3. Paul Gleason, Actor (1939-2006)
Paul Gleason made a career out of playing unlikeable characters, particularly tough guys and unscrupulous, white-collar criminals. He appeared in 140 films or television shows, beginning in the 1960s. His best known parts came in “The Breakfast Club,” “Trading Places” and “Die Hard.” Additionally, he was also a successful athlete. Paul Gleason had a short-lived professional basketball career with the Cleveland Indians and often participated in celebrity golf tournaments as well.
Gleason believed that his exposure to asbestos stemmed from working construction jobs as a teenager. As an athlete before his acting began, he played college football at Florida State University (he was a teammate at FSU of actor Burt Reynolds), then signed a professional baseball contract with the Cleveland Indians.
Paul Gleason received his pleural mesothelioma diagnosis in 2006 and passed away just three weeks after his diagnosis, at the age of 67. The actor’s exposure to asbestos occurred during his teenage years when he used to work on construction sites with his father, as asbestos was widely present in numerous building materials and products until the mid-1980s.