Dead Pool 23rd August 2026

A truly shocking week, the Flying Monkeys outdid themselves. Unsurprisingly, nobody scored last week. 

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Hayden Panettiere, 36, American actress (Heroes, Nashville, Scream 4). 
• Frank Beard, 77, American Hall of Fame rock drummer (ZZ Top). 
• Barry Mitchell, British bassist (Queen). 
• Phyllida Law, 94, Scottish television, film and stage actress, Parkinson’s disease..
• Ray MacDonald, 49, Thai actor (Fun Bar Karaoke, Phobia 2, Opapatika). 

In Other News

Norway’s King Harald V has been admitted to hospital and is on sick leave for two weeks, the country’s royal household announced on Monday. The 89-year-old, who is one of Europe’s longest-serving monarchs, has been treated in recent weeks with cortisone for rare blood condition haemolytic anaemia. It causes the number of red blood cells in the body to be reduced and leads to fatigue and shortness of breath. The palace said the monarch was admitted due to “fluid retention in the body that requires treatment in hospital”. It added that Crown Prince Haakon, aged 53, will serve as regent while his father is on sick leave. Norway’s royal household said in April 2024 King Harald would make a “permanent reduction” to his public engagement “out of consideration for his age”. The king ascended the Scandinavian country’s throne in January 1991 and has openly ruled out abdicating. He was taken to hospital in February on the Spanish island of Tenerife while suffering from an infection and dehydration. In 2024, the king was fitted with a pacemaker having fallen ill on holiday in Malaysia. Queen Sonja was also admitted to hospital in May this year for examinations and observation due to heart problems, the palace said. The king and queen’s health problems come after a turbulent time for the Norwegian royals. In March, Crown Princess Mette-Marit – wife of Crown Prince Haakon – told national TV that she wishes she had never met late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The crown princess had exchanged hundreds of emails with the disgraced Epstein between 2011 and 2014, and stayed in his Florida house when he was not there. “It is incredibly important for me to take responsibility for not checking his background more carefully,” she said. Three months later in June, her son from a previous relationship, Marius Borg Høiby, was found guilty of two counts of rape and sentenced to four years in prison.    

Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell has revealed that his cancer has returned after a donor stem cell transplant failed, forcing him to resume treatment more than a decade after his initial diagnosis. The Belfast-born musician, 62, disclosed in 2013 that he had been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma while undergoing a six-month course of chemotherapy. After years of treatment, including stem cell therapy, immunotherapy and a donor transplant, Campbell announced he was in remission last year. However, the veteran rocker has now said he is undergoing further chemotherapy after the disease returned, marking another chapter in his 12-year battle with the blood cancer. “There’s only been one time that I felt it was gonna kill me. In the winter of 2023, I got really scared about what was happening and the pace at which it was happening, and I realised at that point that I had to do a donor transplant. It was my only hope to survive.” He also revealed the stem cell transplant ‘failed to stick’ after it was carried out in January of last year. “So the cancer has returned, and I’m continuing treatments to manage it”, he explained. The seasoned guitarist, who began his lengthy career with rock band Sweet Savage in the 1970’s before joining heavy metal pioneers Dio in the early ’80’s, says music has helped him stay positive through the darkest moments. “I do think that that’s what helped me, even when I was at a really low ebb with cancer treatment,” he said. “The fact that I could still continue to work, that gives me something to live for. Something that you enjoy, that you’re passionate about, that you can wake up in the morning and look forward to. I think that deflects, that takes away from focusing too much on cancer.” Campbell has previously told fans he is not afraid of death, deciding to “just live his life” after being diagnosed more than a decade ago. 

Dolly Parton revealed that she is still working while battling new health challenges just days after canceling her Dollywood event. “I am dealing with some health issues that I just didn’t pay attention to when I was watching over Carl,” Parton told the Flying Monkeys, referring to her husband, Carl Thomas Dean, who passed away in March 2025. He was 82. The Jolene singer said that she has made it through health issues in the past, noting that she was “down for several months with female issues” in the early ’80’s. “It’s not like I haven’t been through hard times with my health,” Parton said. However, she believes social media exacerbates fans’ concerns for her well-being. “I think because we live in a 24/7 world with social media, everything gets magnified in ways it wasn’t years ago,” she said, adding, “I used to joke that I was the Queen of the Tabloids, but now I guess I can say I’m the Queen of Social Media AI!” But Parton, 80, emphasised that she is “still working” despite still being in the process of healing. Since she no longer has the energy for a traditional tour, Parton said she is in the “early stages of development” with companies that create “avatar performances.” The Grammy winning artist was forced to step back from the limelight in September 2025 after suffering kidney stones. “Turns out there was an infection, and the doctor said, ‘You don’t need to be traveling around this minute, so you need a few days to get better,’” Parton said in a video when she couldn’t appear in person for another Dollywood event at the time. 

On This Day

• 1973 – A bank robbery gone wrong in Stockholm, Sweden, turns into a hostage crisis; over the next five days the hostages begin to sympathise with their captors, leading to the term “Stockholm syndrome”. 
• 1991 – The World Wide Web is opened to the public.
• 2023 – A business jet carrying key leadership members of the Russian private military company Wagner Group crashes, killing all ten people on board.

