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...
COLLAPSE-EUM Jazz saxophonist Barbara Thompson has died aged 77. Initially pursuing a classical path, her admiration of John Coltrane and Duke Ellington rerouted her to jazz. From there she founded several jazz/rock ensembles in the 70s, and often worked in collaboration with her husband, Colosseum drummer Jon Hiseman. She made guest appearances on albums by […]
OUT OF HIS MISERY Actor James Caan was approached by the Reaper, bada bing, died aged 82. He initially aspired to be an NFL player, before college courses enthralled him with the acting world and saved me from a routine “not another sodding NFL obit” conniption. Early film roles were mostly in Westerns or NFL-related, […]
STORCHED EARTH The fort has collapsed on US comic actor Larry Storch, who has hunkered down at a grand 99. Growing up during the Great Depression, he scraped by as a comic with a knack for impressions. Several encounters during his WWII naval service were key to Storch’s career success – a chance meeting with […]
MISSING, PRESUMED Crime novelist Susie Steiner, whose books I’ve seen in my grocery store’s bargain books section, has died of big bad glio aged 51. Initially a journalist who worked for most major UK papers, she turned to novel writing in the early 2010s. Her detective thriller trilogy featuring DI Manon Bradshaw (nowt to do […]
(SIX FEET) DOWN IN MEXICO On one day in early 1922, Betty White and former Mexican President Luis Echeverría both came into this world. Only the latter achieved the centenary, probably aided by the fact that Echeverría’s PR team wasn’t jinxing their client’s upcoming birthday with premature celebrations, instead insisting for years he was too […]
IN LIKE GWYNNE Sports commentator John Gwynne has gone to a new box aged 77. Though he commentated on a whole gamut of sports from rugby to cricket, he was most prominent as a darts commentator for Sky Sports, where he covered 20 world championships and 20 world matchplays. Many fans saw him as part […]
CERO SANTOS Longtime Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos has died aged 79. His length of tenure, from 1979 to 2017, pretty much gives away the type of African leader he was. Angola’s second president four years into the former Portuguese colony’s independence, he took power in the thick of a civil war and had […]
THE MAN FROM DEL MONTE SAYS LESS! The world of canned fruit connoisseurship has plunged into crisis with its most esteemed critic no longer around to give his stamp of approval. Brian Jackson was the actor who thumbs-upped Del Monte products as the debonair, white-clad Man from Del Monte in numerous 80s commercials, which created […]
BLOSSOMED OUT Actress Mona Hammond has died aged 91. Born in Jamaica, she immigrated to the UK in pursuit of a theatre career. She paved the way for subsequent black actors in British theatre through both her esteemed career and her co-founding of the Talawa Theatre Company. Her best-known role however was on the telly […]
THE LEADER OF THE PACK, NOW HE’S GONE… Hellraising outlaw biker rebel Sonny Barger has died aged 83. A troublemaker in his youth, he learned to swear from a parrot at a bar, dropped out of school after frequently skirmishing with classmates and teachers, and was honourably discharged from the Army for faking his birth […]
