Dead Pool 2nd January 2022

Welcome to the first edition of 2022. Thank you all for joining  the fun this year. A few of the old regulars have dropped out this year, so the group is slightly smaller. As always, please update your email lists if you intend to use them, otherwise we’re all going to be using the Telegram Group going forward.

Look Who You Could Have Had 2021:

• Janice Long, 66, English disc jockey (BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio Wales) and television presenter (Top of the Pops), pneumonia. 
• April Ashley, 86, English model, actress (The Road to Hong Kong), and writer. 
• John Madden, 85, American football coach (Oakland Raiders) and sportscaster. 
• Grichka Bogdanoff, 72, French television presenter and academic fraudster (Bogdanov affair), COVID-19.
• Betty White, 99, American actress (The Golden Girls, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Hot in Cleveland) and comedian, five-time Emmy winner.

Look Who You Could Have Had 2022:

• Gary Burgess, 46, British broadcaster (ITV Channel Television), cancer.

In Other News

Prior to her death on New Years Eve, Dead Pool favourite Betty White shared her secrets to a long, healthy life ahead of her 100th birthday. Betty, who would have turned 100 on 17th January, reflected on her longevity and health in an interview with People magazine for this week’s cover issue, which will now probably be rewritten, much like this article! Betty revealed that she felt “so lucky to be in such good health and feel so good at this age”. According to White, one of her secrets pertained to her diet, with the actor telling the outlet: “I try to avoid anything green. I think it’s working.” This is not the first time White had shared insight into her eating habits, as she previously said that she loved vodka and hot dogs, “probably in that order”. The Golden Girls actor, who had been acting since high school said “I got it from my mom, and that never changed,” she said. “I always find the positive.” While the Grammy winner had been in the public eye for a large part of the last 10 decades, she did enjoy a “quiet life” at home in Los Angeles, California, where she liked to play crossword puzzles and card games, and watch animal documentaries, golf and Jeopardy! For the issue celebrating White, People also spoke with some of the actor’s former co-stars, such as Sandra Bullock, who praised the 99-year-old’s comedic timing. “Timing isn’t easy in comedy, because you have to navigate other people’s timing. Betty pivoted like I have never seen, making it look seamless,” she said. “The rest of us just remain silent and pray we’re not cut out of the scene.” As for how she hopes White celebrates her centennial birthday, Bullock said she wants her to embrace the day “the same way she has celebrated every day of her life with humour, kindness and a vodka on ice, toasting to the fact that she’s a badass who has left us all in the dust”. Well Sandra, that prediction didn’t come true! Carol Burnett also had praise for the late star, who she applauded for her ability to “twist a line to get a laugh”. “She’d come on my show, and if there was a tinge of risqué humour in one of our sketches, she’d roll with it and make it even funnier and add a little wink to show that she was thinking of something sexy,” Burnett said. “She’s not a stand-up. She’s not a jokester. It’s the way she can twist a line to get a laugh.”  According to Mary Steenburgen, the Hot in Cleveland star also enjoyed shocking people with her humour in real life, as she said that White “loves to throw her little F-bombs around and does it with this beautifully dimpled smile”. While many had praise for White’s humour, Steenburgen’s husband, Ted Danson, who worked alongside White on her ocean conservation efforts, said that he looked to the longtime actor for guidance on how to live. “It’s not like she’s just a bubbly, joyful person. She woke up every day and chose to be that way,” he said. “I think she lead a very purposeful life.”   

