"Hear ye! Hear ye! Bring out your dead!"
Johnny Cash, dead at 71. While not a fan of his work, Cash won my respect by managing to reach the MTV crowd without seeming to be a whore. That's talent and Cash certainly had it in bucketfulls.
And from the you-lost-your-saving-throw-dept., John Ritter has also died due to a freak arterial problem. Ritter's work was all over the map. He is responsible for a tremendous amout of crap, including Three's Company, It and Skin Deep (think luminescent condoms). Occasionally, he produced some quality work, as his one guest spot on Buffy showed. Certainly at 54, Ritter was too young to go.