Death happens. Why not make it interesting?
The online competition to guess which famous people won't make it to the end of the current year. If they're elderly, ill, or just live a high-risk lifestyle, stick 'em in your team, and for each one whose death you correctly predict, you'll score points. DDP was dreamt up in Derby, England (hence the name...) by Big Iain back in 1996. Other hosts: Siegfried Baboon and Rude Kid (2003-7), Octopus of Odstock (2008-9), The Man in Black (2010-17), Spade Cooley (2018-19), msc (2020-21), Grim Up North (2020-22), and Reptile (2020-23). Now the Committee of DI (2022), time (2024), and Banana (2023) oversee the biggest deadpool going...
KAAAAAAAAAY-O! He said “dead.” He said “dead.” He said “dead.” So described the scene when the coroner checked into the Belafonte residence. Yep, the Banana Boat has set sail for the great Harry Belafonte at a ripe old 96. Belafonte first set his sights on the theatre, befriending a young Sidney Potter Poitier as the […]
JERRY SPRINGER’S FINAL THOUGHT The godfather of trash TV turns to compost… Nowadays in America, hosts of mindless TV programmes turn their hand to politics, but Jerry Springer went in the opposite direction. Springer was born in England to Jewish parents who fled Nazi-occupied Poland, and the family relocated to New York City when he […]
NOT PLAYING POSSUM The drag dominos keep falling, with the death of Barry Humphries aged 89 in short order after Paul O’Grady. Someone best be checking up on Stanley Baxter (not to mention Bugs Bunny). Aussie-born Humphries grew up with a pointed interest in Dadaism, which developed into a knack for absurd sketches and songs. […]
HEAVEEEEEEN! Longtime Strictly judge Len Goodman has sashayed out of the ballroom, aged 78. Goodman took up dancing in his teens to help recuperate from a foot injury, and was a successful pro dancer in the 70s, retiring on a high note after winning the British Championships. He opened up a dance school, but widespread […]
APRIL DOURS 1963 was the last year of the US pop charts before Beatlemania stormed in, and it was a peculiar year for the charttoppers with a revolving door of acts who ultimately didn’t have the biggest pop culture footprint – take Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs, Paul & Paula, or Dale & Grace. Among […]
OLD RACIST DIES The lynching of Emmett Till feels so distant, yet still all too recent. Till would be 81 years old if he were alive today. And the woman who catalysed his death ambled on until days ago. Chicago native Till had been visiting relatives in Mississippi when Carolyn Bryant Donham, a white grocery […]
PENNIES ON HIS TWO EYES 50s rock-n-roller Wee Willie Harris has died aged 90. The pint-sized showman was a regular at the 2i’s Coffee Bar, the early rock hotspot that housed figures like Adam Faith and Tommy Steele, performing songs like “Rockin’ At The 2 I’s” and covers of pre-Beatle US figures like Bobby Rydell […]
POTTED Pearl Harbor survivor Ken Potts has died aged 102. He was among the sailors aboard the USS Arizona amidst Japan’s offence. The 1,177 deaths on the Arizona accounted for about half of Pearl Harbor’s casualties and, eighty years later, Potts still vividly recounted his harrowing experiences on the date that lives in infamy: the […]
BRASSED OFF Actor Peter Martin has died aged 82. He first made his name in a series of Jewson building ads from the 80s, where he portrayed a befuddled customer opposite a wood salesman. His best known roles are of neighbour Joe Carroll in The Royle Family and Len Reynolds in Emmerdale. He was a […]
MELVIN ON A BLUE NOTE Acting veteran Murray Melvin has died aged 90. His role as gay student Geoffrey Ingham in kitchen sink drama A Taste of Honey won him a Cannes. He kept active for the next sixty years, and other roles of note include Reverend Samuel Runt in Barry Lyndon, Michael Caine’s work […]
