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...
WEEKEND AT BIRNEY’S Actor David Birney has died aged shortly after his 83rd birthday after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. A regular US TV presence in the 70s, his title role in Bridget Loves Bernie was his most prominent. The show featured the husband-and-wife duo of Birney’s Jewish cab driver and Meredith Baxter’s Catholic teacher, and […]
CHANGE OF HEART (TO STOPPED) Country singer Naomi Judd has died aged 76, a day before the induction ceremony for the Country Music Hall of Fame Class of 2021, which includes her group The Judds and Ray Charles. The Country Music Hall of Fame inducted Ray Stevens before it inducted Ray Charles. The Judds, composed […]
NUMB AND COCA-COLA The writers of “world’s oldest person” obituaries will never again be able to recycle the old “they were this old when the Wright brothers made their first flight” cliche. Kane Tanaka, who has died at a staggering 119, was the last known person alive to be born before that fateful day at […]
MORSE CODE CRACKED Broadway star and Mad Men actor Robert Morse has died aged 90. Noted for his wily, gap-toothed smile, his stage career began in the mid-50s. A Tony-winning go as ambitious window washer J. Pierrepont Finch in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying launched him into stardom, a defining role that […]
EXTERMINATED Actress Ann Davies has died aged 87. The widow of Richard Briers, she occasionally acted alongside him. An early role of note was in Doctor Who as Dalek-fighting rebel Jenny in the second Dalek story, The Dalek Invasion of Earth (Davies’s daughter Lucy reprised the character in an audio story last year). Later appearances […]
DOWN THE HATCH If you ever wanted a perfect encapsulation of US politics, look no further than the career of Orrin Hatch. The Utah Senator first won his seat in 1976, as a fresh face campaigning against three-term incumbent Frank Moss. Crucial to the victory was Hatch’s message on term limits: “What do you call […]
CHAPPELL OF LOSS Playwright and sitcom writer Eric Chappell has died aged 88. The first play he wrote, The Banana Box, ended up as a prototype for his most enduring success, hit ITV sitcom Rising Damp. One of the channel’s most popular sitcoms to this day, Chappell’s scripts were credited with giving depth to the […]
THE FLOWER WILTS Hot (or is that cold?) off the heels of Mike Bossy, the rough spell for ice hockey fans continues in the form of Guy Lafleur. Nicknamed “The Flower” by the English-speaking world after the literal translation of his French surname, he flourished in the 70s as a right wing for the Monreal […]
MWAI WON’T BE KIBAKI Kenya’s 2002 presidential election was the third time the country held elections, and the first time it wasn’t rigged for a term-limited Daniel arap Moi. The winner, Mwai Kibaki, was a routine presence in Moi’s government (most prominently as Vice President) who ran against his reviled former boss’s party on an […]
BOWLED OUT Bangladeshi cricketer Mosharraf Hossain has died of a brain tumour, aged 40. A spin bowler, he mostly played at the first-class level, and made two One Day International appearances. His tumour derailed all that in 2019, with a recent decline in health noticed by eagle-eyed deadpoolers who were largely skeptical of his obit […]
