Dead Pool 8th October 2023

Short and sweet this week, seeing that the notable deaths were a bit thin on the ground.  

Look Who You Could Have Had:

• Jake Abraham, 56, British actor (Blonde Fist, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, The 51st State), prostate cancer. 
• Francis Lee, 79, English football player (Manchester City, Bolton Wanderers, national team) and chairman, cancer. 
• Thomas Gambino, 94, American mobster (Gambino crime family).  
• Keith Jefferson, 53, American actor (Django Unchained, The Hateful Eight, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), cancer. 

In Other News

A man has appeared in court after an alleged plot to kidnap Holly Willoughby. Gavin Plumb, a 36-year-old man has been charged over an alleged plot to kidnap and murder the TV personality. On Friday Gavin Plumb, 36, of Potters Field, Harlow, had been charged with soliciting to commit murder and incitement to commit kidnap. Superintendent Tim Tubbs said: “This was an extremely fast paced investigation, with many of our officers and national partners working overnight to secure these charges. The safeguarding of any victim is paramount and we will continue to prioritise this as the investigation proceeds.” The star’s £3 million home in London is currently under police guard and she has reported to have been left “shocked and distraught” after learning she was the subject of dark messages that threatened to kidnap the mother-of-three. 

Kevin Spacey was rushed to hospital from a film festival in  Uzbekistan after he felt his entire left arm ‘go numb for about eight seconds’, it has emerged. The House of Cards star, 64, was feared to have suffered a heart attack but after undergoing a series of tests, including an MRI, was given the all-clear by doctors. He fell ill in the ancient city of Samarkand on Monday while on a tour of the Afrasiyab Museum and was rushed to the Innova Diagnostic Clinic where he was ‘treated professionally by doctors and staff’. Mr Spacey later returned to the Tashkent International Film Festival, appeared on stage and told the audience his health was ‘normal’. The Oscar-winning actor added that the incident ‘made me really take a moment and think about how fragile life is’. Mr Spacey talked about his ‘unexpected’ health scare during his speech at the festival’s closing ceremony on Monday, festival organisers revealed. ‘I was looking at these extraordinary murals on the walls and I suddenly felt my entire left arm go numb for about eight seconds,’ he told the crowd. ‘I shook it off, but I immediately told the people I was with and we went immediately to the medical centre.’ He shared how he spent the afternoon undergoing a ‘variety of tests’, adding that ultimately ‘everything turned out to be completely normal’. The actor said he is ‘grateful’ that it was not ‘anything more serious’, adding that he was ‘pleasantly surprised’ that Samarkand had ‘such qualified doctors’. ‘Human life is very fragile and short, so everyone should live together and support each other,’ he told the audience.

Lady Cathy Ferguson, the wife of the former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson and the woman he called his “bedrock”, has died at the age of 84. A Glasgow native, Cathy Holding met her husband-to-be while they were working together in a typewriter factory in 1964. They were married two years later and went on to raise three children and 12 grandchildren over the course a relationship that endured for more than half a century. The Ferguson family confirmed the news in a statement released on Friday afternoon. “We are deeply saddened to confirm the passing yesterday of Lady Cathy Ferguson, survived by her husband, three sons, two sisters, 12 grandchildren and one great-grandchild,” the statement read. “The family asks for privacy at this time.” Lady Ferguson once said she had feared that the man who went on to become the most successful manager in the history of British football was a “thug” when she first met him, as he was sporting a plaster on his face due to a football injury. She also recalled their first date, a trip to the cinema and a gift of a box of liquorice allsorts “of which he ate all of them”. A Manchester United club statement said: “Everyone at Manchester United sends our heartfelt condolences to Sir Alex Ferguson and his family … Lady Cathy was a beloved wife, mother, sister, grandmother and great-grandmother, and a tower of strength for Sir Alex throughout his career.”

On This Day

• 2005 – The 7.6 M_w  Kashmir earthquake leaves 86,000–87,351 people dead, 69,000–75,266 injured, and 2.8 million homeless.
• 2014 – Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person in the United States to be diagnosed with Ebola, dies.
• 2016 – In the wake of Hurricane Matthew, the death toll rises to nearly 900.

Deaths

• 1967 – Clement Attlee, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1883). 
• 2002 – Phyllis Calvert, English actress (b. 1915).
• 2015 – Jim Diamond, Scottish singer-songwriter (b. 1951).

Last Week’s Birthdays

Matt Damon (53), Sigourney Weaver (74), Chevy Chase (80), Kristanna Loken (44), Ardal O’Hanlon (58), Paul Hogan (84), R.L. Stine (80), Bruno Mars (38), Aaron & Shawn Ashmore (44), Simon Cowell (64), Tim Minchin (48), Elisabeth Shue (60), Emily Mortimer (52), Ioan Gruffudd (50), Britt Ekland (81), Kate Winslet (48), Guy Pearce (56), Karen Allen (72), Jesse Eisenberg (40), Diane Morgan (48), Clive Barker (71), Stephanie Cole (82), Neil deGrasse Tyson (65), Alicia Silverstone (47), Dakota Johnson (34), Susan Sarandon (77), Christoph Waltz (67), Melissa Benoist (35), Liev Schreiber (56), Nick Mohammed (43), Neve Campbell (50), Lena Headey (50), Clive Owen (59), Seann William Scott (47), Gwen Stefani (54), Tommy Lee (61), Lorraine Bracco (69), Avery Brooks (75), and Sting (72).