These days in the DDP you can expect the annual “misses” – that is, ‘celebrities’ who died in a given year while unpicked, but were picked in previous years – to number at least 70 and usually much more. It is a tradition nearly as old as the DDP itself, with Princess Diana selected the first year and omitted the next. DDP misses did not have a standalone page until 2008, but there were more beforehand than you might think.
The verifiable pre-2008 misses can be seen below. Imagine the likes of Julia Child being a miss nowadays!
| Name | Date of Death | Year Last Picked |
| Princess Diana | 31 August 1997 | 1996 |
| Jerry Quarry |
3 January 1999 | 1998 |
| Dennis Viollet |
6 March 1999 | 1998 |
| Yehudi Menuhin |
12 March 1999 | 1998 |
| Dirk Bogarde |
8 May 1999 | 1998 |
| Anne Haddy |
6 June 1999 | 1998 |
| Immanuel Jakobovits |
31 October 1999 | 1998 |
| Quentin Crisp |
21 November 1999 | 1998 |
| Victor Borge |
23 December 2000 | 1998 |
| Morton Downey Jr. |
12 March 2001 | 2000 |
| Ruth Owens |
27 June 2001 | 2000 |
| Joan Sims |
27 June 2001 | 1998 |
| Eudora Welty |
23 July 2001 | 1998 |
| Larry Adler |
6 August 2001 | 2000 |
| Christiaan Barnard |
2 September 2001 | 2000 |
| Bertie Mee |
22 October 2001 | 2000 |
| Thomas William Gould |
6 December 2001 | 2000 |
| Peggy Lee | 21 January 2002 | 2001 |
| Hans-Georg Gadamer |
13 March 2002 | 2001 |
| Layne Staley |
5 April 2002 | 1998 |
| Robert Urich |
16 April 2002 | 2001 |
| Miles Fitzalan-Howard, 17th Duke of Norfolk | 24 June 2002 | 2000 |
| W. Clement Stone | 3 September 2002 | 2001 |
| Desmond Fitzpatrick | 12 October 2002 | 2001 |
| Ian Russell, 13th Duke of Bedford | 25 October 2002 | 2000 |
| Lonnie Donegan | 3 November 2002 | 2000 |
| Roy Jenkins |
5 January 2003 | 2002 |
| Al Hirschfeld |
20 January 2003 | 2001 |
| Hugh Trevor-Roper |
26 January 2003 | 2002 |
| Johnny Paycheck |
19 February 2003 | 2000 |
| George Edwards |
2 March 2003 | 2000 |
| Hume Cronyn |
15 June 2003 | 2002 |
| Larry Doby |
18 June 2003 | 2001 |
| Lester Maddox |
25 June 2003 | 2002 |
| Sheb Wooley |
16 September 2003 | 2001 |
| Elia Kazan |
28 September 2003 | 2001 |
| Penny Singleton |
12 November 2003 | 2001 |
| Harold Shipman |
13 January 2004 | 2001 |
| Bob Keeshan |
23 January 2004 | 2003 |
| Helmut Newton |
23 January 2004 | 2002 |
| Franz König |
13 March 2004 | 2002 |
| Ahmed Yassin |
22 March 2004 | 1998 |
| Tony Randall |
17 May 2004 | 2002 |
| Arnold Beckman |
18 May 2004 | 2001 |
| Michael Marsham, 7th Earl of Romney |
5 June 2004 | 2003 |
| Anthony Buckeridge |
28 June 2004 | 2002 |
| Sacha Distel |
22 July 2004 | 1998 |
| Margaret Simey |
27 July 2004 | 2002 |
| Julia Child | 13 August 2004 | 2002 |
| Elisabeth Kübler-Ross |
24 August 2004 | 2002 |
| John Peel |
25 October 2004 | 2002 |
| Fred Dibnah |
6 November 2004 | 2000 |
| Arthur Hailey |
24 November 2004 | 1998 |
| Richard Annand |
24 December 2004 | 2000 |
| Maurice Trintignant |
13 February 2005 | 2004 |
| Hunter S. Thompson |
20 February 2005 | 1998 |
| Hugh Montefiore |
13 May 2005 | 2003 |
| Shelby Foote |
27 June 2005 | 2002 |
| Mo Mowlam |
19 August 2005 | 2000 |
| Don Adams |
25 September 2005 | 2004 |
| Paul Pena |
1 October 2005 | 2002 |
| Eugene McCarthy |
10 December 2005 | 2003 |
| Betty Friedan |
4 February 2006 | 1998 |
| Curt Gowdy |
20 February 2006 | 2005 |
| Dennis Weaver |
24 February 2006 | 2005 |
| Lynne Perrie |
24 March 2006 | 2004 |
| Gerard Reve |
8 April 2006 | 2005 |
| Barnard Hughes |
11 July 2006 | 2000 |
| Abbé Pierre |
22 January 2007 | 2006 |
| E. Howard Hunt |
23 January 2007 | 2006 |
| George Jellicoe, 2nd Earl Jellicoe |
22 February 2007 | 2002 |
| Don Ho |
14 April 2007 | 2006 |
| Ghazi Hammud al-Obeidi |
c. 22 April 2007 | 2006 |
| Bill France Jr. |
4 June 2007 | 2005 |
| Fred Saberhagen |
29 June 2007 | 2006 |
| Steve Fossett | 3 September 2007 | 2006 |
| Ronald Magill |
6 September 2007 | 1998 |
| Anita Roddick |
10 September 2007 | 2003 |
| Ned Sherrin |
1 October 2007 | 1998 |
| Oscar Peterson |
23 December 2007 | 2004 |