Last week was a rough week to be a celebrity, but it was a great week to be a journalist who covers celebrities. That is, unless you were the guy from TMZ whose job it was to follow Michael Jackson around and report on his every move. Not that he didn't have his moment in the proverbial sun, but in this job market, I sure hope there is an opening on Team Paris Hilton.

Right now, the Web is awash with stories about the gloved one's untimely demise, as well as a few scraps left over from the Farrah Fawcett funeral and some Late Night clips of Ed McMahon yukking it up with the long departed Tonight Show host Johnny Carson.

Perhaps the only thing bigger than the endless follows about the unusual trio is a bevy of columns out there in cyberspace pondering the veracity of the old adage that celebrities die in threes.

It's one that was often repeated when I worked on the copy desk. It was likely done out of sheer terror that someone enormously famous would die moments before deadline, forcing one to make the decision of running a front page brief on said celebrity's death (like I did with Christopher Reeve) or tearing down the night's work, blowing past immovable deadlines and spending an hour or two in copy editor hell trying to rework the cover and corresponding jump pages.

It appears, though, that copy editors aren't the only ones who spend valuable mental resources worrying about whether there is an underlying pattern to the timing of the passing of the renowned.

Go ahead. Type in celebrities die in threes on Google and see how many responses you get from just the past few days. You won't be disappointed.

So why should I be left out of all of the fun? Here's a quick look at some of the most renowned and noteworthy of the big three.

Big Bopper, Buddy Holly and Richie Valens

It is believed by many pop culturists that it is these three that sparked the modern day myth of celebrity deaths occurring in threes. The fact that they all died simultaneously in a horrific plane crash shortly after taking off from Storm Lake, Iowa, on Feb. 3, 1959, seems to elude many looking to play up the mystery of three.

However, the tragedy remains etched in the minds of a generation of baby boomers, thanks in part to Don McLean's ode to the "Day the Music Died" with his epic "American Pie."

Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison

Buddy Holly and company's untimely deaths may have been a shock to young baby boomers, but when it comes to music, death and the magic number three, no trio of deaths better reflects the "Me Generation" transition from naivety of the 1960s into the troubled 1970s like the deaths of Hendrix, Joplin and Morrison.

All three were 27 years old at the time of their deaths - Hendrix on Sept. 18, 1970, Joplin on Oct. 4, 1970, and Morrison on July 3, 1971. Both Hendrix and Joplin died of drug-related causes, and for all intents and purposes, so did Morrison. The Doors lead singer's official cause of death was listed as "heart failure," but like Michael Jackson, there was a long road leading to the medical maladies that eventually brought about his premature demise.

Princess Di, Mother Teresa and John Denver

Hopefully, it was different in other places of the globe, in particular, the non-English speaking - at least Calcutta, for certain.

No death in modern times has so captivated the masses and the shocking death of Princess Diana Spencer in a car accident in France at the age of 36. The ensuing media frenzy put to shame the current fascination with Michael Jackson. Parts of it continued for years with rumors about whether it was actually an assassination or planned by operatives working for British government.

The ex-wife of England's Prince Charles was much beloved, so it is reasonable - to some extent - that the world wept for her passing.

It's just that less than a week later, when certain-to-become-a-saint Mother Teresa died of a heart attack at age 87, the media saw it as a brief interruption to the continuing coverage of Di's untimely death.

Sure, she had admirable qualities. But was the founder of Missionaries of Charity Religious order? Did she work tirelessly with the poor in India? Did she have a Nobel Peace Prize?

No, but she had ratings, and that's where the cable news networks and everybody else in the media went.

And while John Denver may be almost an afterthought as the third in this grouping, it is worth noting that his death in an experimental plane crash at the age of 53 got as good as - and probably better - media coverage than Mother Teresa.

Is there no justice? Perhaps in the afterlife.

Aldous Huxley, President John Kennedy and C.S. Lewis

Nov. 22, 1963, is a day that almost every American alive today remembers. At least, they remember where they were when they heard the news that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas.

They probably don't remember hearing about the deaths of authors Aldous Huxley and C.S. Lewis on the very same day. Of course, the two British authors didn't quite hold the imagination of a nation the way Kennedy did. And Huxley was 69 years old and suffering from cancer when he died. Lewis was 64 when he died of Uremia.

Of course, Kennedy himself was an author, winning a Pulitzer for his "Profiles in Courage."

And on that level, between Huxley's "Brave New World," Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia" and Kennedy's account of his time on a PT Boat in World War II, there could have hardly been a more diverse group of writers.

Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson

And to the present.

It was right after Thursday's story conference when the copy editors and I began wondering who the third famous person would be. McMahon had died early in the week, and on Thursday morning, the news came that former Charlie's Angel and poster pinup Farrah Fawcett had died at age 62.

Neither was that big of a surprise. McMahon, 86, had been in the hospital since February. Fawcett, on the other hand, had been in the news of late concerning her battle with cancer.

But the story that appeared on the wire during the editors' discussion - that of Michael Jackson being rushed to the hospital - was down right eerie. By the time TMZ said he was dead a mere 10 minutes later, we had quit talking about who was going to be a third.