Eddie Van Helen lost his battle with cancer

The death of guitarist Eddie Van Helen, founder of the hard rock band Van Halen, died this Tuesday at 65 after a long struggle with illness, according to his son, Wolf.

“My father, Edward Ludwig Van Helen, lost his long and hard fight with cancer this morning,” Wolff van Helen tweeted.
Eddie and his older brother Alex along with singer David Lee Roth founded the popular hard rock band Van Halen in the 1980s in Pasadena, near Los Angeles.
Eddie Van Helen was born in the Netherlands but moved to Pasadena. He was distinguished by his talent for playing the guitar and with a brilliant solo performance on this instrument of the famous song by Michael Jackson Beat It in 1983.
Eddie’s song “Jump” became the star of the group, but the rest of the group rejected it at first.
The song appeared on the band’s best-selling album 1984, and topped the US charts for five weeks in a row.
In 2012, the group had to cancel concerts in Japan due to an emergency operation by Eddie Van Helen. Three years later, the band returned to the United States and Canada.
The deceased faced drug and alcohol addiction and suffered from cancer in the digestive system. His addiction led to his divorce from actress Valerie Bertinelli in 2007 after a 16-year marriage.