The Celebrity Death Pool

[Joeylc]

 

What in the hell is with 2009 and all of the Celebrity's kicking off ???  

We just lost billy mays today !!!

Reports: TV pitchman Billy Mays found dead in Tampa home

    12:02 PM EDT, June 28, 2009

TAMPA - The St. Petersburg Times is reporting that Billy Mays, the TV pitchman whose trademark voice helped sell everything from cleaning supplies to baking soda, was found dead this morning by his wife at his Tampa home. No cause of death has been reported and no foul play is suspected, according to Tampa police.

According to reports, Mays, 50, was pronounced dead at 7:45 a.m. at 2853 Bowen Daniel Dr., #1201. His wife, Deborah Mays, found him unresponsive this morning. The Medical Examiner's Office will complete Mays' autopsy by tomorrow afternoon.



THE 09 LIST.     SO FAR

Claiborne Pell (01/01)
And our first stiff of the year is the exciting senator from Rhode Island, creator of the Pell Grant, and apparently the only politician on all of Wikipedia without a "scandals" section. Going to be a big year.

Pat Hingle (01/03)
Hingle buried.

Griffin Bell (01/05)
Rung.

Patrick McGoohan (01/13)
Number Deep 6.

Ricardo Montalban (01/14)
Boss...? Boss...?

Andrew Wyeth (01/16)
Easel come, easel go.

John Updike (01/27)
Rabbit make space.

Ingemar Johansson (01/30)
Down for the count.

Lux Interior (02/04)
Design flaw.

James Whitmore (02/06)
Brooks was here.

Philip Jose Farmer (02/25)
He wrote "A Woman a Day" and "Blown". We might be on to what killed him.

Paul Harvey (02/28)
Good day - you irritating, monotone, over opinionated, one-trick-pony weasel.

Horton Foote (03/04)
One Foote in the grave.

Natasha Richardson (03/19)
Went downhill fast.

Lou Saban (03/29)
Football coach - from when the footballs and helmets were made out of the same stuff.

Marilyn Chambers (04/12)
Under the green floor.

J.G. Ballard (04/19)
Just Gone? Jolly Ghost? Joined Graveyard? Jazzy Ghoul? Jostled Grave? Take your pick.

Doc Blanchard (04/19)
The doctor is out.

Jack Cardiff (04/22)
Marilyn Monroe once described him as "the best in the world". But then again, she was wasted a LOT.

Bea Arthur (04/25)
And then there's mulch.

Danny Gans (05/01)
The Las Vegas billboard industry just took a BIG hit.

Jack Kemp (05/02)
Unkempt.

Dom DeLuise (05/04)
Dom Dead. Decomposing delightfully. Deadpoolers delirious.

Dom DiMaggio (05/08)
Dom duplicate. Doornail dead. Deadpoolers dumbfounded.

Chuck Daly (05/09)
Might as well now.

Koko Taylor (06/03)
This is what happens when you keep wang dang doodling all night long.

David Carradine (06/04)
Time for you to leave.

Kenny Rankin (06/07)
Peaceful indeed.

Ed McMahon (06/23)
Heeeeeeeeeeere's Eternity!

Farrah Fawcett (06/25)
Not just Charlie's angel anymore.

Michael Jackson (King of pop) (06/25)
He touched so many...

Sky Saxon (06/25)
Clearly, he was pushing too hard.

Billy Mays (06/28)
Sell Sell Sell...

[jay]

Bleach and Amonia makes Clorine gas.
I always thought that if you put bleach in the bowl and amonia in the tank you would have the setup for the perfect murder.
All the evidence is then flushed away.....and the body would be found alone in a locked room.

Perhaps Billy was snorting too much of his own product. He was not a small man my guess would be heart attack.

[Neonkiss]

my guess would be heart attack.

It was all the YELLING while he was selling.!!!

[tjkeller]

Strange happenings be transpiring this year....Something wicked this way comes? 

