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...
Abdelaziz Bouteflika Here’s one I’ve been fearing. Not because of any love for the former Algerian President, though, it’s another in a long line of difficult to spell DDP hits. Mr Bouteflika became Algerian President in 1999 in a landslide victory, although most of the other parties pulled out of the election believing the army […]
S.I.D. : SPECTRUM IS DEAD Eccentric inventor and genius Clive Sinclair has sadly died aged 81. Sinclair founded Sinclair Radionics (he had wanted to call the company Electronics but someone else had got there first) in 1958 while still at school, and produced transistors. He experimented with tiny radios (the Micro), before promoting pocket calculators […]
ONE BRIDE, ONE WAKE Hollywood Golden Age actress Jane Powell has died aged 92. Signing with MGM in her early teens, she appeared in Song of the Open Road as Jane Powell, a name she then took on as her professional name. A soprano singer, she sang for Harry S Truman at his inauguration ball […]
NO PULSE, ARR Astronomer Antony Hewish has died aged 97. He had been in the RAF during World War Two, before moving into radar and meeting Martin Ryle, with whom he was to have a lifelong friendship and scientific partnership. Hewish won the Nobel Prize for Physics (alongside Martin Ryle) for his discover of pulsars, […]
UFC make up artist Suzy Friton has died after a long battle with Stage IV cancer, which she had been trying to treat with alternative medicines. During a 15 year run with the UFC, she worked with hundreds of MMA fighters as a wardrobe and hair stylist. I had no idea until now that MMA […]
NO MORE ZECONDS FOR DONALD Former journalist and biographer Donald Zec had died at the age of 102. For forty years from 1938 on, he worked for the Daily Mirror, originally as the crime reporter and then later on as a film correspondent. In these roles he interviewed serial killers and John Lennon, with no […]
FUNERALS OF CHERBOURG Italian actor Nino Castelnuovo has died aged 84. He appeared in several films such as The Five Man Army and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and was D’Agostino in the interminably long 1996 hit The English Patient. He worked with 2020 DDP hit Ennio Morricone, as well as future DDP alumni Dario Argento, […]
THE HUNTER GOT HIM French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo has died aged 88, two decades after suffering a life changing stroke. Belmondo was also the envy of many across the world with his 7 year relationship with Bond Girl Ursula Andress. Considered the French Brando, he had a fondness for women and for playing police officers. […]
GLITZ ON THE FRITZ Popular actor Tony Selby has died of covid complications aged 83. A stage actor from his teenage years on (including in the first performance of Edward Bond’s Saved), Selby appeared in early roles in films like Witchfinder General (alongside the late Hilary Dwyer, who also died of covid) and the Spike […]
WHOLE LOTTA HISTORY One-fifth of pop music behemoths Girls Aloud, Sarah Harding has died aged only 39 after a publicised battle with Stage IV cancer. Harding worked as a BT phone operator and a Pizza Hut waitress before successfully auditioning for Popstars: The Rivals, a Pete Waterman bid to find a new manufactured pop success […]
