List of premature obituaries

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This is an incomplete list, which may never be able to satisfy certain standards for completeness. Revisions and sourced additions are welcome.

Pope John Paul II received three premature obituaries

A premature obituary occurs when someone's death is reported while they are still alive. Many people have received premature obituaries, including:

• Alfred Nobel (inventor of dynamite), whose premature obituary condemning him as a 'merchant of death' may have caused him to create the Nobel Prize;
• Pope John Paul II, reported dead on four separate occasions - the first three were erroneous;
• Marcus Garvey (Black nationalist), whose actual death was apparently caused by reading his premature obituary - which was thus a self-fulfilling prophecy;
• John Stonehouse, a British politician who faked his own suicide in order to start a new life in Australia;
• Mark Twain's famous (and often misquoted) comment "The report of my death is an exaggeration" did not, contrary to popular belief, refer to a published obituary - though on another occasion the New York Times did report him missing at sea.

This article lists the recipients of incorrect death reports (not just formal obituaries) from publications, media organisations, official bodies, and widely-used information sources such as Internet Movie Database; but not mere rumours of deaths. Ill-founded reports that someone is 'probably dead' are also included.

[edit] Causes

The premature obituaries listed below reveal several common causes for them:

• Hoax: though the hoaxer is usually unknown, it is often either a radio DJ (who may be subsequently fired), or the subject of the obituary himself (as a prank, or as pseudocide).
• Brush with death: when the subject unexpectedly survives a serious illness or accident.
• Name confusion: where someone with an identical or similar name has died. Usually the subject of the obituary is famous, and the real victim is not.
• Pressing the wrong button: accidental release of a pre-written obituary, usually on a news web site, as a result of technical or human error. The most egregious example was when CNN accidentally released draft obituaries for no fewer than seven major world figures.
• Misidentified body: occasionally a disfigured corpse (e.g. from a road accident) is misidentified as someone else who happened to go missing at the same time.
• Misunderstandings: such as when a Sky News employee thought that an internal rehearsal for the future death of the Queen Mother was for real.

[edit] Multiple recipients

Celebrities sometimes receive obituaries from more than one media outlet arising from the same error. However, on two separate occasions pre-written obituaries of entertainer Bob Hope were accidentally released on news web sites. Pope John Paul II is the only known triple recipient.

Though writer Mark Twain was twice feared dead by newspapers, only one of these was published, and even then it was not stated categorically that he was dead. There are unverified reports that actor Abe Vigoda received a second premature obituary (when he was referred to as 'the late Abe Vigoda' on television); he says there was a widespread belief throughout the 1980s that he was dead, which cost him work.

Contents
Top - 0–9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z - The CNN.com incident - References - External links

[edit] A

• Alan Abel (prankster and musician), who staged his own death in a skiing accident as an elaborate hoax in 1980 to get his obituary published in the The New York Times.^[1]
• Anthony John Allen faked his own suicide by drowning off Beachy Head (Britain's most popular suicide spot) in 1966 to escape prosecution for theft. He swum round the coast, retrieved dry clothes that he had hidden, and took up a new identity. However, his crimes continued, including further thefts and bigamy. In 2002 he was jailed for life for having murdered his wife and children in 1975.^[2]
• Nancy Allen: the RoboCop actress was reported on Internet Movie Database to have died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Florida on October 12, 2006. Allen herself refuted the claim.^[3]

[edit] B

• William Baer, a New York University professor, whose obituary was published in the New York Times in 1942 as a result of a hoax by his students.^[4]
• John Basedow: the fitness instructor was reported by PRWeb to be missing in Thailand following the December 2004 tsunami, and 'feared deceased'. This was later retracted, and Basedow denied even being in Thailand at the time.^[5]
• Pope Benedict XV, whose pneumonia in January 1922 caused worldwide expectation of his impending death. His death was prematurely announced by a New York newspaper with the front-page headline "Pope Benedict XV is dead", followed by a later edition headlined "Pope has remarkable recovery." However, the Pope did subsequently die of the illness on January 22.^[6]
• Lucien Bouchard: the former Quebec premier (who had been seriously ill) was reported dead by CTV in September 2005. The station began broadcasting a live tribute to the politician, but cut it short with a sheepish confirmation that he was in fact alive and well, blaming Radio-Canada for the error. CTV and Radio-Canada continued to blame each other thereafter.^[7]
• James Brady, White House Press Secretary, was shot in the head in the 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. Three hours later, amid confusion about the extent of his injuries, Dan Rather announced on CBS that Brady had died.^[8] This led to greater subsequent caution about issuing death reports during rapidly-developing situations.^[9]
• Rodger Bumpass (voice actor), reported in August 2006 to have died during heart surgery, by Jonesboro, Arkansas station KAIT-TV, the Internet Movie Database, and Arkansas State University's newsletter.^[10] This was apparently due to confusion with the 2005 death of a (differently spelled) Roger Bumpass.