[Joeylc]

Karl Malden: 1912 - 2009

Karl Malden, an Oscar- and Emmy-winning actor perhaps best remembered for his role as Detective Lt. Mike Stone on the '70s TV series The Streets of San Francisco, has died of natural causes. He was 97.

[Joeylc]

Famed CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite dead at 92


Famed CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite, known as the
'most trusted man in America' died this evening.
He was 92. In this March 6, 1981 photo,
Walter Cronkite talks on the phone at his office,
prior to his final newscast as CBS anchorman in New York City.


<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/HwaA-hbvYF8&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/HwaA-hbvYF8&rel=0</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/2K8Q3cqGs7I&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/2K8Q3cqGs7I&rel=0</a>

RIP Walter We will miss you...

Walter Cronkite: And that's the way it was‎


   

[tjkeller]

RIP Walter



...thanks for the vids Joey

[Joeylc]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/WkrABAfX2kI&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/WkrABAfX2kI&rel=0</a>

[Brianzz]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/M8sZ1DWsAHE&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/M8sZ1DWsAHE&rel=0</a>

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Handlers say Gidget the Chihuahua, whose Taco Bell commercials made her a star, has died. She was 15. The owner of Studio Animal Services in Castaic says Gidget suffered a massive stroke late Tuesday at her trainer's home in Santa Clarita and had to be euthanized.

Gidget was the sassy mascot in Taco Bell commercials from 1997 to 2000. While other dogs had bit parts, it was her bug-eyed, big-eared face that is seen pronouncing, in a dubbed male voice, "Yo quiero Taco Bell," Spanish for "I want Taco Bell."

The ads made the Taco Bell mascot wildly popular, although they provoked some criticism from activists who felt they used Mexican stereotypes.

Gidget also had a role in the movie "Legally Blonde 2."

[CaptainHappy]

Brian,

Thanks for the sad news about Gidget! 

I wonder if I play that ad on my phone at a Taco Bell Restaurant if I can convince them that Tacos are 2 for 99 Cents right now? 

 

Now..... YO QUIERO TACO BELL!!!!

Thanks for making me crave it! 

CaptainHappy

[stayouttadabunker]

I guess I now know where I'm going for lunch today....

[Joeylc]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/g6fwT2z6cTA&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/g6fwT2z6cTA&rel=0</a>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/pYk4N9ZmvYE&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/pYk4N9ZmvYE&rel=0</a>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/M8sZ1DWsAHE&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/M8sZ1DWsAHE&rel=0</a>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/LONtNt9at_k&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/LONtNt9at_k&rel=0</a>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/B0oEw0IMLXI&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/B0oEw0IMLXI&rel=0</a>


 

[Joeylc]

Through The Eyes Of John Hughes R.I.P. February 18, 1950 – August 6, 2009

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/K5IlsgtkFbA&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/K5IlsgtkFbA&rel=0</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/KO32_AJSTAM&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/KO32_AJSTAM&rel=0</a>

[tjkeller]

Wow...some true classics in there. Brings back lots of memories.
So many of those movies were hysterical!
A fine tribute to the work of John Hughes!

Man, he was ONLY 59?...another gone long before his time.

[StatFreak]

What a shame that he left us so young. I like most of his films, and PT&A is one of my all time favorites. Seeing those two videos reminded me of just how many films of his are part of our Baby Boomer culture. Rest in Peace John.

[Brianzz]

CHICAGO (AP) - Political columnist Robert Novak, who was a central figure in the Valerie Plame CIA leak case, has died after a battle with brain cancer.

His wife, Geraldine Novak, tells the Chicago Sun-Times that he died at his home in Washington on Tuesday. He was 78.

Novak was long known as the co-host of CNN's "Crossfire" and had been a columnist for the Sun-Times for decades.

He was diagnosed with a brain tumor in July 2008, less than a week after he struck a pedestrian in downtown Washington with his Corvette and drove away.

