How big was Michael Landon's death?

I was already an adult during that time, but it was so long ago now that I don’t exactly recall many of the details. But ML was a big name following Bonanza, so I’m sure it occupied a good portion of the news. I remember that following his announcement that he had cancer, he was gone very shortly afterwards.

While ML produced one of my all time favorite shows (This subforums namesake) I could never relate to the characters that he played. Fans of Bonanza will probably notice that he was the same hot head as Charles Ingalls, that he was when played Little Joe. Sort of an unappealing character to me.

It was pretty big news at the time. He was very well known and as much as I didn't like the way he portrayed Charles Ingalls as a boorish wuss, I'd say he had a sort of larger than life persona. The kind of guy you'd never believe would even get cancer, much less get it and die from it so quickly.

He's not really dead, you know. He just got tired of the limelight. Now he's retired and fighting mummies and assorted other undead creatures in a nursing home down south with JFK.

In my family it was a big deal for a different reason. My Great Uncle was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at the same time so he was extremely attentive to the news articles about Michael Landon. The doctors would prescribe a treatment for my uncle telling what they were hoping for. He would turn on the TV and literally hear them talking about his treatments and prognosis. In one case, they prescribed a treatment. That very night he heard that Landon was receiving the same and the commentator had an expert on who said the treatment was ineffective against his cancer. When Michael Landon died, my uncle just gave up and passed a few weeks later.