Dead Pool 9th July 2017

Apologies for the lateness of this weeks edition, life got in the way. I’ll try not to let that happen again. Without further ado…

Look Who You Could Have Had:

  • Stevie Ryan, 33, American actress and comedian (Stevie TV), suicide by hanging.
  • Joe Robinson, 90, British actor (A Kid for Two FarthingsThe Loneliness of the Long Distance RunnerThor and the Amazon Women)
  • Carol Lee Scott, 74, English actress (Grotbags).
  • Ji-Tu Cumbuka, 77, American actor (RootsBlaculaMandingo)
  • Joan Boocock Lee, 95, British-born American voice actress (Spider-ManFantastic Four) and model, complications from a stroke
  • Nelsan Ellis, 39, American actor (True BloodGet on UpElementary), complications from heart failure.

In Other News

Oscar-winning actress Olivia de Havilland is very much alive and well as she is suing the makers of a television show which she says portrayed her as a “petty gossip”. De Havilland, who turns 101 on Saturday, filed a lawsuit against FX Networks and producer Ryan Murphy over the miniseries Feud: Bette and Joan. The drama explored the bad blood between the Hollywood screen legends Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. The actress, who appeared in 50 films, was played by Catherine Zeta-Jones. In papers filed at the Los Angeles Superior Court, de Havilland – who was made a dame in the Queen’s birthday honours in June – said the show’s characterisation of her damaged her “professional reputation for integrity, honesty, generosity, self-sacrifice and dignity”. The Gone With The Wind star is asking a jury to consider the emotional distress caused by the show, as well as potential financial losses and the profits made from using her identity. De Havilland – the only person depicted in the series who is still alive – also said she was not consulted.

Sheila Michaels, an American feminist who brought the honorific “Ms” into mainstream use, has died aged 78. Ms Michaels did not invent the term, but is credited with rescuing it from obscurity after she saw it used in an address, thinking it was a typo. “Ms” did not convey a woman’s marital status, unlike the traditional options “Mrs” or “Miss”. “I had never seen it before: It was kind of arcane knowledge,” she said. Speaking to the New York Times in an interview last year for her own obituary, she said the honorific resonated with her, both as a feminist and as the child of unmarried parents. Years later, she brought it up casually, during a lull in conversation on broadcast radio – where it was heard by others, and began to attract attention, from there there was no stopping it. Ms Michaels leaves a legacy both minute and momentous: two consonants and a small dot – three characters that forever changed English discourse.

And finally, a story that could be classed as a mountainous molehill, a woman who shared a video of herself urinating on an American flag has asked that people stop targeting her family, saying they do not support her actions. Emily Lance received online threats of murder and rape after posting the video during Independence Day celebrations. Her account is no longer on Facebook but she previously posted that her father and his workplace had also been “targeted”, reports say. However, desecrating the US flag is not illegal due to strong freedom of speech laws. In the video, Ms Lance is seen standing over a toilet on which a US flag is draped, and urinating on it with the aid of a she-wee. She captioned it with: “F*** your nationalism. F*** your country. F*** your stupid f****** flag”. Later she made a plea for her opponents not to “take your anger out on the wrong people”, saying no-one in her family “agrees with my shenanigans”. “What don’t you people understand? You’re celebrating freedom while damning me for doing the same. You can’t have it both ways,” she said. President Trump declined to comment, even though we all know he is partial to a bit of female wee.

On This Day

Deaths

  • 1932 – King Camp Gillette, U.S. businessman, founded the Gillette Company (b. 1855)
  • 2002 – Rod Steiger, American actor (b. 1925)
  • 2011 – Würzel, English guitarist (b. 1949)

Last Week’s Birthdays

Tom Hanks (61), Kelly McGillis (60), Fred Savage (41), Brian Dennehy (79), Courtney Love (53), O.J. Simpson (70), Kevin Bacon (59), Jaden Smith (19), Anjelica Huston (66), Jeffrey Tambor (73), Shelley Duvall (68), Jack Whitehall (29), Ringo Starr (77), Kate Nash (30), Eva Green (37), Sylvester Stallone (71), Geoffrey Rush (66), Kevin Hart (38), Burt Ward (72), Jennifer Saunders (59), 50 Cent (42), Edie Falco (54), RZA (48), Huey Lewis (67), Gina Lollobrigida (90), Neil Morrissey (55), Ronni Ancona (49), Tom Cruise (55), Kurtwood Smith (74), Yeardley Smith (53), Lindsay Lohan (31), Larry David (70), Jerry Hall (61) and Peter Kay (44).

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