There must be a narrative structure that bathes the icon in the pure light of the fairy tale or morality play. Beautiful princess beset by ugly siblings or nasty stepmother. Lovely rich girl mistakes the charisma of power for true character. Prodigy singled out for great things at an early age by psycho father. Yes, absolutely, for iconography is very much a postmortem affair.
Death is just the beginning.
It should be, if possible, violent, messy and a bit mysterious. Accidents are good, having as they do an aura of adventitious innocence, followed closely in order of preference by murder, assassination, execution and suicide. In all cases, the death is 'shocking' and 'tragic,' though in neither instance literally. Now, an outbreak of hysterical mourning, baseless and all the more intense for being so. Extended retrospectives on television.