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...

Marsha Hunt

MARSHA’S IN THE DUST Golden Age of Hollywood actress Marsha Hunt has met the ultimate blacklist aged 104. Highlighted as “Hollywood’s youngest character actress” in her day, she played a number of innocuous roles for Paramount in the 30s and was a leading lady to John Wayne. She auditioned for the part of Melanie in […]

Moon Landrieu

ECLIPSED Former New Orleans mayor Moon Landrieu, who was not a nominatively deterministic astronaut, has gone way down yonder aged 92. The pugnacious Landrieu was a rare white voice for civil rights in early 60s Louisiana, where he was the lone opposition against segregationist bills in the State House. The state’s powers that be penned […]

Mikhail Gorbachev

GLAS-NAUGHT AND PERESTRICKEN A year that’s somewhat struggled to generate true starpower among its hits has picked up the pace in recent weeks, and has rounded off the summer with one of the most pivotal figures of the 20th century. Yup, there’ll be no tearing down the crypt wall for splotch-forehead Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, […]

Bill Turnbull

TO EVERYTHING, TURN, TURN, TURN… Journalist and BBC Breakfast presenter Bill Turnbull has become breakfast for the worms aged 66 after a lengthy tussle with prostate cancer. This is despite the assertions of an unnamed DDP participant that Turnbull was a fraud. Said deadpooler is backed by a whopping zero hits to their name as […]

Tim Page

PAGE DISPATCHED Renowned Vietnam War photographer Tim Page has died aged 78, more than 50 years past the expiration date his own coworkers predicted. Born in England, his thirst for adventure rivaled Teddy Roosevelt and he left his household aged 17. His skill behind the camera was soon noticed, and in the mid-60s he snapped […]

Tom Weiskopf

THE COWERING INFERNO Golf champ Tom Weiskopf has died aged 79. Inspired to take up the sport after watching Sam Snead play, Ohio State University considered their promising upstart the next Nicklaus. This premonition was hampered by his playing career largely overlapping with that of the Golden Bear. Weiskopf nevertheless proved to be a strong […]

Jerry Allison

ALLISON FADES AWAY As “would Buddy Holly still be alive today had he taken the damn bus?” remains one of the great what-ifs of music deaths, one of his few remaining collaborators dies some 63 years later. Jerry Allison was the last surviving founding member of the Crickets, typically playing drums on their iconic records […]

Josephine Tewson

LIZ WARDED OFF Britcom regular Josephine Tewson has spilled her last coffee aged 91. A regular in sketches featuring the Two Ronnies during the late 60s, she was a routine sidekick to Ronnie Barker in the decades since and co-starred with him in his final sitcom, Clarence. Other recurring sitcom roles were in Shelley and […]

Helen Grayco

DIE FRAULEIN’S FATE Big band-era singer and actress Helen Grayco has died aged 97. Active as a singer from the age of four, a radio performance aged eight caught the eye (well, ear) of Bing Crosby and Der Bingle secured her Hollywood work that included a bit part in Marx Brothers classic A Night at […]

John Wockenfuss

STABBERWOCKEN In what is sure to be the runaway leader for our annual “DDP hit whose name sounds most like a Pokémon” award, Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia Phillies baseball player John Wockenfuss has died aged 73. He joins Tom Weiskopf as a US athlete in this update with a career marked by tempestuous behaviour, including […]