All of us have a catalog of Hollywood deaths taking up valuable storage space in our brains.

James Dean? Car wreck.

Natalie Wood? Boating accident.

And before you can say, “That was no boating accident,” thoughts turn to the other member of the Rebel Without a Cause trio — Sal Mineo. Stabbed in the heart by an unknown attacker.

But what about Charles Boyer or Peter Lorre? Lou Costello?

The new anthology Cut! Hollywood Murders, Accidents, and other Tragedies (Barrons, $29.99) undertakes the macabre task of chronicling hundreds of Hollywood deaths.

The book does not shy from the cynicism of the industry, where a death — if it can be arranged when the star is young, pretty and on the rise — is a good career move and the ultimate extension of an ancient show-biz adage: always leave them wanting more.

More than anything else, simply through the accumulation of the details of one sad, lonely death after another, this book serves as a warning against the very stardom it celebrates.

Not everyone in the book was famous, but nearly all seemed sad in one way or another.

Consider the entry on Jonathan Brandis (Ladybugs), who committed suicide Nov. 12, 2003: “He didn’t leave a note, and no one knows why the 27-year-old chose to end his life.”

Or this one about Jonathan Hale, Mr. Dithers in all the Blondie movies, who shot himself after a long illness in 1966:

“He is buried in the Pierce Brothers Valhalla Memorial Park, North Hollywood, in an unmarked grave.”

Story after story is like that.

Herve Villechaize and Alan Ladd. George Reeves and Brian Keith. (Tatu and Shane. Superman and Uncle Bill.)

All suicides.

Others died of drug overdoses.

The stars of this book are not Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe but Klonopin and Seconal.

Perhaps the most poignant story belongs to Boyer, star of films such as Gaslight and Love Affair.

Boyer’s wife, Pat, died of cancer on Aug. 24, 1978. Two days later, Boyer, who “could not face the prospect of living without his partner of 44 years,” deliberately overdosed on barbiturates.

The Hartford Courant is a Tribune Co. newspaper.