In recent years, he was perhaps best-known for being the first to publish Plame' name. He came under withering criticism and abuse from many for that column, which Novak says began "a long and difficult episode" in his career.


<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/vqUMsqORq1k&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/vqUMsqORq1k&rel=0</a>

[rickhunter]

Need to add
Eunice Kennedy Shriver

[CaptainHappy]

Need to add
Eunice Kennedy Shriver

Now we need to add
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy

CaptainHappy

[StatFreak]

This thread is getting far longer than any one year has a right to be.   

[Joeylc]

Eunice Kennedy Shriver (08/11)
That only leaves 2 more from the Kennedy clan - unless you count the NINETEEN kids they had. Hard to believe they just aren't dying fast enough.

Les Paul (08/13)
No Les, no more.

Robert Novak (08/18)
Now he gets to meet the real Prince of Darkness.

Ted Kennedy (08/25)
Another Kennedy? Shouldn't we be out of them by now?


Senator Ted Kennedy's Life and Legacy
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/itEmzChxr4Q&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/itEmzChxr4Q&rel=0</a>

http://www.stiffs.com/recentdeaths.cfm#bottom

[Neonkiss]

Hard to believe they just aren't dying fast enough.

Shouldn't we be out of them by now?

WTF??

It not like they were a Chevy Nova....

What, No compassion for the dead?

[a69mopar]

If you're using a car, it should have been the Pinto...

w

[Brianzz]

Dominick Dunne, No more power, privilege or justice

NEW YORK (AP) - Author Dominick Dunne, who told stories of shocking crimes among the rich and famous through his magazine articles and best-selling novels such as "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles," died Wednesday in his home at age 83.

Dunne's son, actor-director Griffin Dunne, said in a statement released by Vanity Fair magazine that his father had been battling bladder cancer. But the cancer had not prevented Dunne from working and socializing, his twin passions.

In September 2008, against the orders of his doctor and the wishes of his family, Dunne flew to Las Vegas to attend the kidnap-robbery trial of O.J. Simpson, a postscript to his coverage of Simpson's 1995 murder trial, which spiked Dunne's considerable fame.

In the past year, Dunne had traveled to Germany and the Dominican Republic for experimental stem cell treatments to fight his cancer. He wrote that he and actress Farrah Fawcett were in the same cancer clinic in Bavaria but didn't see each other. Fawcett, a 1970s sex symbol and TV star of "Charlie's Angels," died in June at age 62.

Dunne discontinued his column at Vanity Fair to concentrate on finishing another novel, "Too Much Money," which is to come out in December. He also made a number of appearances to promote a documentary film about his life, "After the Party," which was being released on DVD.

Dunne, who lived in Manhattan, was beginning to write his memoirs and, until close to the end of his life, he posted messages on his Web site commenting on events in his life and thanking his fans for their support.

Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter praised Dunne as a gifted reporter who proved as fascinating as the people he wrote about.

"Anyone who remembers the sight of O.J. Simpson trying on the famous glove probably remembers a bespectacled Dunne, resplendent in his trademark Turnbull & Asser monogrammed shirt, on the court bench behind him," Carter wrote in a statement released Wednesday. "It is fair to say that the halls of Vanity Fair will be lonelier without him and that, indeed, we will not see his like anytime soon, if ever again."

Earlier this summer, Dunne was well enough to attend a Manhattan party hosted by Tina Brown. Chatting with an Associated Press reporter, he spoke of Michael Jackson, who had recently died, and remembered lunching with the singer and Elizabeth Taylor. Jackson was so excited to see her, Dunne said, he presented her with a diamond necklace just for the occasion.

Dunne was part of a famous family that also included his brother, novelist and screenwriter John Gregory Dunne; his brother's wife, author Joan Didion; and his son.

A one-time movie producer, Dunne carved a new career starting in the 1980s as a chronicler of the problems of the wealthy and powerful.