[edit] C

• Janelle Cahoon: in December 2005, the Duluth News Tribune claimed that the Benedictine nun's funeral had been shown in a 1999 documentary. The mistake caused much amusement at her monastery, with some sisters asking her what heaven was like, and others referring to the incident as 'Dead Nun Walking'.^[11]
• Graham Cardwell, a Lincolnshire dockmaster who disappeared in September 1998 and was assumed drowned. Eight months later he was discovered living in secret in the West Midlands. He claimed he had thought he was suffering from cancer (though had not sought medical attention) and wanted to spare his family the trauma of it.^[12]
• Fidel Castro (Cuban leader) in the CNN.com incident. The draft obituary, which had used Ronald Reagan's as a template, described Castro as 'lifeguard, athlete, movie star'.
• Dick Cheney (US politician) in the CNN.com incident. The draft obituary, which had been based on the Queen Mother's, described Cheney as 'Queen Consort' and the 'UK's favorite grandmother'.
• Kurt Cobain: the rock musician was reported dead by CNN (though was in fact in a coma) after an overdose in Rome in March 1994, shortly before his suicide.^[13]
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge: in 1816 the writer heard his name mentioned in a hotel by a man reading out a newspaper report of a coroner's inquest. He asked to see the paper, and was told that "it was very extraordinary that Coleridge the poet should have hanged himself just after the success of his play [Remorse]; but he was always a strange mad fellow". Coleridge replied: "Indeed, sir, it is a most extraordinary thing that he should have hanged himself, be the subject of an inquest, and yet that he should at this moment be speaking to you." A man had been cut down from a tree in Hyde Park, and the only identification was that his shirt was marked 'S. T. Coleridge'; Coleridge thought the shirt had probably been stolen.^[14]
• Alice Cooper: in the early 1970s, Melody Maker magazine confused readers by publishing a satirical concert review of the rock musician in the form of a mock obituary. So many fans took it literally that Cooper had to issue a statement, reassuring them: "I'm alive, and drunk as usual."^[15]

[edit] D

• Lord Desborough in 1920, when The Times confused him with Lord Bessborough.^[16]
• Joe DiMaggio (baseball player), broadcast by NBC in January 1999 as a text report running along the bottom of the television screen. The text, which DiMaggio saw himself, had been pre-prepared following newspaper reports that DiMaggio was near death, and was transmitted when a technician pressed the wrong button.^[17]
• Ian Dury (musician), pronounced dead on XFM radio by Bob Geldof in 1998, possibly due to hoax information from a listener disgruntled at the station's change of ownership. The incident caused music paper NME to call Geldof "the world's worst DJ."^[18]

[edit] F

• Dorothy Fay (film actress, also called Dorothy Southworth Ritter), was declared dead in an August 2001 Daily Telegraph obituary. Mrs Ritter, who lived in a nursing home, had been taken to another room temporarily when a friend stopped by to visit. On hearing that Mrs Ritter was "gone", the friend telephoned the Telegraph obituary editor.^[19]
• Will Ferrell (comedian), reported by iNewswire to have died in a paragliding accident in March 2006. The press release was a hoax; Ferrell has never been paragliding.^[20]
• Sebastiao Fidelis: a Brazilian man whose supposed body was identified by his wife and buried in 2001 after he had been missing for two months. A year later he was found wandering in the area, having lost his memory.^[21]
• Gerald Ford (former US President) in the CNN.com incident.

