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...
DEKLEIN Photographer William Klein has died aged 96. Born in New York, he resettled in France after World War II. He was initially a painter under the tutelage of cubist Fernand Léger before a camera won at a poker game inspired a career shift. His gripping, wide-angle photos were noted for being among the first […]
REYNOLDS WRAPPED The actress Joyce Reynolds, also a DDP pick, died recently with so little fanfare that her passing was only uncovered via an online people database. No such misfortune for the classicist Joyce Reynolds, with the Telegraph rolling out an obit the day after her death, aged 103. Noted for her expertise in inscriptions, […]
JACK GING OFF Character actor Jack Ging has died aged 90. The former University of Oklahoma college football player was inspired by Tyrone Power to take up acting, and his film career included supporting roles in various Clint Eastwood Westerns and the lead in Korean War drama Sniper’s Ridge. On TV he appeared in The […]
LIQUID EQUITY Actor and director Harry Landis has died aged 90. A prolific TV face over six decades, he was noted in his later years for his role as Holocaust survivor barber Felix Kawalski in mid-90s EastEnders episodes and as boorish suitor Mr. Morris in three episodes of Friday Night Dinner. He was also a […]
THERE SHE GOES, HER ROYAL MAJESTY… The death of the year and decade, and I reference a forgotten early 60s song. WTF is wrong with my brain??? Queen Elizabeth II, a woman who needs no introduction, has died aged 96. With her death comes one of the biggest historical moments of our lifetimes, and an […]
MARSHA’S IN THE DUST Golden Age of Hollywood actress Marsha Hunt has met the ultimate blacklist aged 104. Highlighted as “Hollywood’s youngest character actress” in her day, she played a number of innocuous roles for Paramount in the 30s and was a leading lady to John Wayne. She auditioned for the part of Melanie in […]
ECLIPSED Former New Orleans mayor Moon Landrieu, who was not a nominatively deterministic astronaut, has gone way down yonder aged 92. The pugnacious Landrieu was a rare white voice for civil rights in early 60s Louisiana, where he was the lone opposition against segregationist bills in the State House. The state’s powers that be penned […]
GLAS-NAUGHT AND PERESTRICKEN A year that’s somewhat struggled to generate true starpower among its hits has picked up the pace in recent weeks, and has rounded off the summer with one of the most pivotal figures of the 20th century. Yup, there’ll be no tearing down the crypt wall for splotch-forehead Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, […]
TO EVERYTHING, TURN, TURN, TURN… Journalist and BBC Breakfast presenter Bill Turnbull has become breakfast for the worms aged 66 after a lengthy tussle with prostate cancer. This is despite the assertions of an unnamed DDP participant that Turnbull was a fraud. Said deadpooler is backed by a whopping zero hits to their name as […]
PAGE DISPATCHED Renowned Vietnam War photographer Tim Page has died aged 78, more than 50 years past the expiration date his own coworkers predicted. Born in England, his thirst for adventure rivaled Teddy Roosevelt and he left his household aged 17. His skill behind the camera was soon noticed, and in the mid-60s he snapped […]
