David Koch

David Koch was one of four sons borne to Fred Koch, an engineer who made his fortune in oil refining. Koch Sr helped build refineries in Nazi Germany (which he really liked) and Stalinist Russia (which he really didn’t like). David Koch, along with his brother Charles, followed eagerly in his footsteps: in business (at […]

Fred Rister

Fred Rister spent most of the 80s and 90s as a minor dance musician, working in the French “new beat” genre and occasionally scoring a hit towards the lower end of that country’s top 40. However, after meeting the boyishly haired, pensioner-faced David Guetta he started a second career as the DJ partner and co-producer […]

Freda Dowie

The other late pass for an obituary belongs to character actress Freda Dowie. A theatre actress from a working class background, she found a niche in her 60s and 70s playing downtrodden matriarchs of northern families. Her most famous role was probably as Mother in Terence Davies’ semi-autobiographical Distant Voices, Still Alives alongside Pete Postlethwaite, but […]

Mortimer Caplin

A couple of late passes have been handed in at DDP Towers, giving qualifying obits to those who died a little while back. First up, making it to The Times obituary page over a month after he carked it, is Mortimer Caplin. A promising amateur boxer in his youth, Caplin instead took his talents to the […]

Kathleen Blanco

Remember Hurricane Katrina? George Bush Don’t Care About Black People, lots of blues musicians losing their homes, FEMA camps, Dubbya playing guitar and a whole heap of conscious southern rap tracks that still contained hooks about cocaine dealing. One of the key figures in the whole affair was Kathleen Blanco, the governor of Louisiana at the […]

Princess Christina of the Netherlands

The traditional DDP mid-summer quiet period is interrupted by the death of someone who was very much the Dave Rowntree of Dutch royalty.  One of four children born to Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, who ruled the nation from 1948 to 1980, she suffered from blindness from a young age and as a result received […]

Nuon Chea

Pol Pot’s “Brother No 2”, and the architect of Cambodia’s communist movement for nearly 50 years, Nuon Chea has died. Of muddle heritage (some researchers claim both his parents were Chinese, an idea he himself denied), Chea turned to politics while studying at university in Thailand. Whereas the majority of Khmer Rouge leaders had been […]

Brian Lochore

Brian Lochore was the captain of what is widely regarded as the greatest All Blacks side ever, and one of the finest every rugby union XVs. Alongside players like Waka Nathan, Kel Tremain and fellow DDP alum Colin Meads, Lochore guided his charges to 17 consecutive test victories between 1965 and 1969. After retiring, Lochore […]

Miriam Rivera

A name that actually died in February finally climbs down off the List of the Lost, with the wider media finally reporting on their passing. 2004 was a very, very different world to the one we live in today. Frankee and Eamon’s fake lovers’ tiff spawned two #1 singles, Match of the Day 2 started and […]

Joe Longthorne

Sometimes in deadpooling, playing the long game pays off…  Joe Longthorne was first diagnosed with a terminal illness in 1989, around the time of his first Royal Variety Performance gig. He repeatedly popped up on deadpoolers’ radars again over the years: leukemia in 2005 and throat cancer in 2016, but it was 2019 that finally […]