Tragedy struck his life in 1982 when his actress daughter, Dominique, was slain - and that experience informed his fiction and his journalistic efforts from then on.

"If you go through what I went through, losing my daughter, you have strong, strong feelings of revenge," Dunne said in 1990 in discussing his novel "People Like Us," in which the protagonist shoots the man convicted of killing his daughter.

"As a novelist, I could create a situation in which I could do in the book what I couldn't do in real life. I intended for Gus (the character in the book) to kill the guy. But when I got to that part I couldn't write it. He wounds him and goes to prison himself for a couple of years."

He was as successful as a journalist as he was as a novelist and spent many of his later years in courtrooms covering high profile trials. Writing for Vanity Fair, he covered such cases as the William Kennedy Smith rape trial in 1991 and the trial of Erik and Lyle Menendez, accused of murdering their millionaire parents, in 1993.

"You're talking about kids who had everything - the cars, the tennis courts, swimming pools, credit cards. And yet this happened," he said at the time of the Menendez trial.

As much as those trials riveted the nation, they were far overshadowed in 1994 when football great O.J. Simpson was accused of killing his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. With a trial that stretched out over a year and cable TV outlets providing endless coverage, the bespectacled Dunne became a familiar face to millions.

"I especially like to watch the jurors," Dunne explained to Fox TV during the trial. "I always pick out about four jurors who become my favorites. I sort of try to anticipate what they are thinking and how they are reacting."

He called his book on the Simpson trial, "Another City, Not My Own,""a novel in the form of a memoir." It, too, reached the best-seller lists.

"Every word is true, but it's written in the style of a novel," he said.

From the gritty world of the courtroom during the day, he would move into the glamorous realm of high society at night, dining with the rich and famous, charming them with his inside stories of the Simpson trial.

He was a colorful raconteur and his stories mesmerized listeners. He was a much sought after dinner guest on both coasts and in the glamour capitals of Europe where he frequently traveled. He was a regular at the Cannes Film Festival, interviewing members of royalty and movie stars.

His assignments took him to London to cover the inquest into Princess Diana's death and to Monaco to look into the mysterious death of billionaire Edmond Safra.

He continued appearing regularly on television, and in 2002 debuted a weekly program on Court TV, "Power, Privilege and Justice."

"I am openly pro-prosecution and make no bones about it," he told the San Francisco Chronicle that year. "I don't think there are enough people out there sticking up for victims."

The show gave him an added dose of celebrity when it was distributed in foreign countries.

He had already been working on "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles," a fictionalized retelling of a sensational 1950s society murder, when his 22-year-old daughter Dominique was strangled by her former boyfriend, John Sweeney, in 1982, shortly after she had completed her first movie, "Poltergeist."

Sweeney was convicted only of voluntary manslaughter, not murder, and was freed after serving less than four years of a six-year sentence. The verdict was seen as a major victory for the defense, and Dunne bitterly told the judge in court, "you withheld important information from this jury about this man's history of violent behavior." He later told the Los Angeles Times the sentence was "a tap on the wrist."

In a 1985 AP interview, Dunne said he nearly stopped writing when Dominique was slain.

"I was going to stop the book," Dunne said. "I didn't want to do a book that dealt with a murder. But my book editor wouldn't let me quit. She was incredibly sympathetic and lenient on time. I'm glad now that she didn't let me quit."

"People Like Us" and "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles" were both turned into miniseries, and he stressed he had nothing to do with the changes the TV scriptwriters made.

"If I had wanted it that way, I would have written it that way," Dunne told TV Guide, referring to changes made in the key character in "People Like Us" to make him more sympathetic.

Among his other books were the 1993 "A Season in Purgatory," that helped revive interest in the 1975 slaying of teenager Martha Moxley in Greenwich, Conn. A Kennedy relative, Michael Skakel, was convicted in the killing in 2002.

He also wrote "An Inconvenient Woman" and "The Mansions of Limbo."

