The biggest hit of the month and clocking in at number 10 of the Drop 40, Prunella Scales has finally been weighed and measured, passing away following a long battle with Alzheimer’s. Best known for starring as Sybil Fawlty opposite John Cleese in 70’s sitcom Fawlty Towers, she also dipped into multiple radio and stage comedy productions over the years. Her final on-screen appearance was with her husband of sixty years in the Channel 4 documentary Great Canal Journeys, with the couple often having frank and enlightening conversations on screen about daily life with the disease. A long-time pick of dead poolers over the last decade, she nets 8 points for 83 teams.
With a career spanning from 1968 to 2024, Diane Keaton was a stage, TV and film actress who first came to the spotlight playing Kay Gordon in The Godfather, a role she reprised in both Parts II and III. Despite winning an Oscar, a BAFTA, two Golden Globes, and getting both Emmy and Tony nominations, she flew under the radar for most and is a unique hit for theme team The Golden State Strikes Back.
Tatsuya Nakadai was one of Japan’s most acclaimed actors of the last sixty years with well over 100 roles to his name, his most well-known international role being Hidetora Ichimonji in 1985’s truly excellent film Ran. The equally prolific Diane Ladd scored no less than three Oscar nominations for Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Wild at Heart and Rambling Rose. Maria Riva was the daughter of golden-era Hollywood actress Marlene Dietrich, and worked for CBS in the 50’s as an actress in her own right.
Other final curtain calls included June Lockhart of Lost in Space fame, Crossroads and General Hospital actor Tony Adams, and finally, Tony Caunter, aka Roy Evans from Eastenders. His love-triangle storyline with Frank and Pat Butcher was cruelly overlooked by all the major awards ceremonies for some reason.
Shifting then to musicians who finished their last tours, we start with the not-so-tragic loss of Ian Watkins. Co-founder and lead singer of alt-rock/metal band Lostprophets, they reached worldwide album sales of 3.5 million and had two UK No.1 Singles to their name. All this came to a crashing halt in 2012 when Watkins was arrested, initially on mere drug smuggling charges. Subsequent police searches of his home uncovered numerous images of child sexual abuse imagery, and he went on to be charged for multiple counts of sexual assault, possession of indecent imagery, and attempted rape on children as young as just twelve months old. His lack of remorse and continued all round dickhead behavior behind bars following his conviction earned him plenty more enemies as the years went by, and while he survived an assault in 2023, his luck ran out this month when he was found dead from a stab wound to the neck. Shame.
Jack DeJohnette was a double Grammy award winning jazz musician who either worked with or influenced pretty much every major musician in the genre you could name from the 60’s onwards, and it was also the end of the show for theatre composer Adrian Sutton.
The world of politics and statesmanship took some big hits as well, none bigger than Dick Cheney. He served as the Congressmen for Wyoming, Chief of Staff, and Secretary of Defense during the Ford and Bush Snr. Presidencies, but the peak of his career was serving as the 46th Vice President of the USA under Bush Jnr. and one of few who had serious power within the administration they served in. A pivotal figure in the USA launching the War on Terror in response to 9/11, initially high public opinion of him soured in response to somewhat dubious claims of Iraqi WMD’s and extremely selective disclosure of related intelligence. His final notable involvement in politics was endorsing Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, which didn’t exactly help to get the votes she was hoping for.
Jim Bolger served as New Zealand’s Prime Minister from 1990-1997, a period for the country that saw further shifts away from British institutions. Dick Taverne was the Labour MP for Lincoln from 1962 to 1972 before the constituency branch kicked him out for voting with the Conservative party to join the European Common Market. You see, back in those days, it was the left who were typically the Eurosceptics!
Former prime minister of Japan and noted eyebrow enthusiast Tomilchi Murayama of Japan also passed away this month, along with Queen Sirkrit of Thailand and North Korea’s “President of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly”, Kim Yong-nam, who I’m sure was a paragon of morality.
Yang Chen-Ning was a Chinese-American physicist who was awarded the 1957 Nobel Physics Prize for his work on nuclear force theory. This must have infuriated James Watson, a geneticist, molecular biologist and all round bigot.
A handful of hits from other walks of life to finish off with. Charles Coste was a French cyclist who won the 1948 Olympic gold medal in team pursuit. Albert Kirby was the lead detective in the investigation into the incomprehensibly cruel murder of two year old James Bulger in 1993. Marjorie Johnson was a celebrated American baker who won over 2500 ribbons at country fairs around the USA in her 106 year lifetime. And finally we have John “ Golden Tonsils” Laws, an Australian radio presenter and popular media personality.
With just 46 days left of the year at time of writing, Reptile maintains a lead of six points and work continues in the transition to the new front page team. Is that the anxious panic of “what the hell have I signed up to” that I can feel in the pit of my stomach? Time will tell!