[edit] G

• Marcus Garvey: after suffering a stroke in January 1940, the Black nationalist read his obituary in the Chicago Defender which described him as "broke, alone and unpopular". Apparently as a result, Garvey suffered a second stroke and died. The premature obituary thus turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.^[22]
• Frank Gorshin (The Riddler from Batman): in 1957, after driving to a screentest for 39 hours without a break to avoid having to fly, the actor fell asleep at the wheel and crashed. A Los Angeles newspaper reported him dead. Gorshin was unconscious for four days, and the role went to another actor.^[23]
• Robert Graves: the writer was left for dead in 1916 after receiving life-threatening injuries at the Battle of the Somme. He made a remarkable recovery, and read a report of his death in The Times.^[24]
• Friedrich Gulda (pianist), who in 1999 faxed the Austrian News Agency claiming he had died of a stroke at Zurich airport. Shortly afterwards he announced he was still alive and would be giving a 'Resurrection Recital', which was accompanied by go-go dancers. (He often played pranks to annoy the musical establishment.)^[25]
• Dominic Guzzetta: in November 2005, the former University of Akron president was reported by the Akron Beacon Journal to have been 'posthumously honored' at a fundraising event. Prior to this, he had joked for years that he reads the obituaries to check his name isn't in them.^[26]

[edit] H

• Ernest Hemingway: after the author and his wife Mary Welsh Hemingway were involved in two African plane crashes in 1954, newspapers reported that both had died. Hemingway suffered extensive injuries which affected him for the rest of his life.^[27]
• Michael Heseltine MP in 1994, when then-DJ Chris Morris implied on BBC Radio 1 (as a prank) that the British politician had died. This led to an on-air tribute by fellow MP Jerry Hayes (during which Morris managed to make Hayes laugh inappropriately), and Morris's subsequent suspension. (See also Jimmy Savile.)^[28]
• Carl Hilderbrandt: a British businessman who jumped bail in 1990 on theft charges and faked his suicide by drowning. He started a new life in America, but years later was identified by a British tourist and eventually prosecuted.^[29]
• Cockie Hoogterp, the second wife of Baron Blixen, was declared dead in a 1936 Daily Telegraph obituary after the Baron's third wife died in an auto accident. (The Baron's first wife was the writer Isak Dinesen). Mrs. Hoogterp sent all her bills back marked "Deceased" and ordered the Telegraph to print that "Mrs. Hoogterp wishes it to be known that she has not yet been screwed in her coffin." ^[30]
• Bob Hope, twice (aided by his great longevity). In both cases a pre-written obituary of the entertainer was accidentally published on a news web site:

1. In 1998 his obituary appeared on the Associated Press web site, leading to the announcement of his death in the United States House of Representatives, broadcast live on CSPAN.^[31]
2. In the 2003 CNN.com incident. Hope's draft obituary, which had used the Queen Mother's as a template, described him as 'Queen Consort' and the 'UK's favorite grandmother'.

• Mr Hopkins: this resident of Brentwood, Essex (first name unknown) was incorrectly reported by the Brentwood Gazette to have died of cancer in August 2006.^[32]
• William Hung: in 2004, a satirical news report on the Broken Newz web site claiming that the American Idol contestant had died of a heroin overdose was widely believed, forcing Hung to issue a denial.^[33]

[edit] J

• Pope John Paul II is the only known triple recipient:

1. Immediately after his 1981 assassination attempt, despite heightened caution due to CBS's embarrassing premature obituary of James Brady only weeks earlier, CNN implied the Pope had died by repeatedly referring to him in the past tense.^[34]
2. In 2003, by CNN again, this time in the CNN.com incident. The draft obituary, which had used the Queen Mother's as a template, noted the Pope's 'love of racing'.
3. On the eve of his actual death on April 1, 2005, Fox News claimed he had died after receiving incorrect reports from the Italian media that his ECG had gone flat.^[35]

• James Earl Jones (voice of Darth Vader): in 1998 the actor was erroneously pronounced dead during a radio broadcast of a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game by play-by-play man Lanny Frattare; Frattare had confused the actor with James Earl Ray, Martin Luther King's assassin, who had just died.^[36]
• Raid Juhi: in March 2005 the presiding judge in the trial of Saddam Hussein was incorrectly reported by NBC News to have been assassinated. The real victims were another trial judge, Barbweez Mahmood, and his son. NBC blamed incorrect information from US officials.^[37]

[edit] K

• Rudyard Kipling: the writer's death was reported in a magazine, to which he wrote: "I've just read that I am dead. Don't forget to delete me from your list of subscribers."^[38]
• Larry Kramer: in December 2001, the gay rights activist was reported dead by Associated Press following a liver transplant.^[39]

