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...
JUST A MINUTE, MELLYS DEAD Andree Melly, who died in January aged 87, has got a qualifying obit some time after the fact. The younger sister of jazz legend George, and the wife of actor Oscar Quitak, Andree was a familiar figure on British stage. An RSC regular, she appear in Merchant of Venice, as […]
FADE TO GRAY Musician Henry Gray has died after a spell in cancer with hospice. Ahem. In fact he died in February, but it was only recently a bored self isolating obituary writer gave him the Guardian treatment. Gray, who was 95, was a well respected New Orleans piano man who worked with the greats […]
VITALSTATISTIX: DEAD Comic book artist Albert Uderzo has died aged 92. Famous the world over for his work on the Asterix series of comic novels, Uderzo paired up with writer Rene Goscinny in 1951. They had their break in the Tintin magazine, before releasing the first Asterix book in 1961. The pair produced 24 books […]
SUZY DELAIRED Actress Suzy Delair has died aged 102. She appeared in a variety of French films from the 1930s through to the 1970s, but is best known outside France for Atoll K, the Laurel and Hardy film. She was the partner of director Henri-Georges Clouzot for many years, whose films she appeared in. She […]
SOL OVER NOW Sol Kerzner has died aged 84 after a brief period of being gravely ill. A South African businessman, he ran a bunch of hotels and in 1979 developed Sun City. Thanks to legal loopholes, he provided gambling and topless revue to the masses, and inspired many great musical acts to disregard the […]
JESUS HE KNOWS THEM Singer, songwriter, poet, punk, avant-garde industrial electronic performer and offbeat occultist, Genesis P-orridge has died after a long and noted battle with cancer. Founder of cult favourites Throbbing Gristle, P-orridge was a popular figure on the underground music scene of the 1970s and 80s, despite, or perhaps because of music that […]
CHECK MATE Death has finally won its game of Chess with the wonderful Max von Sydow, who has died a few weeks short of his 91st birthday. A Bergman regular who went onto appear in some of the biggest franchises on the planet, von Sydow was one of the most instantly recognisable Swedish actors who […]
INSIDE THE ACTORS FUNERAL James Lipton has died aged 93. The dean of the Actors Studio drama school, he was the host and producer of Inside the Actors Studio, a popular interview show, from 1994 to 2018. He was picked by three teams in this years DDP, including Cant Sleep Clown Will Eat Them (great […]
DYSON SPHERED Acclaimed scientist Freeman Dyson has died aged 96. A man who felt real science needed to be subversive and anti-authority, hence a rather contrarian approach to climate change in later life, he displayed natural brilliance in physics from an early age and worked under the brilliant Richard Feynman. Under Edward Teller he helped […]
KENNYS OUT OF ACES Legendary country musician Kenny Rogers has died aged 81. With over 100 million albums sold in his lifetime, he burst out of the country music niche with world wide hits like The Gambler and a duet with Dolly Parton on BeeGees penned Islands in the Stream. And Coward of the Country, […]
