Louis Armstrong. While headlining at a music venue called Penny’s Pleasure Inn in Detroit, he contracted food poisoning and died at the young age of just 19.

Corinne Barker was an actress and costume designer during the silent film era. She became well-known for her appearances in Vitagraph films and also appeared in several Broadway productions. She died of food poisoning in 1928, at age 38.

Wilfrid Sanderson was a noted English church organist and an examiner at London’s Trinity College of Music. He died in 1935, at age 56, after contracting typhoid from contaminated oysters.

Robert Schable began his career as a stage actor and transitioned to silent films in 1919. He became well-known for his comedic roles and portrayal of characters with European flair. He died of food poisoning in 1947, at age 73.

One of Japan’s most revered Kabuki actors, Bandō Mitsugorō VIII was named a “National Living Treasure” by the Japanese government in 1973. Two years later, he ordered fugu kimo, or puffer fish liver – an organ that’s known for being toxic but wasn’t banned until 1894 – at a Kyoto restaurant, claiming that he could survive the poison’s paralytic effects. He couldn’t.

C. Martin Croker was a voice actor best known for providing voices on Cartoon Network’s “Space Ghost Coast to Coast,” as well as an animator best known for his work on “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.” Croker suddenly fell ill, vomiting and with a fever, on December 17, 2016, and attributed it to food poisoning from sushi he’d eaten earlier that day. He died several hours later at age 54, and no official cause of death has been given.

Alexander Pisarev was a Russian MMA star who was sickened, along with his wife, after eating watermelon that had been contaminated. Slicing an unwashed melon can drive bacteria that’s present on the skin onto the edible portion. His wife was hospitalized and recovered, but Pisarev sadly passed away at age 33 on Oct. 30 of this year.