[edit] L

• Artie Lange, comedian from the Howard Stern Show, was reported dead in May, 2004 by KLAS-TV in Las Vegas. The show was being broadcast from Las Vegas, and Stern show prank caller Captain Janks capitalized on Artie's debauched reputation by telling the news station that he was a representative from the Hard Rock Hotel, and that Artie had been found dead in his hotel room.^[40]
• Titan Leeds, publisher of an almanac competing with Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac. Franklin had repeatedly predicted the death of Leeds in his publication, and when the date of Leeds' supposed passing had come and gone, published Leeds' obituary anyway. (See the somewhat similar case of John Partridge below.)^[41]

[edit] M

• Nelson Mandela (South African leader) in the CNN.com incident.
• Gabriel García Márquez (writer), reported dead by Peruvian daily La Republica in 2000. ^[42]
• Mary Mather, a paediatrician who was reported dead in December 2004 by the General Medical Council after confusion with another person of the same name.^[43]
• Jerry Mathers: rumours that the Leave it to Beaver actor had been killed in Vietnam spread to newspapers by December 1969. (Claims that Associated Press and United Press International put out the story, and that it arose from confusion with the death of another soldier called Mathers, appear to be false.)^[44]
• Victor Mature (film actor), reported dead in at least one film book.^[45]
• Paul McCartney (musician) was proclaimed dead in 1969 by a caller to radio DJ Russ Gibb's show on WKNR-FM in Detroit. A few days later New York DJ Roby Yonge was fired for discussing McCartney's possible death on a late-night show. These and other incidents led to interminable rumors that McCartney's supposed death (hinted at by a trail of clues in various Beatles songs) had been covered up and he had been replaced by a look-alike.^[46]
• Thomas Menino: as an April Fool's Day prank in 1998, shock jocks Opie and Anthony claimed on WAAF-FM radio that the Boston mayor had died in a car accident. As a result they were fired, but received huge support from fans and were hired shortly afterwards by a more popular New York station.^[47]

[edit] N

• Jayaprakash Narayan: the politician's death was erroneously announced by India's prime minister in 1979, causing a brief wave of national mourning, including the suspension of parliament and regular radio broadcasting, and closure of schools and shops. The mistake arose when the director of the Intelligence Bureau saw a body looking like Narayan being carried from hospital.^[48]
• Alfred Nobel (inventor of dynamite and arms manufacturer): in 1888, the death of his brother Ludvig caused several newspapers to publish obituaries of Alfred in error. A French obituary stated Le marchand de la mort est mort ("The merchant of death is dead") and that Nobel "became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before".^[49] It is sometimes said that Nobel's unhappiness with the obituaries prompted his founding of the Nobel Prize in order to improve his posthumous legacy, though it is not clear whether this is true. (Incidentally, in addition to Nobel himself, several Nobel Prize winners have also received premature obituaries, including Bertrand Russell, Nelson Mandela and Harold Pinter.)

[edit] O

• Maureen O'Hara: the film actress was listed as dead on the Internet Movie Database in 1998, apparently due to confusion with Maureen O'Sullivan.^[50]
• Sharon Osbourne: in October 2004, a draft obituary of rock star Ozzy Osbourne's wife was accidentally published on the ABC News web site due to a technical error.^[51]

[edit] P

• Eduardo Paolozzi: the artist's death was incorrectly reported in a magazine when he suffered a near-fatal stroke in 2001.^[52]
• John Partridge, an astrologer whose death Jonathan Swift (writing under a pseudonym) 'predicted' in a 1708 hoax almanac and later 'confirmed', prompting numerous anti-Partridge newspaper obituaries. (See also Titan Leeds.)^[53]
• Vuk Peric, a Serbian pensioner who put his own death notice in the newspaper in 1997 to see who would turn up to his funeral. After watching the funeral from a distance, he revealed himself and thanked everyone for attending.^[54]
• Samy Pillai, a Malaysian man who was certified dead in June 2005 after his wrecked motorcycle was found near an unidentifiable body. In March 2007 it was discovered that he had in fact survived the accident when he was found 300km away, partly paralysed and unable to speak; his identity was confirmed by thumbprints. It was not know what he had been doing in the intervening two years.^[55]
• Harold Pinter: on 13 October 2005 the writer was reported dead on Sky News; this was rapidly corrected to say that he had won the Nobel Prize for literature. (Pinter had been suffering from cancer, and had also recently fallen and injured his head, which may have caused confusion as to the reason he was in the news.)^[56]
• Velupillai Prabhakaran: the Tamil Tiger leader was reported by the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation as being among the dead or missing in the December 2004 tsunami. This was taken by many to suggest that he was specifically dead. The corporation later retracted the report.^[57]