In 1999, Dunne published a memoir called, "The Way We Lived Then," a compilation of photographs of him and his family with famous people and his recollections of the glamour life he and his wife Lenny enjoyed for many years.

Dunne was born in 1925 in Hartford, Conn., to a wealthy Roman Catholic family and grew up in some of the same social circles as the Kennedys. In his memoir, he traced his fascination with Hollywood to a childhood trip he took "out West" with an aunt. They took one of those home of the stars bus tours and he vowed to come back and be part of the glamorous world he had glimpsed.

He served in the Army during World War II and graduated from Williams College in 1949.

While in the Army, he was awarded the Bronze Star for heroism in 1944 for carrying two wounded men to safety at the Battle of Merz in Feisberg, Germany.

He wrote that, "Winning a medal was the only thing I can ever remember doing that won any admiration from my father."

At Williams College in Massachusetts, he and a fellow student, Stephen Sondheim, appeared in plays together. After college, he went to New York where he landed a job in the fledgling TV industry as stage manager of the "Howdy Doody" children's show. NBC brought him to Hollywood to stage manage the famous TV version of "The Petrified Forest' with Humphrey Bogart.

Among his credits as a producer were the TV series "Adventures in Paradise" and "The Boys in the Band," a pioneering 1970 drama about gay life. Two of his films, "The Panic in Needle Park" and "Play It As It Lays," were written or co-written by his brother John and sister-in-law Didion.

He was invited to celebrity parties and said he decided then, "This is how I want to live."

But Dunne said his years living the high life in Hollywood left him divorced, broke and addicted, and he moved to a cabin in Oregon to dry out and to start over as a novelist. While his brother was the famous Dunne at that time, the Times said, "nowadays, (Dominick) Dunne is far better known."

John Gregory Dunne died in 2003.

Dunne and his wife, Ellen Griffin Dunne, known as Lenny, were married in 1954. They divorced in the 1960s but he wrote that afterward they remained close nonetheless. She died in 1997.

Beside Dominique, they had two sons, Alexander and Griffin. Griffin has acted in such films as "An American Werewolf in London" and "After Hours." He branched into directing and producing as well, with "Fierce People" and "Practical Magic" among his credits.

---

Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch in Los Angeles and AP National Writer Hillel Italie in New York contributed to this report.

[Joeylc]

Hard to believe they just aren't dying fast enough.

Shouldn't we be out of them by now?

WTF??

It not like they were a Chevy Nova....

What, No compassion for the dead?

I just reposted from http://www.stiffs.com/recentdeaths.cfm#bottom ....  not my words ...

[StatFreak]

Hard to believe they just aren't dying fast enough.

Shouldn't we be out of them by now?

WTF??

It not like they were a Chevy Nova....

What, No compassion for the dead?

I see that Joey beat me to the response, but I wanted to add that that site is completely irreverent and without any respect whatsoever. They have a cash contest every year to predict who will die: now that, they take seriously. (check out the legal page: http://www.stiffs.com/09legal.html  He even has a clause stating that entrants will be disqualified for being charged with criminal violations connected with any celebrity on any of its lists. I guess he doesn't want his contestants fixing the contest by shooting celebrities! )  It appears that the site owner has taken in $11,295 in entry fees this year alone, and is only giving out $3,940 in cash and prizes, leaving him with a nice little profit of at least $7,355. (It's actually more, because the tee-shirts and mugs cost him less than retail and are tax-deductible as business advertising expenses.) I would have thought that it would be illegal, as it seems to me to be a sweepstakes of sorts, but I guess that he gets away with it because the users are supposed to use their research skills to make their lists.

Still, one has to admit that some of the joke remarks that they use for the deceased are darned funny, if not original. For example, under Les Paul's name they used the joke "No Les, No more," which they stole directly from a real headstone in Tombstone Arizona's cemetery, which I've personally seen and photographed.