Dead Pool 17th December 2023

With just two weeks to go I hope you’re all working on your lists for 2024! Tell all your morbid friends to have a go!  

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Shirley Anne Field, 87, English actress (The Entertainer, The Damned, Alfie). 
• Andre Braugher, 61, American actor (Homicide: Life on the Street, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Glory), lung cancer. 
• Jeffrey Foskett, 67, American singer, songwriter, and producer (The Beach Boys), thyroid cancer. 
• Ian Gibson, 77, British comic book artist (2000 AD, Judge Dredd, The Ballad of Halo Jones), cancer.  
• Richard Kerr, 78, English singer, songwriter (“Mandy“, “I’ll Never Love This Way Again“, “Looks Like We Made It“) and composer. 
• Camden Toy, 68, American actor (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) pancreatic cancer. 
• Fusa Tatsumi, 116, Japanese supercentenarian. 
• Steve Halliwell, 77, English actor (Emmerdale, Coronation Street) and singer (The Woolpackers). 
• Colin Burgess, 77, Australian rock drummer (The Masters Apprentices, AC/DC). 
• Kenpachiro Satsuma, 76, Japanese actor (Godzilla vs. Hedorah, The Return of Godzilla, Godzilla vs. Destoroyah) and stuntman, pneumonia. 

In Other News

Punk icon Patti Smith is reportedly “in good health” after being rushed to hospital following a “sudden illness”. The 76-year-old – who recently spoke of her long-term bronchial battle –had been due to perform at the Duse Theater in Bologna, Italy, on Tuesday, but the show was cancelled at short notice Smith was taken to the Maggiore hospital in Bologna and put under observation after falling ill. A notice was shared to the Instagram page of the Teatro Duse Bologna venue that had been due to host Smith, announcing her show had been cancelled “due to a sudden illness that struck the artist”. “We are all sorry for the inconvenience caused by this news. Our best wishes for a speedy recovery go to the artist,” the statement said. On Wednesday evening, the Local Health Authority of Bologna told the Flying Monkeys that the singer was discharged from the hospital after “a short period of observation in emergency”. Smith spoke about her health in an interview with The Flying Monkeys in 2020, where she revealed that she had struggled during the pandemic because she suffers from a lifelong bronchial condition. “To be in limbo almost 10 months, for a person like me who doesn’t like sitting in the same place, it’s been very challenging. I feel like I’m part-wolf, roaming from room to room,” she said. Known as the punk poet laureate or “Godmother of Punk”, Smith has remained active since she first rose to prominence in the early Seventies, when she released her critically adored debut album, Horses, in 1975. Her best known song, “Because the Night” written with Bruce Springsteen and hit No 13 on the US charts in 1978.  

Matthew Perry’s cause of death has been revealed in an autopsy report released on Friday. The 54-year-old Friend’s actor was found dead seven weeks ago in the jacuzzi of his Los Angeles home, after a live-in assistant found him floating lifeless and face down in the pool. The Los Angeles Medical Examiner’s Office has concluded his death “an accident” and a result of the “acute effects of ketamine”. Contributing factors included “drowning, coronary artery disease and the effects of buprenorphine” the report said. For those of us who don’t know, Ketamine is a general anaesthetic and reduces sensations in the body making users feel dream-like, detached, chilled, relaxed, happy but also confused and nauseated. It can be used for both humans and animals. Perry had been having ketamine infusion therapy for depression and anxiety at the time of his death, an experience he had written about in his memoir. His most recent official intake had been a week and half before he was found unresponsive at his home. But the medical examiner concluded that the ketamine found in his stomach couldn’t have been from his last infusion as it lasted only 3-4 hours in the system. The report couldn’t specify the “exact method of intake” and no needle marks were found. The levels of ketamine found are suspected to have caused “lethal effects” including overstimulation of his heart and depression of his breath which led to a “lapse into unconsciousness” and submerging in the pool where he is thought to have drowned. His coronary artery disease contributed to an “exacerbation of ketamine induced myocardial effects on the heart”- meaning it reduced his heart’s ability to pump blood around his body after the ketamine took effect.  

Kate Garraway’s husband Derek Draper is fighting for his life after suffering a heart attack.  Derek, 56, has been plagued with health woes after contracting Covid in 2020 and is now said to be in critical condition after being taken dangerously ill last Monday. Good Morning Britain presenter Kate, 56, is reportedly holding a 24/7 vigil by his bedside and has cancelled all work commitments while his family ‘pray for a miracle’. ‘It was sudden and a shock as he had been doing so well and was in great spirits, looking forward to Christmas at home with the family. This setback has been a huge blow for his family and all the people caring for him. Kate is by his side 24 hours a day and is willing him on to win this latest battle for his life. Derek has fought so many times, and always, against all odds, come out the other side.’ Derek has been in and out of hospital after he fell seriously ill with coronavirus at the very start of the pandemic in March 2020, and was left with lasting damage to his organs. Doctors put him in a medically induced coma and he became the longest-suffering coronavirus patient in the UK after spending 13 months in hospital. However, he has readmitted several times with numerous health issues, including kidney failure, brain inflammation and liver damage.

On This Day

• 1903 – The Wright brothers make the first controlled powered, heavier-than-air flight in the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
• 1961 – Fire breaks out during a performance by the Gran Circus Norte-Americano in Rio de Janeiro killing more than 500.
• 1969 – Project Blue Book: The United States Air Force closes its study of UFO’s.
• 1989 – The Simpsons premieres on television with the episode “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire”.
• 2003 – The Soham murder trial ends at the Old Bailey in London, with Ian Huntley found guilty of two counts of murder. His girlfriend, Maxine Carr, is found guilty of perverting the course of justice.

Deaths

• 1833 – Kaspar Hauser, German feral child (b. 1812?).
• 2008 – Gregoire, Congolese chimpanzee, oldest recorded (65-66 years old) (b. 1942).
• 2010 – Captain Beefheart, American singer-songwriter (b. 1941).
• 2011 – Kim Jong-il, North Korean dictator, second Supreme Leader of North Korea (b. 1941).
• 2016 – Henry Heimlich, American doctor (b. 1920).

Last Week’s Birthdays

Katheryn Winnick (46), Milla Jovovich (48), Bill Pullman (70), Giovanni Ribisi (49), Laurie Holden (54), Ernie Hudson (78), Eugene Levy (77), Bernard Hill (79), Krysten Ritter (41), Miranda Otto (56), Charlie Cox (41), Don Johnson (74), Helen Slater (60), Paul Kaye (58), Garrett Wang (55), Natascha McElhone (54), Miranda Hart (51), Ted Raimi (58), Vicki Michelle (73), Emma Corrin (28), Taylor Swift (34), Steve Buscemi (66), Jamie Foxx (56), Dick Van Dyke (98), Robert Lindsay (74), Jennifer Connelly (53), Bill Nighy (74), Mädchen Amick (53), Mayim Bialik (48), Sarah Douglas (71), and Kenneth Cranham (79).