10 Insane Reasons People Faked Their Own Death

4. For PR Purposes

Plenty of musicians have seen their record sales given a significant boost when they die. In fact the likes of Elvis and Tupac have ended up shifting a lot more albums since they kicked the bucket than they ever did alive, which makes you wonder if it mightn't be a prudent career tactic for the unwashed masses of landfill indie and identikit pop bands out there, struggling to make their mark (at least that's what we'd pitch it to them as).

Friedrich Gulda performed in neither genre, opting instead to straddle the equally cool worlds of jazz and classical music with his piano playing. He totally went in for the death thing, though. Or at least he pretended he did.

With a strong sense of mischief to go along with the anti-authoritarian streak that saw him turning down awards and refusing to announce the program of his concerts, he soon earned the title of "terrorist pianist" and did his best to live up to his new nom de plume as often as possible. One of his most daring and provocative stunts was to fake his death.

Sadly, not by acting like he'd had a piano dropped on his head, Looney Tunes-style.

Instead the unorthodox musician chose to announce his death in a press release in 1999 in order to drum up publicity for his forthcoming concert at the Vienna Konzerthaus, which would then serve as a "resurrection party".

Despite his penchant for fusing the classical and jazz styles Gulda was a lifelong Mozart fan who hoped he would die on the composer's birthday - which he actually did, just a year after pretending to die, in January 2000. And we know this was real because the comeback tour is still yet to happen.