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Submitted by C Snedeker
The “Poltergeist Girl” as she was most commonly known was named Heather O’Rourke. She died of congenital acute bowel obstruction at the age of 12, during a break from the filming of Poltergeist III. Before she left us though, she gave us three films of a series that haunted us throughout the 80’s (and for some people, to this day), and a handful of television appearances.
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so she died from constpation
are you trying to be funny because if you are…
*FAIL*
She made Poltergeist what it was. That movie scared me to death and gave me a life long fear of clowns.
Dude! That is SO not cool!
To this day I’m still afraid of closets. If the door is closed and the lights on and you’ve got that chilling outline of the light around the door… I won’t go near it. LOL
I was waiting for her to do somethin all crazy like in this clip!
RIP HEather.
Poor little girl. 12 is too young to die.
still haven’t seen any of the series.
/FAIL!!!
and I am 26
If I recall there was this hyped up E! Channel special on how the set was “cursed”, from using real corpses and the various deaths of cast members to a huge fire in the studio.
Pretty depressing that is what people are just dieing to hear about huh?
I watched that, too. It was a long time ago but I remember them saying something about using real corpses because they were cheaper than having one made.
That’s kinda gross.
And just a tad disrespectful don’t you think?
“I am so sorry for your loss Miss.Jones; but you can always see your husband on scene 328″
The first movie still creeps me out. The SFX with the ghosts…creeepy! I don’t remember if I ever saw #3, though.
“Funny”, here there is that urban legend where the girl in poltergeist was palyed by twins, and they stopped when one of them die…
Still, a sad death..the girl could have had one of those careers!
And i think that poltergeist is still considered as “too cursed to be remake”.
Actually Heather O’Rourke did have a twin brother but he died while in the womb.
And apparently Poltergeist is not considered “too cursed” to be remade…they’re filming a remake as we speak (which has caused an uproar among Heather O’Rourke fans, and probably Dominique Dunne fans as well).
HAs anyone ever did age progression on a photo of her? I am curious what she would have looked if she were alive today. ….a little like Mercedes McNab I guess
#2 was the scariest for me. That scene where Craig T. Nelson gets drunk swallows the tequila worm and barfs up the demon priest dude scared the sh*t outta me and is the main reason i will never ever touch tequila…..
#3 wasn’t as scary i think, but it definitely creeped me out with mirrors for awhile….
It is the static on the TV that scared me. I wasn’t supposed to be awake but I sneaked a view of the movie and I’ve been afraid of getting sucked into the TV ever since.
bspinky: ditto on the tequila worm thing too. I could never imagine drinking from a wormy bottle.
Never saw the Poltergiest films….too young to go by myself, my parents weren’t big on horror films (not over-protective or conservative, just not really interested in them), and my brothers were too old to want to deal with their baby brother possibly freaking out at a movie theater (depending on the brother, there’s a 10-16 year gap between me and my siblings).
I remember Heather O’Rourke from the TV promos for Poltergiest, of course, but I remember her far better as the daughter of Fonzie’s girlfriend in the later years of Happy Days. But that’s just me.
Aaaaayyyyyy! I’d want him for a step-dad!
She was also in a movie with River Phoenix.
Someone must have known she was sick. I can see it in the way her face is swollen. She reminds me of a kidney-dialasis patient. What a loss. She was such a convincing little actress at the time. I still hate clowns.
She was a very bright and talented actress. It was a tragedy that the world lost her so early.
“Heather O’Rourke became ill in early 1987, and was misdiagnosed by Kaiser Permanente Hospital with Crohn’s disease. She was prescribed medicine to treat the Crohn’s, the former of which allegedly “puffed up [her] cheeks”.”
They did know that she was sick, they just didn’t know with what. She went to see so many doctors, but none of them were able to diagnose her bowel obstruction (she was even seeing gastroenterologists, and even they couldn’t give her a correct diagnosis!) Once it was misdiagnosed as Crohn’s Disease, and they put her on cortizone, which caused the “chipmunk cheeks” that we saw in Poltergeist III.
Sad she died so young.
I never saw those movies though; too creepy.
I don’t think I’ve every seen any of those films properly, but I can’t get this out of my head:
“They’re here”
*shivers*
I just watched her in the movie Surviving. She was such a cutie.
I’m looking for some information about severe constipation and I’ve just stumbled upon your site! An interesting read which I enjoyed and found to be of use. I will return to have more time to read more.
She was beautiful. Can you imagine what she would would of looked like all grown up.. Gorgeous.
R.I.P. Heather