[edit] Q

• Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother's death was erroneously announced in the Australian media in 1993 after a London-based Sky News employee saw an internal rehearsal for her future death (one of many conducted by the UK media over the years). Thinking it was for real, he phoned his mother in Australia with the 'news', who passed it on to the media.^[58] The time zone difference may have made it difficult for the Australian media to check the story during UK night-time. The employee was sacked for the mistake, but then won a tribunal for wrongful dismissal. (Fragments of the Queen Mother's life history also appeared in several other world figures' premature obituaries in the CNN.com incident.)

[edit] R

• Ronald Reagan (former US President), in the CNN.com incident. CNN also included fragments of Reagan's life history in a premature obituary of Fidel Castro in the same incident.
• Daniel Reddout, 17-year-old resident of Rochester, Minnesota, whose death notice was published in the Waterloo Cedar-Falls Courier in December 2005 saying he had died after surgery. Police investigated after Reddout was spotted in a local restaurant a week later. The boy's mother offered a curious explanation: "I had let my boyfriend know he was doing very, very badly at the hospital, and jokingly I said that he had passed away, and he took upon himself to put the obituary in". The obituary requested memorial payments to be made to the family; police suspected fraud.^[59]
• Lou Reed (musician), by numerous US radio stations in 2001, caused by a hoax email (purporting to be from Reuters) which said he had died of an overdose.^[60]
• Adam Rich: the television actor was reported to have been murdered in a 1996 tribute issue of Might magazine. It was all an elaborate hoax by the magazine's editor Dave Eggers in collusion with Rich, and was intended to satirize the media exploitation of stars who die young.^[61][62]
• Amnon Rubinstein, Israeli academic and retired politician, whose death was announced in 1999 by Knesset (parliamentary) speaker Avraham Burg following a hoax telephone call. Rubinstein was in hospital at the time for a minor complaint.^[63]
• Bertrand Russell: the philosopher was reported dead in the Japanese press in 1920 when he was suffering from pneumonia. ^[64] Some sources say the reports were a deliberate form of revenge by Japanese journalists who Russell had refused to meet due to his illness. His supposed death may also have been reported in The Times. (It is also sometimes said that by way of apology, The Times allowed Russell to pre-write his own obituary for publication on his actual death. But the obituary^[65] does not read as if it could be by him; the confusion may be that in 1937 he wrote an imaginary Times obituary for his own entertainment, which is briefly quoted at the end of his obituary in the New York Times^[66].)

[edit] S

• Jimmy Savile (broadcaster) in 1994, when then-DJ Chris Morris announced on BBC Radio 1 (as a joke) that he had collapsed and died. Savile began legal action against Morris. (See also Michael Heseltine.)^[67]
• Terri Schiavo: a draft of the brain damaged patient's obituary appeared briefly on CBS's web site in advance of her death.^[68]
• Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (historian): his death was referred to in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on November 29, 2005. The newspaper retracted the reference on December 2, saying, "We are embarrassed but happy for Mr Schlesinger."^[69]
• Katharine Sergava (Oklahoma! actress & dancer), whose obituary was published in 2003 in the Daily Telegraph and a few days later in the New York Times. The latter newspaper blamed the former for the mistake.^[70]
• Sinbad: on March 14, 2007 the American actor and comedian's biography on Wikipedia was altered (presumably as a hoax) to say that he had died of a heart attack that morning. Though this was corrected about an hour later, Sinbad subsequently received numerous enquiries as to his well-being. The incident was widely reported by Associated Press.^[71]
• Richard Paul Smith, 21-year-old resident of Norristown, Pennsylvania, who was reported by the Norristown Times Herald as having been killed in a hit-and-run accident in October 2006, after confusion with another Richard Smith.^[72]
• Britney Spears and boyfriend Justin Timberlake (musicians) were reported to have died in a car crash by two Texas DJs as a joke in 2001. The radio station (KEGL) was sued and the DJs were fired. The car crash story is thought to have originated as a rumour on the Internet.^[73]
• John Stonehouse MP: the British politician faked his own suicide (by drowning in Miami) in order to escape financial difficulties and marry his mistress. He was subsequently discovered in Australia - where initially police thought he might be Lord Lucan - and imprisoned.^[74]
• Dave Swarbrick: the folk musician's obituary was published in the Daily Telegraph in April 1999, prompting the quip: "It's not the first time I have died in Coventry."^[75]

