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...
AUGIE DOGGONE Businessman and longterm ALS bedblocker Augie Nieto has died aged 65. Nieto co-founded exercise equipment company Life Fitness in 1977, and after his 2005 diagnosis dedicated much of his efforts to ALS research. His near-two decades with the disease (plus the obit risk) made him one of the more forgotten names among the […]
FOR THOSE OF YOU WATCHING IN BLACK AND WHITE, MOTTY’S IN THE BROWN BOX The voice of football for the past half-century has gone silent. John Motson was recruited by the BBC as a sports presenter in 1968, but hit the big time four years later when commentating on what would prove one of the […]
BUNKERED AND BALDERDASH Usually, conjoined twins die within hours of one another, but this one took a decade to follow his other half. Former Downing Street press secretary Bernard Ingham was long aligned with Labour causes (he was press secretary to Barbara Castle and Tony Benn early on) before switching sides with the changing political […]
AWAY FROM HIM Canuck acting veteran Gordon Pinsent is due south aged 92. He had been an ever-present face in Canadian (and the occasional US) media for the past fifty years, with roles of note including the lackadaisical lead in The Rowdyman, the ghost dad in comedy-drama Due South, the US president in cult sci-fi […]
IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT Hollywood production great Walter Mirisch has died aged 101. He founded independent production company The Mirisch Company in 1957 alongside his elder brother and half-brother, and from there one can lose count of the classics one bumps into with the Mirisch name attached. Among them are Some Like It […]
IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING, HE’S A DEAD MAN Biographer Philip Ziegler has died aged 93. He published many a tome about British upper crust, mostly royalty such as Elizabeth II and Edward VIII and prime ministers ranging from 19th-century obscurities to Heath and Wilson. Aiming to bring out both the best and worst of his […]
DICKIE DAVIES DIES Longtime World of Sport presenter Dickie Davies has died aged 94. Recognisable by his dapper suits, mustachioed visage, and white-tufted bouffant, he helmed the ITV programme for 20 years and covered everything from the mainstream (Olympics, golf, horseracing) to quirkier material (cliff diving, barrel rolling – basically crumbs ITV had to rely […]
NO RESISTING THE INEVITABLE French Resistance fighter Simone Segouin has died aged 97. Taught how to use a submachine gun in her teens, she donned the nom de guerre Nicole Minet and stole a Nazi bike she used to relay messages. In collaboration with eventual lover Lieutenant Roland Boursier, her responsibilities increased to capturing German […]
GALAXY EXPRESS DESTINATION STARDUST Mangaka Leiji Matsumoto has died aged 85. Inspired by the works of Astro Boy maestro Osamu Tezuka, he married the creator of Japan’s Barbie equivalent before breaking into the industry proper. His first success was in the early 70s with a slice-of-life comic about a student preparing for university exams, but […]
WELCH GOES TITS UP! Iconic Hollywood sex symbol Raquel Welch has died aged 82, affirming a prewritten obituary from The Mary Tyler Moore Show that states she didn’t drown. Born Jo Raquel Tejada, she initially worked as a weather presenter before turning to entertainment. She married Patrick Curtis, a Hollywood producer whose own career began […]
