Russ Columbo(1908-1934)

After Russ Columbo's death, his girlfriend, actress Carole Lombard, and his friends got together and staged an elaborate subterfuge (similar to the plot of the recent film "Good Bye, Lenin!") to keep Columbo's mother from finding out that her son had died, since they thought the news would kill her. The secret campaign, which included making and sending her false reports of what he was supposedly doing and what was happening to him career-wise, continued until Lombard's own early death in 1942.