Death happens. Why not make it interesting?
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, first tenure), The Man in Black (2010-17), Spade Cooley (2018-19), msc (2020-21), Grim Up North (2020-22), Reptile (2020-23), and Death Impends (2022-2025). Now the Committee of Banana (2023), time (2024), the returning Octopus of Odstock (2026) and the deadpooling equivalent of a gap year temp Marlfox (2026) oversee the biggest deadpool going...
SOMEDAY MY DEATH WILL COME Dancer and actress Marge Champion has died aged 101. Champion is best known for her role as the model for Snow White in the famous 1937 Disney classic. Yes, 2020 is even bumping off animated legends now. She also worked with Disney on Pinocchio, Fantastia and Dumbo. She later became […]
VIOLA’S CRESCENDO American drummer Viola Smith has died aged 107. A pioneer who played on The Ed Sullivan Show Smith’s career started in the 1920s as part of her family group The Schmitz Sisters Family Orchestra. After the war, she played with the NBC Symphony Orchestra, and played on the broadway performance of Cabaret. She […]
REAPER BOUGHS FRANK Former British TV broadcaster Frank Bough has died aged 87. For fifteen years he was the reassuring jumper wearing face at the helm of Grandstand, the BBC’s premier sports show. He also hosted BBC Breakfast Time from 1983 to 1987 (a role later played by DDP current favourite Bill Turnbull). He guest […]
RANDI IN THE UNDERWORLD Former magician The Amazing Randi has died aged 92. James Randi had practiced magic for decades, before founding the James Randi Educational Foundation. Formed as a source of debunking pseudoscience and paranormal claims, the Foundation put forward the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge, by which in theory any person who could […]
EPILOGUE Children’s novelist Jill Paton Walsh has died aged 83, a month after marrying her third husband. Walsh wrote novels such as The Dolphin Crossing and Hengest’s Tale for children. Her novel The Emperors Winding Sheet won the Whitbread Prize in 1974. Writing for an adult audience, she was best known for her fantasy novel […]
DEATH IN TECHNICOLOUR Actress Rhonda Fleming has died aged 97. Fleming got her big break in the Alfred Hitchcock classic Spellbound, where she plays Mary, one of the patints at Green Manors mental hospital. A swift role as a doomed friend in early slasher The Spiral Suitcase followed, as Rhonda was cast in controversial (for […]
LAST DREAM Lyricist Herbert Kretzmer has died shortly after his 95th birthday. Kretzmer was most famous for providing the lyrics for smash hit musical Les Miserables, based on the Victor Hugo novel. Yes, you can direct the line of blame for Susan Boyle’s career directly to the Tony award winning writer. Les Mis earned Kretzmer […]
AWW DEAR Costume designer Bhanu Athaiya has died aged 91.While she mostly worked in Indian cinema, she won the Oscar for costume design for her work on Gandhi. In 2012, she handed her Oscar back to the Academy for safe keeping as she was gravely ill with brain cancer. She held on for eight years, […]
BOWLED OUT New Zealand cricketer John Richard Reid has died aged 92. He led New Zealand to their first international cricket victories in the 1950s (over the West Indies), and even once played cricket at the South Pole, presumably against the Penguin eleven. His test career lasted sixteen years. John Richard Reid3 June 1928 – […]
HAD HER CHIPS The mother of John McCain and widow of the other John McCain has died aged 108. Roberta McCain later campaigned with her son during his ill fated Presidential campaign in 2008, and went on to outlive two of her children. Roberta McCain7 February 1912 – 12 October 202016 teams
