Fast and Furious Actor Paul Walker Dead at 40
Paul Walker, the star of the “Fast & Furious” movie series, died on Saturday in a car crash that killed two people north of Los Angeles, his publicist said. He was 40. He was best known for his role as a fast-driving cop opposite bad-guy-gone-good Vin Diesel in the Fast and Furious movie series died on Saturday in a car crash in Santa Clarita, California, according to multiple sources.
News of the fatal crash spread first online after celebrity news site TMZ broke the story. Initially, most other news outlets and Twitter accounts picked it up as a report.
#PaulWalker Fast and Furious Actor Paul Walker Dead at 40 http://t.co/iP0gEutpTK pic.twitter.com/zsEgxDgIXi
— Vivek Kumar (@vivekkupandey) December 1, 2013
Paul Walker dies in crash: report http://t.co/vhdIC8dgAa #RIP #cannotbelieve
— Lance Ulanoff (@LanceUlanoff) December 1, 2013
Has it been confirmed by other news sources? RT @LanceUlanoff: Paul Walker dies in crash: report http://t.co/rIPIlVNfo3 #RIP
— Jodi Echakowitz (@JodiEchakowitz) December 1, 2013
Very dramatic photo from scene of crash in which actor @RealPaulWalker died: @signalscv pic.twitter.com/1t6cwRmFFK
— Storyful (@Storyful) December 1, 2013
Walker died on Saturday afternoon, Ame Van Iden told the Associated Press.
TMZ’s web site was inundated with traffic and, for a brief period of time, actually went down. When it returned, it appeared with this sentence added to the original story: “A rep for the actor confirms Paul died today in the crash after leaving a charity event.”
According to the AP, Walker was a passenger in a friend’s Porsche, which crashed into a light pole and tree before bursting into flames. Dramatic images of the wreckage soon spread on Twitter.