Sad/confusing news from L.A. about the death of a relatively-young producer:
Film producer Gregg Hoffman, who developed an eight-minute film into the horror hit "Saw" and its gory successor "Saw II," died unexpectedly after complaining of pain. He was 42.
But you gotta help me with something here:
Hoffman died Sunday at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital, where he had been admitted after developing neck pain, his business partners said. He died of natural causes, according to a news release from Lions Gate Entertainment, which distributed his recent films.
The article goes on to say nothing about any pre-existing conditions…which begs the question: What natural causes kill a 42-year old?
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I wonder if it was a blood clot, like in the arteries in the neck?
Yeah, that makes sense.
I’ve just never heard a 42 year old’s death referred to as ‘natural causes’ unless they were already sick or suffering from some sort of pre-existing condition.
I’m sure we’ll learn more as the autopsy comes out. Whatever the case, I feel terrible for his family.
I saw this in the paper and wondered what happened. He was profiled in the LA Times a few weeks ago kinda gloating over the success of Saw.
read a bit more about it on defamer. Seems that he was one of the few nice guys in the biz…whew..42…seems so young. damn scary.
if he had neck pain, maybe it was viral meningitis or something – if you wait too long on those things, there’s nothing you can do sometimes.
Hi, Kyle…
First-time reader here. I’ve worked in television for years, and I can explain the designation “natural causes” from a journalistic standpoint:
It is a loose term that basically means that a patient did not die from either a man-made cause (such as murder or accidental death) or because of the lack of life-saving medical procedures that might otherwise have saved his life.
So someone who dies from heart disease, cancer, stroke, etc. would die from “natural causes” because they fell victim to a naturally-occuring process within the body.
It doesn’t sound right, but that’s how the designation is used. It’s possible that he could have had a heart attack, (which would also produce a death by “natural causes”) but it seems unlikely to me that the doctors at the hospital wouldn’t have realized that this was happening at the time. Of course it’s possible that his family asked doctors not to reveal specifics in the illness or injury, which is why they may have just provided the “natural causes” line and left it at that.
That’s my guess, anyway.