Dead Pool 20th October 2019

Since I took a brief holiday last weekend, there are plenty of points to award this week. Paul C took time out to read through his list and found that I had missed one of his names, specifically actress Fay McKenzie who died back in April at the age of 101. With the death of Leah Bracknell, Paul’s tally is now six deaths!!! 

But we must also congratulate Abi, Doug, Ceri, and Neil who also had Leah Bracknell listed, 95 points each; but a special round of applause goes to Debbie, Lee, and Ashley who listed her as their Woman and score 195 points each!!! So a huge upheaval in the table. 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

5th Oct – 12th Oct

• Stephen Moore, 81, British actor (A Bridge Too Far, The Last Place on Earth, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). 
• Rip Taylor, 88, American actor (The $1.98 Beauty Show, Chatterbox, Down to Earth) and comedian.  
• Juliette Kaplan, 80, British actress (Last of the Summer Wine, Coronation Street), cancer.  
• Robert Forster, 78, American actor (Jackie Brown, The Black Hole, Medium Cool), brain cancer.  
• Alexei Leonov, 85, Russian cosmonaut (Voskhod 2), first person to walk in space.

13th Oct – 19th Oct

• Richard Huckle, 33, British convicted sex offender, strangled and stabbed.  
• Leah Bracknell, 55, British actress (Emmerdale, Casualty 1900s, The Royal Today), lung cancer.   
• Patrick Day, 27, American professional boxer, brain injuries sustained in bout.

In Other News 

Eddie Van Halen is suffering from throat cancer which he believes he contracted after years of sucking on his metal guitar pick, according to reports. The veteran rocker, 64, was diagnosed with cancer nearly 20 years ago and has been travelling between the United States and Germany for treatment. He had a third of his tongue removed in 2000 and had reportedly been declared cancer free in 2002 but has now been to Germany to get radiation treatment over the last five years. The Van Halen star, who was a ‘heavy smoker’, is said to blame holding the pick in his mouth while on stage for his diagnosis. Eddie told Billboard in 2015: ‘I used metal picks – they’re brass and copper – which I always held in my mouth, in the exact place where I got the tongue cancer. ‘Plus, I basically live in a recording studio that’s filled with electromagnetic energy. So that’s one theory. I mean, I was smoking and doing a lot of drugs and a lot of everything. But at the same time, my lungs are totally clear. This is just my own theory, but the doctors say it’s possible.’ Eddie’s friend and TOTO guitarist Steve Lukather said ‘health issues’ were stopping the group – who are also made up of singer David Lee Roth, Eddie’s brother Alex Van Halen, who plays drums, and Eddie’s son Wolfgang Van Halen on bass guitar – from touring. The band last performed in October 2015 at at L.A.’s Hollywood Bowl and there were rumours the band’s classic lineup were set to perform for the first time since 1984.   

Strictly Come Dancing’s head judge Shirley Ballas has been struck by illness and had to be hooked up to a vitamin drip just before Saturday’s show. It comes after Shirley was sent death threats over the early elimination of contestants Dev Griffin and Dianne Buswell. Shirley, 59, revealed she was needing some TLC after falling ill after a ‘tough’ week. Shirley shared a picture to Instagram of her lying down in a cosy jumper while a drip was fixed to her left arm on a home visit. “Full of all sorts of things Vitamin c, Magnesium b12 and the list goes on. Feeling under the weather today as a result of a tough week,” she told her followers. “Hopefully we’ll be right as rain for Saturday,” she added. Looks like she was, but with death threats coming in, who knows what will happen! 

As you may have seen in the listings, some good news. Richard Huckle, 33, from Ashford, Kent, who was jailed for numerous sex crimes against Malaysian children has  been found stabbed to death in prison. In 2016, he was given 22 life sentences after admitting 71 charges of sex abuse of children aged between six months and 12 years, between 2006 and 2014. It is understood he was attacked on Sunday in his cell at Full Sutton Prison, near York, with what was described as a makeshift knife. Police were called shortly after 12:30pm and have launched an investigation into his death, which they are treating as suspicious. Huckle’s trial at the Old Bailey in 2016 heard that investigators who checked his computer found more than 20,000 indecent pictures and videos of his assaults. These were shared with paedophiles worldwide through a hidden website on the dark web. Huckle, who worked as a freelance photographer, tried to make a business out of his abuse by crowd-funding the release of the images. He was compiling a paedophile’s manual at the time of his arrest in 2014. At the end of his trial, Judge Peter Rook said Huckle’s sentence reflected the “public abhorrence” over his “campaign of rape”. 

