Mama Cass Died Choking on a Ham Sandwich

This one stuck because it is tidy, slightly cruel, and easy to remember, and because it let people make a joke about a larger woman and food. None of it happened. Elliot died of heart failure, fatty myocardial degeneration, at just 32. The autopsy found no food lodged in her throat or windpipe at all. A partly eaten sandwich was reportedly in the room, and an early offhand remark by a doctor hardened into legend before the postmortem corrected the record. By then the cruel version had already won, because the cruel version was the more fun to repeat. The sandwich was never the cause of death. It was just nearby.