Dead Pool 24th May 2020

Another week bereft of points, however a long list of people you might have heard of below. Thanks as always for all of you who pass on interesting stories and ideas, keep them coming.

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Michel Piccoli, 94, French actor (La Grande Bouffe, A Leap in the Dark, We Have a Pope).  
• Wilson Roosevelt Jerman, 91, American White House butler and staffer (1957–2012), COVID-19.  
• Shad Gaspard, 39, American professional wrestler (WWE) and actor (Get Hard, From Dusk till Dawn: The Series), drowning. 
• Ken Osmond, 76, American actor (Leave It to Beaver, The New Leave It to Beaver), complications from COPD.  
• Ken Nightingall, 92, British film sound engineer (For Your Eyes Only, A View to a Kill, Octopussy), COVID-19.  
• Heather Chasen, 92, British actress (Crossroads, Cat Run, Les Misérables).  
• Hana Kimura, 22, Japanese professional wrestler (Stardom, Wrestle-1) and reality TV personality (Terrace House: Tokyo 2019–2020).
• Saturn, 83–84, American-born German-Russian alligator (Berlin Zoological Garden, Battle of Berlin, Moscow Zoo).

 In Other News

A former White House employee who worked with 11 presidents, from Dwight Eisenhower to Barack Obama, died over the weekend after contracting the coronavirus. He was 91. Wilson Roosevelt Jerman, who appeared alongside the Obamas in a photograph published in former first lady Michelle Obama’s bestselling memoir “Becoming,” retired in 2012 following 55 years of service. He began his White House career in 1957 as a cleaner, gaining promotion to the role of butler during the Kennedy administration, his granddaughter, Jamila Garrett, told us that the father of five “always taught us that there will be obstacles in your life, they will not disappear, but keep pushing forward.” Former President George W. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush paid tribute to Jerman, describing him as “a lovely man.” “He was the first person we saw in the morning when we left the Residence and the last person we saw each night when we returned,” they said in a statement.  

Former Kent and England batsman Rob Key has revealed he is recovering after suffering a ‘mini stroke’. The 41-year-old, who is now a TV pundit, says he has had a “long weekend” after being treated at Kent and Canterbury Hospital. He posted a picture of himself in a hospital bed on Instagram. Key thanked his doctor and added: “Turns out I’ve had a mini stroke. Now got to eat food with no flavour and take pills, #triffic,”. Key played in 15 Tests for England, five one-day internationals and one Twenty20 match, with his stand-out international performance the 221 against the West Indies in July 2004. He was prolific on the County scene, scoring almost 20,000 first-class runs between 1998 and 2015 for Kent. His former club tweeted a “get well soon” message on Monday.   

Amanda Kloots, the wife of Broadway star Nick Cordero, broke down in tears as she revealed that her husband’s health had taken a turn for the worse. Things had been looking up for the family, with Cordero waking up from his coronavirus-induced coma last week and Kloots celebrating a “small win” on Monday after doctors pulled out fewer secretions from his lungs than they had previously found. However, on Wednesday, dancer Kloots admitted that things had got worse in an emotional Instagram Story video filmed in her car. “Nick has had a bad morning. Unfortunately, things are going a little downhill at the moment, so I am asking again for all the prayers, mega-prayers, right now,” she said. “Please cheer and please pray for Nick today, and I know that this virus is not going to get him down.” Kloots, who has a 10-month-old son with the actor, continued: “It’s not how his story ends, so just keep us in your thoughts and prayers today. Thank you.” In a separate Instagram post, she wrote: “Mega prayers for this special man right now. God continue to grant miracles.” Cordero was admitted to hospital on 30 March after being diagnosed with pneumonia, testing positive for coronavirus and being put on a ventilator just two days later. The actor then faced a number of complications, including septic shock and two “mini strokes”, with his right leg needing to be amputated due to blood clotting. 

On This Day

• 1487 – The ten-year-old Lambert Simnel is crowned in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland, with the name of Edward VI in a bid to threaten King Henry VII‘s reign.  
• 1930 – Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, Northern Territory, becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia (she left on May 5 for the 11,000 mile flight).  
• 1956 – The first Eurovision Song Contest is held in Lugano, Switzerland.  
• 1976 – The Judgment of Paris takes place in France, launching California as a worldwide force in the production of quality wine.

Deaths

• 1543 – Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish mathematician and astronomer (b. 1473)  
• 1963 – Elmore James, American singer-songwriter and guitarist (b. 1918)  
• 1974 – Duke Ellington, American pianist and composer (b. 1899)  
• 1995 – Harold Wilson, English academic and Prime Minister of the U.K. (b. 1916)  
• 2010 – Ray Alan, English ventriloquist, actor, and screenwriter (b. 1930)

The Last British Executions

Catherine Murphy (died 18th March 1789) was an English counterfeiter, the last woman in England to be officially burned at the stake.

Catherine Murphy and her husband, Hugh Murphy, were convicted for coining at the Old Bailey in London and sentenced to death on 18th September 1788. She and her husband were executed on the morning of 18th March 1789 at Newgate prison along with seven other men who had been convicted of various offences.

The eight men were executed by hanging. But as a woman, the law provided that Murphy should be burnt at the stake. She was brought out past the hanging bodies of the others, and made to stand on a foot high, 10-inch-square platform in front of the stake. She was secured to the stake with ropes and an iron ring. When she finished her prayers, her executioner, William Brunskill, piled faggots of straw around the stake and lit them. According to testimony given by Sir Benjamin Hammett, the Sheriff of London, he gave instructions that she should be strangled before being burned. She was, reportedly, tied with one rope around her neck, after which the platform was removed from under her feet and 30 minutes passed before the fire was lit, and thus, she was not actually burned alive. Whatever the case, Catherine Murphy remains the last person to have been sentenced and at least officially executed by the method of burning. In part through the efforts of Sir Benjamin Hammett, who took the execution of Murphy as an example when he criticised this form of punishment, burning as a method of execution was abolished the next year, by the Treason Act 1790.

Last Week’s Birthdays

Doug Jones (59), Alfred Molina (66), John C. Reilly (54), Jim Broadbent (70), Priscilla Presley (74), Gary Burghoff (76), Tommy Chong (81), Eric Cantona (53), Bob Dylan (78), Richard Ayoade (42), Joan Collins (86), Melissa McBride (54), Maggie Q (41), Ginnifer Goodwin (42), Graham Linehan (52), Naomi Campbell (50), Judge Reinhold (63), Noel Fielding (47), Mr. T (68), Cher (74), Jack Gleeson (28), John Billingsley (60), Louis Theroux (50), James Fox (81), Grace Jones (72), Amanda De Cadenet (48), Tina Fey (50), Miriam Margolyes (79), Yun-Fat Chow (65), and Toyah Willcox (62).