Why is that more people are dieing due to pneumonia or complications to do with pneumonia like Bernie Mac?
I dunno, but it's happening all over and not just in the celebrity circles. Back in high school, my girlfriend at the time's father came down with it and died "just like that." I mean seriously, in the matter of a couple of days a big, healthy bear of a man was just gone. I never even knew he was sick before I was told he'd died.
Sucks.
But yeah, the Heath Ledger thing was just blown to Hell because:
A) He was young, seriously young.
B) He had a huge upcoming role in a highly-anticipated movie.
C) It involved a potential drug scandal.
More than anything, because of C. Hollywood loves a tragic story of a promising young actor's life going to Hell because of drugs. It was a shock because of his age, and talk of drugs just made it go crazy.
These guys who just recently died didn't have any scandal and were much older than him, so they got a nice little Yahoo obituary and that'll be the end of that...in spite of the fact that they were far greater in their respective fields than Heath ever was in his. It's sad.