One of the UK’s most dangerous serial killers will die in an underground glass box after his last-ditch appeal to live alongside other prisoners was rejected. Robert Maudsley, 68, is being held in a private underground cell beneath the general population of HMP Wakefield, after killing four men between 1974 and 1978. The Liverpudlian, who killed child molesters and one wife killer, was told this week that he will be incarcerated in his ‘glass box’ until he dies.  It came after bosses at the prison ruled him too dangerous to mix with prisoners and guards at the West Yorkshire jail. An insider said: ‘He was told no last month but appealed against the decision and wanted to spend Christmas in the presence of other humans. But he’s just been told no for the final time. Being alone for that long does something to you. He isn’t OK and they cannot take the risk of what he might do.They simply cannot take the risk.’ Maudsley must now live out the rest of his days in a 5.5 x 4.5 metre cell, which was built especially for him in 1983 and is protected by bullet proof glass. He spends 23 hours of each day in the cell, sleeping on a concrete slab and using a toilet and sink which are bolted to the floor. He also has a table and chair made of compressed cardboard. The convicted killer, from Toxteth, Liverpool, committed his first murder in 1974, aged just 21. He killed John Farrell in Wood Green London, after he showed Maudsley pictures of children he had sexually abused. He handed himself in to police and was deemed unfit to stand trial, and was sent to Broadmoor Hospital, home to some of Britain’s most violent inmates. Maudsley generally stayed out of trouble for his first few years behind bars, before he and fellow prisoner David Cheeseman locked themselves in a cell with child molester David Francis in 1977. They tortured Francis to death before dangling his body for prison guards to see. Maudsley was convicted of manslaughter and sent to HMP Wakefield. In 1978, Maudsley strangled and stabbed Salney Darwood, 46, who had been jailed for killing his wife. He hid Darwood’s body under bed before sneaking into the cell of paedophile Bill Roberts, 56, who had sexually abused a girl aged seven. He stabbed Roberts, hacked his skull with a makeshift dagger and smashed his head against a wall. He was later sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommendation that he never be released. In 2000, he begged the courts to allow him to die, writing in a letter: ‘What purpose is served by keeping me locked up 23 hours a day? Why even bother to feed me and to give me one hour’s exercise a day? Who actually am I a risk to? As a consequence of my current treatment and confinement, I feel that all I have to look forward to is indeed psychological breakdown, mental illness and probable suicide. Why can’t I have a budgie instead of flies, cockroaches and spiders which I currently have. I promise to love it and not eat it? Why can’t I have a television in my cell to see the world and learn? Why can’t I have any music tapes and listen to beautiful classical music? If the Prison Service says no then I ask for a simple cyanide capsule which I shall willingly take and the problem of Robert John Maudsley can easily and swiftly be resolved.’ The Ministry of Justice said it does not comment on the cases of individual prisoners.

On This Day

• 1959 – Luna 1, the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon and to orbit the Sun, is launched by the Soviet Union.  
• 1967 – Ronald Reagan, past movie actor and future President of the United States, is sworn in as Governor of California.  
• 1971 – The second Ibrox disaster kills 66 fans at a Rangers-Celtic association football match.  
• 1976 – The Gale of January 1976 begins, resulting in coastal flooding around the southern North Sea coasts, affecting countries from Ireland to Yugoslavia and causing at least 82 deaths and US$1.3 billion in damage.  
• 1981 – One of the largest investigations by a British police force ends when serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, the “Yorkshire Ripper”, is arrested in Sheffield, South Yorkshire.

Deaths

• 1953 – Guccio Gucci, Italian fashion designer, founder of Gucci (b. 1881). 
• 2011 – Anne Francis, American actress (b. 1930). 
• 2011 – Pete Postlethwaite, English actor (b. 1946). 
• 2019 – Gene Okerlund, American wrestling announcer (b. 1942). 

Last Week’s Birthdays

Tia Carrere (55), Kate Bosworth (39), Cuba Gooding Jr. (54), Sam Spruell (46), Frank Langella (84), Jennifer Hale (57), Sharon Small (55), Val Kilmer (62), Anthony Hopkins (84), Ben Kingsley (78), Gong Li (56), Jane Badler (68), Tracey Ullman (62), Eliza Dushku (41), Fred Ward (79), Caity Lotz (35), Tiger Woods (46), Lilly Wachowski (54), Jude Law (49), Jon Voight (83), Ted Danson (74), Danny McBride (45), Patrick Fischler (52), Bernard Cribbins (93), Marianne Faithfull (75), Denzel Washington (67), Maggie Smith (87), Joe Manganiello (45), Noomi Rapace (42), Sienna Miller (40), Nichelle Nichols (89), John Legend (43), Timothée Chalamet (26), Olivia Cooke (28), Gérard Depardieu (73), John Amos (82), Wilson Cruz (48), and Maryam d’Abo (61).