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), The Man in Black (2010-17), Spade Cooley (2018-19), msc (2020-21), Grim Up North (2020-22), and Reptile (2020-23). Now the Committee of DI (2022), time (2024), and Banana (2023) oversee the biggest deadpool going...
DOW CRASHES That gift horse for deadpooling writers – a golfer who dies of a stroke. Dow Finsterwald won 12 PGA Tours, most notably the 1958 PGA Championship, where he eked past Billy Casper. Said tourney was notable for being the first PGA Championship to use stroke play instead of match play, because the former […]
COME HOME TO ROOSE Theatre director James Roose-Evans has died aged 94. The founder of Hampstead Theatre, he was noted for an emphasis on spiritualism and meditation in his projects. His West End production of 84, Charing Cross Road met with rave reviews. He was picked by Special:RandomInCategory/Living_people. James Roose-Evans11 November 1927 – 26 October […]
GOODNESS GRACIOUS, JERRY’S EXPIRED! After deadpoolers’ eyes were peeled following a TMZ death hoax, the great balls of fire have finally extinguished (or just begun, depending on how you look at it) for grand old hellraiser of rock-and-roll Jerry Lee Lewis, who somehow made it to 87. With a lifestyle that shook nerves and rattled […]
WON’T YOU GUIDE MY SLAY TONIGHT? Christmas keeps hitting earlier and earlier each year, so might as well get into the Yuletide spirit in October. Jules Bass joined forces with Arthur Rankin Jr. in 1960 to form production company Videocraft International. The fledgling company soon renamed itself Rankin/Bass, and the duo established themselves as a […]
SOULAGES BLACKS OUT I painted my nails black a few days before this guy died. Spoooooky. Black was the premier motif of abstract painter Pierre Soulages, who created hundreds of monochromal pieces which explored his Outrenoir, or how light plays with the textures of the black paint. An interest in the prehistoric sparked his lifelong […]
VIRAGONE Pioneering feminist publisher Carmen Callil has died aged 84. Born in Australia and raised in a stuffy convent, working on feminist magazine Spare Rib inspired her to form one of the earliest female publishing companies. She named her business Virago, after the Latin for a female warrior, and it was notable for publishing both […]
MCDIVITT PAYS DIVIDENDS Apollo astronaut James McDivitt has died aged 93. Unlike most of his contemporaries, flight was not a childhood dream of his, but he enjoyed being a fighter pilot during the Korean War and became part of NASA’s second wave of key astronauts alongside Neil Armstrong and Jim Lovell. He commanded Gemini 4, […]
CLERICAL ERROR As the Iranian people take to the streets against their oppressive regime, one of the elder dissidents slips away. Cleric and theologian Ali Tehrani was the brother-in-law of Ayatollah Khamenei, and a frequent thorn in his side as a staunch critic of the hardliner government. Tehrani was jailed for a decade as a […]
BROWN BREAD NBA referee Tony Brown has blown his last whistle aged 55. One of the sport’s most prolific referees, he officiated over 1,100 games in the past twenty years. What he thought was a bad reaction to sushi turned out to be big bad pancreatic cancer, and several competitive teams gambled that he was […]
CURSE OF TRIPPI CAN DO NFL Hall of Famer Charley Trippi has died aged 100. A star college player for the Georgia Bulldogs, he turned pro with the Chicago Cardinals, where he formed part of the “Million Dollar Backfield” critical to the team’s 1947 NFL Championship. Backfield in motion, I’m gonna have to penalize you, […]