[edit] T

• Justin Timberlake: see Britney Spears.
• Mark Twain: on two occasions the writer was erroneously feared dead, though it appears that in neither case was a report published stating categorically that he was dead:

1. In 1897 a journalist was sent to enquire after Twain's health, thinking he was near to death; in fact it was his cousin who was very ill. Though (contrary to popular belief) no obituary was published, Twain recounted the event in the New York Journal of June 2, 1897, including his famous words "The report of my death is an exaggeration" (which is usually misquoted).^[76][77][78]
2. On May 4, 1907, when people lost track of a yacht he was travelling on, the New York Times published an article saying he might have been lost at sea.^[79] In fact, the yacht had been held up by fog, and Twain had disembarked. Twain read the article, and cleared up the story by writing a humorous account in the New York Times the following day.^[80]

[edit] V

• Paul Vance, composer of the song Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, following the September 2006 death of a man called Paul Van Valkenburgh who had told his wife he was the famous songwriter. The widespread reports, originating from Associated Press, even caused racehorses owned by Vance to be scratched from races.^[81]
• Edison Vicuna, an Ecuadorian man who went missing for three days in 2002 and was thought dead; a disfigured body from a car crash was misidentified as his. Vicuna showed up to his own funeral, drunk; mourners screamed and fainted.^[82]
• Abe Vigoda (actor): in 1982, People magazine referred to him as 'the late Abe Vigoda'. He then posed for a photograph showing him sitting up in a coffin, holding the magazine in question. Vigoda claims that during the 1980's the widespread belief that he was dead cost him work.^[83] The fact that Vigoda is often assumed to be dead has become something of a running joke, such as in television sketches. An unofficial web site, abevigoda.com, continuously provides Vigoda's 'current status' (alive or dead) to avoid doubt in future.

[edit] W

• Harry S. Weed, the inventor of Weed non-skid tire chains, was reported dead in numerous publications (including TIME magazine and the New York Herald Tribune) in 1927 after a reporter for the Jackson, Michigan Citizen Patriot wrote that the recently-deceased Mrs Alice Weed from Jackson had been the inventor's widow. It later emerged that Alice Weed was no relation, and that both the inventor and his wife were alive and well.^[84]
• Alan Whicker (journalist), while reporting on the Korean war. He was flying with an aerial spotter in a Piper Aztec airplane behind enemy lines, as part of a story. His plane landed safely, but a similar craft was shot down on the same day, and was assumed to be Whicker's plane. The resulting newspaper obituary commented on his lack of achievement. ^[85]
• James McNeill Whistler: the artist was reported dead by a Dutch newspaper following a heart attack. Whistler wrote to the newspaper, saying that reading his own obituary induced a "tender glow of health."^[86]
• Edward Osborne Wilson (biologist and environmentalist), listed as dead in a 2005 San Francisco Chronicle article.^[87]
• Mara Wilson (actress) was listed as dead on the Internet Movie Database in 2000, with the cause being "broken neck".^[88]

[edit] The CNN.com incident

Multiple premature obituaries came to light on April 16, 2003, when it was discovered that pre-written draft memorials to several world figures were available on the development area of the CNN website without requiring a password (and may have been accessible for some time before).^[89] The pages included tributes to Fidel Castro, Dick Cheney, Bob Hope, Gerald Ford, Pope John Paul II, and Ronald Reagan.

Some of these obituaries contained fragments taken from others, particularly from Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother's obituary, which had apparently been used as a template. Dick Cheney for example was described as the 'UK's favorite grandmother', the site noted the Pope's 'love of racing', and described Castro as 'lifeguard, athlete, movie star' (a reference to Ronald Reagan). As it happens the Queen Mother was already dead, though in an unrelated incident she had previously received a premature obituary of her own (see above).

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Obituary
• Pseudocide - when someone fakes their own death

[edit] External links

• Dead People Server - database of dead celebrities; includes list of people incorrectly rumoured to be dead
• Dead or Alive - allows you to check whether famous people of all kinds are dead or alive
• Regret the Error - reports media errors of all kinds, especially in North America
• Snopes - urban legends, including people rumoured to be dead
• Reggie Online - people who have faked their own deaths (or otherwise turned out to be unexpectedly alive)
• Smoking Gun page about the CNN incident