Deaths

• 1305 – William Wallace, Scottish knight and rebel leader (born c.1270). 
• 1926 – Rudolph Valentino, Italian actor (born 1895).
• 2005 – Brock Peters, American actor (born 1927).

Last Meals

Francis Clifford Smith was given his last meal eight times.

But after being spared execution each time, he went on to be regarded as the longest serving prisoner in the US before dying in June at 101 years old.

Convicted of murder in 1950 when he was 25, he always maintained his innocence, those who knew him told the Flying Monkeys.

Andrius Banevicius, the public information officer for Connecticut’s Department of Correction, recounted how Smith used to feed the birds while in Osborn prison, earning him the nickname The Birdman of Osborn.

“He would stuff as much bread as he could … in his clothing,” Banevicius said, adding: “Everyone kind of turned a blind eye to it because they knew he was just feeding the birds.” 

Smith was a young petty criminal when he was accused in 1949 of the murder of Grover Hart, a night watchman at a Connecticut yacht club. He was one of two men who were arrested over the killing but the other took a plea deal and gave evidence against Smith, who was later found guilty of first-degree murder.

Smith’s guilt and the evidence on which he was convicted have been questioned over the years – namely after witnesses recanted their statements and another inmate later confessed to the murder.

One of the officers who had interrogated Smith after his arrest later testified that he believed Smith was innocent.

“I’m not even sure he was present at the murder,” Major Leo Carroll announced to the Board of Pardons.

These doubts earned him a reprieve from his many scheduled executions.

In 1954, his death sentence was commuted to life in prison.

Smith served more than 70 years behind bars – other than three short stints of freedom.

He escaped from prison in 1967 but was recaptured 12 days later. In 1974, we went home for Christmas Eve and returned the next day, Banevicius said.

Then, in 1975, he was granted parole and was out for about 10 months – but he was soon arrested for petty larceny and possession of a weapon, which was a violation of his parole.

Richard Sparaco, former executive director of what is now called the Board of Pardons and Paroles, said that Smith rejected several attempts afterwards to go back on parole until 2020, when he was granted supervised parole and moved to a care home for elderly people within the justice system.

Dr Stephanie Prost, a researcher in older adults and prison settings at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, said that most prisons have an inmate like Smith.

“We’re not the only jurisdiction that’s facing that ageing-related crisis, because similar issues are percolating in Australia and England,” she said. 

“It’s an international issue in terms of the population. Although, of course, we have a larger number of individuals in the US.”

According to a 2025 study, the number of people aged 55 and older in prison increased by nearly 400% between 1991 and 2021.

The US Census Bureau forecasts that by 2030, at least one-third of the incarcerated population will be over 50 years old.

Researchers like Prost are pushing for better solutions and what they call “smart de-carceration”, similar to Smith’s case. That could include policies such as compassionate release and elderly or medical parole.

Such programmes take age and care into consideration as elderly inmates deal with higher rates of costly medical concerns that make it difficult to function in a highly regimented prison setting, including fall risks, incontinence and hearing impairments.

But there are few facilities like the one Smith was sent to that are willing to take on convicted prisoners, experts said. 

Smith was one of the first to be cared for under the MissionCare Health scheme, which focuses specifically on providing care to incarcerated individuals. It currently has three facilities in the north-eastern US.

David Skoczulek, spokesman for 60 West – the facility where Smith lived in his final years – said that Smith passed away in his sleep there in June and was later cremated.

“Essentially, he died of old age,” he said. “He had very limited family involvement around his passing but we assured it was appropriate, met his wishes and was dignified.”

Skoczulek said that the facility’s role was to provide Smith with the skilled nursing and long-term care services he required.

Research shows that imprisonment can lead to “accelerated ageing”, and that conditions such as dementia may arrive “significantly earlier” than they would for people not in prison.

“We frequently say that a person coming from a long period of incarceration can be 60 but have the health status of a 90-year-old,” Skoczulek said.

Smith reportedly had dementia at the end of his life. Banevicius would not confirm this to us but said Smith was dealing with issues associated with old age.

“He was 101 and a half,” Banevicius said. “He did pretty well as far as longevity is concerned.” 

Last Week’s Birthdays

Ray Park (52), Charley Boorman (60), Kristen Wiig (53), Richard Armitage (55), Ty Burrell (59), Mark Williams (67), Dua Lipa (31), James Corden (48), Hayden Panettiere (37), Kim Cattrall (70), Cariad Lloyd (44), Amy Adams (52), Andrew Garfield (43), Ke Huy Quan (56), John Noble (78), Ben Barnes (45), Misha Collins (52), Joan Allen (70), Ray Wise (79), James Marsters (64), Demi Lovato (34), Sylvester McCoy (83), David Walliams (55), Jonathan Frakes (74), Jim Carter (78), Diana Muldaur (88), Ian McElhinney (78), Simon Bird (42), Madeleine Stowe (68), Edward Norton (57), Christian Slater (57), Roman Polanski (93), Robert De Niro (83), Austin Butler (35), and Sean Penn (66).