Manuel Lujan Jr.

Born into one of New Mexico’s most prominent Hispanic families, Manuel Lujan Jr. was named after his father – the former mayor of Santa Fe and a failed Republican candidate for state governor. Sonny went a step further though: he served in the House of Representatives for 20 years, and then served as the Secretary […]

Grand Duke Jean I of Luxembourg

If you get the actual Pope (Benedict XV) as a godfather, it’s highly likely you’re destined for major things. Jean, along with the rest of the Grand Ducal Family of Luxembourg, fled the country exactly one night before German invasion in 1940. He saw active service in World War II as a member of the […]

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian was arguably the most notable female artist from the Arabic world over the past 100 years. Born in Qazvin, she moved to the US in 1944 where she studied at the Art Students League and became close friends with a young Andy Warhol. She moved back to Iran three times over the […]

Edward Kelsey

For 34 years, Edward Kelsey starred as Joe Grundy on The Archers. Taking over the role following the death of his real-life friend Haydn Jones, Kelsey’s Somerset burr cemented Grundy’s role as the roguish counterpoint to some of the more sombre matters in Ambridge. For those of us who only listen to the radio when […]

George Haigh

As football teams around the country nervously look at the table and try and work out if they’re safe for next season, here’s one ex-player who didn’t guarantee survival. To give you an idea of how old he was, George Haigh was in the same Manchester City youth team as Frank Swift. Haigh didn’t make […]

Le Duc Anh

One of the great bed-blockers of global politics, Le Duc Anh, has finally died. He suffered a cerebral hemorrhage at the sprightly age of 98 last year and spent most of the previous 12 months in and out of hospital, meaning there was no shortage of teams hoping to break their Duc on Anh. He […]

Billy McNeill

The Celtic team of the early 1960s was arguably the worst in its history, with a creaking organisational hierarchy and a spell in which they failed to claim any major silverware. However, in 1965, their former reserve team coach Jock Stein returned to the club as manager. One of his first moves as boss was […]

Ken Kercheval

If there’s a day for the dead to return to life, it’s Easter Sunday. If there’s a TV show where a dead character should return to life, it’s Dallas. And it looked like Ken Kercheval had the double for a while there, before ruining it all by actually being dead. The Dallas star, who played […]

Lorraine Warren

To some Lorraine Warren (and her husband Ed, who predeceased her in 2006) were America’s first great paranormal investigators, fearlessly exposing a demonic infiltration of their New England backyard without asking for a dime in return. To others, they were fundamentalist scam artists deliberately targeting Catholic families and making a fortune from associated endeavours. The […]

Keith Cass

A true borderline case… you could argue that Keith Cass was only “famous for being ill”, but I feel he did enough in his life to earn a frontpage post rather than relegation to the obituary vault. Cardiff-born Cass was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2006 and promptly founded the Red Sock awareness campaign encouraging […]