On This Day

• 1944 – Liquefied natural gas leaks from storage tanks in Cleveland and then explodes, levelling 30 blocks and killing 130 people.  
• 1973 – The Sydney Opera House is opened by Elizabeth II after 14 years of construction.  
• 1977 – Rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd’s airplane crashes. Lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and guitarist Steve Gaines perish in the crash.  
• 2011 – Libyan Civil War: Rebel forces capture Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi in his hometown of Sirte and kill him shortly thereafter.

Deaths

• 1964 – Herbert Hoover, American engineer, 31st President of the United States (b. 1874)  
• 1989 – Anthony Quayle, English actor and director (b. 1913)  
• 1994 – Burt Lancaster, American actor (b. 1913)  
• 2011 – Muammar Gaddafi, Libyan colonel, Prime Minister of Libya (b. 1942)

Last Meals

Robert Alton Harris was an American car thief, burglar, kidnapper and murderer who was executed at San Quentin State Prison in 1992 for the murders of two teenage boys in San Diego. His execution was the first in the state of California since 1967. Harris was born in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and was abused as a child. He had run-ins with police as early as age 10, and was first placed into  juvenile detention at age 13 for stealing a car. His mother abandoned him at age 14 and he was soon after placed into juvenile detention after stealing another car. On July 5, 1978, Harris and his younger brother happened upon John Mayeski and Michael Baker, both 16, sitting in a green Ford LTD eating hamburgers in a supermarket parking lot in Mira Mesa. Mayeski and Baker were best friends who had planned to spend the day fishing to celebrate Mayeski’s newly acquired driver’s license. Robert Harris commandeered Mayeski’s car and ordered him to drive to Miramar Lake, with Daniel Harris following in another vehicle. Robert Harris told the boys that they would be using the vehicle to rob a bank, but that no one would be hurt. At Miramar Lake, the Harris brothers ordered the boys to kneel, whereupon the boys began to pray. Robert told the boys to “Quit crying, and die like men”, then shot both boys multiple times.^[4] The Harris brothers then returned to Robert’s Mira Mesa home and finished the victims’ half-eaten hamburgers while Robert boasted about the killings. About an hour later, the Harris brothers robbed the Mira Mesa branch of the San Diego Trust and Savings Bank located across the street from where they had abducted Mayeski and Baker, and fled with about $2,000. A witness to the robbery followed the Harris’ to their home and notified police. The Harris brothers were arrested less than an hour after the robbery. One of the officers who apprehended the Harris brothers was Steven Baker, father of victim Michael Baker, who at the time was unaware that his son had been killed. On March 6, 1979, Robert Harris was convicted in the San Diego County Superior Court of two counts of murder in the first degree with special circumstances as well as two counts of kidnapping, and was sentenced to death. Daniel Harris was convicted of kidnapping and sentenced to six years in state prison; he was released in 1983.  

Harris was executed on April 21, 1992, in the gas chamber at San Quentin State Prison—the first execution in California in 25 years. For his last meal, he requested and was given a 21-piece bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, two large Domino’s pizzas, ice cream, a bag of jelly beans, a six-pack of Pepsi, and a pack of Camel cigarettes. At 6:01a.m., Harris was escorted into the gas chamber. The execution order was given at 6:07a.m., and Harris died at 6:21a.m. Harris’ execution is specifically remembered for his choice of final words (recorded by Warden Daniel Vasquez): “You can be a king or a street sweeper, but everybody dances with the grim reaper.” It was the subject of a 1995 Dutch documentary film, Procedure 769, witness to an execution. This is a misquote of a line used in the 1991 film Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey: “You might be a king or a little street sweeper but sooner or later you dance with the reaper.” 

Last Week’s Birthdays

Rebecca Ferguson (36), Michael Gambon (79), Trey Parker (50), John Lithgow (74), Philip Pullman (73), John le Carré (88), Zac Efron (32), Jean-Claude Van Damme (59), Martina Navratilova (63), Pam Dawber (68), Felicity Jones (36), Michael McKean (72), George Wendt (71), Mark Gatiss (53), Eminem (47), Angela Lansbury (94), Tim Robbins (61), Suzanne Somers (73), Peter Bowles (83), Dominic West (50), Sarah Ferguson (60), Steve Coogan (54), Cliff Richard (79),  Sacha Baron Cohen (48), Himesh Patel (29), Paul Simon (78), and Chris Carter (63).