News has surfaced in the past few weeks that Harper Lee, author of To Kill A Mockingbird, has written a followup to her classic novel that might or might not be published. My response to this was, I presume the same as many others, absolute astonishment: What? Harper Lee is still alive?! I was floored. And it brings to mind my most favorite morbid pub game: Dead or Alive? The rules are simple: One person throws out a name and everybody else has to venture a guess as to whether he or she is dead or alive. The objective is to stump as many people as possible. Let's play, shall we? Since we are only together in cyberspace and not at a pub, I will suggest all the people. You can guess and see how many you get right.
The list:
2. Michael Dukakis: Alive
3. Shirley Temple: Dead
4. J.D. Salinger: Dead
7. Pat Benatar: Alive
9. Louis Armstrong: Dead
11. George Peppard: Dead
12. Mary Tyler Moore: Alive
13. Dick Van Dyke: Alive
14. Bobby Fischer: Dead
17. Paul Hogan: Alive
18. Boris Yeltsin: Dead
19. Mikhail Gorbachev: Alive
[Give yourself an '80s pop culture gold star if you get this reference.]
- Gene Wilder
- Michael Dukakis
- Shirley Temple
- J.D. Salinger
- Walter Payton
- William "The Refrigerator" Perry
- Pat Benatar
- Neil Armstrong
- Louis Armstrong
- Sidney Poitier
- George Peppard
- Mary Tyler Moore
- Dick Van Dyke
- Bobby Fischer
- Joe Piscopo
- Gerald Ford
- Paul Hogan
- Boris Yeltsin
- Mikhail Gorbachev
- Tammy Faye Bakker
I'll put some carriage returns in here, so you can't see the answer immediately. Just scroll down a bit.
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1. Gene Wilder: Alive
He's 81 and has not been in a theatrical release since 1991 (Another You). He hasn't done acting of any sort since 2003, when he appeared on Will & Grace. Apparently he had a TV show in the mid-'90s, Something Wilder, that I just completely forgot about or never knew existed. Apparently he writes books now. My favorite movie of his, without question, is Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. It still holds up today (and is SO much better than the Johnny Depp version, which, frankly, was shite). I show Lil' S clips on YouTube (If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it ...), and he likes them. They're much better than Gummibär that's for sure.
[One of my favorite things about this movie is that there is a slight eerie undertone throughout it. You can hear it in this song with the chime sounds.]
2. Michael Dukakis: Alive
I know. I'm as shocked as you are. Like Wilder, he's also 81. How come he never pops up on any of these political talking heads shows?
3. Shirley Temple: Dead
Very recently dead: February, 2014. She was in her last film in 1949, and then she got into politics, serving as ambassador to Ghana under Ford and later to Czechoslovakia under the first Bush. She was basically out of the limelight the last 20 years of her life.
4. J.D. Salinger: Dead
He died fairly recently, 2010, but he was extremely reclusive and basically didn't publish anything the last 50 years of life. He's best know for The Catcher in the Rye, but my favorite story of his is "For Esmé—with Love and Squalor." I've never actually read it, but ESME is a legitimate crossword puzzle entry because of it, so I like it. Speaking of crossword puzzles, anytime I get one rejected, I'm going to remember this quote from Salinger's Wikipedia page: " He also continued to submit stories to The New Yorker, but with little success; it rejected all of his submissions from 1944 to 1946, a group of 15 poems in 1945 alone."
5. Walter Payton: Dead
Sadly, "Sweetness" is no longer with us, having died in 1999. (Damn, it's been almost 15 years!) His death somehow slid under the radar a bit. By the way, if you want to check out an awesome running back season, look at Payton in 1985. The '85 Bears were one of the best teams ever, and he basically was the entire offense. And yet in their Super Bowl blowout win, when they got the ball to the one-yard line, instead of giving the ball to Payton to get a touchdown, they gave it somebody else ...
6. William "The Refrigerator" Perry: Alive
Payton's teammate who played defensive end, occasionally moonlighting at fullback. The "funny" thing about Perry is that, at 335 pounds, he was ENORMOUS when he played and today he would be about standard size.
[How apropos is this? Perry, Payton, and Gorbachev.]
And still touring ... huh, how about that? Apparently, she is also working on novel about the second coming of Jesus Christ. That sounds ... interesting.
8. Neil Armstrong: Dead
He died of complications from a heart procedure in 2012 at age 82 -- and so too died the truth behind the "moon" landing. By the way, I went to YouTube and watched the moon landing footage for the first time ever like a month ago. Pretty crazy. It looks real to me.
9. Louis Armstrong: Dead
If he were alive today he would be 113. He died before I was born. I just threw him in there to see if you were paying attention.
10. Sidney Poitier: Alive
This one might be too easy. I forgot Obama honored him at a ceremony -- the State of the Union? -- a few years ago. His last theatrical release was The Jackal in 1997. His most famous movie is Lilies of the Field, for which he won the Best Actor Oscar. He was much before my time, as I think I've only seen two of his movies In the Heat of the Night and Sneakers. He turned 88 yesterday. Happy b'day Sid.
11. George Peppard: Dead
From the love interest in Breakfast at Tiffany's to Col. Hannibal Smith on The A-Team -- now that is range. He actually died a pretty long time ago: 1994.
12. Mary Tyler Moore: Alive
This one might also be too easy. I don't remember hearing about her in ages, but according to Wikipedia, she's somewhat active in politics/charity and was on a TV show just two years ago: Hot in Cleveland, whatever that is.
13. Dick Van Dyke: Alive
Also alive. This one surprised me much more than his former cast mate. Although apparently he was in Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb just last year, so if you saw that, this is also probably a gimme. Bonus question: Dick's brother Jerry Van Dyke (Luther Van Dam on Coach) -- dead or alive? Also alive.
14. Bobby Fischer: Dead
He "just" died in 2008, so he was alive for a long time after people forgot about him. Fischer was a weird, weird dude. He became a chess master at like 13 and was the undisputed champion of the world after his 1972 victory of Boris Spassky (that was an crazy event in and of itself). Then he joined a religious cult and basically retired until a rematch against Spassky in 1992. The match was in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in violation of U.N. sanctions, so it basically stopped Fischer from returning to the U.S. (lest he be prosecuted) and eventually led to him renouncing his American citizenship and moving to the Philippines and then to Iceland (the site of his '72 match). Always a bit off, he became a total nutcase in his old age. In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, he said "I applaud the act," and then went on to spew a bunch of anti-American, antisemitic gibberish.
15. Joe Piscopo: Alive
Alive, and he apparently has a morning radio show in New York. Huh ... I had no idea.
16. Gerald Ford: Dead
He died in 2006, but he made it all the way to 93. That's not too shabby. How many presidents are left? Five, right? Carter, Clinton, the Bushes, and Obama. I wonder what the record is for most presidents alive at once. Apparently it is six which has happened three times (thank you, Internet!).
17. Paul Hogan: Alive
And older than I thought. He's 75. Hogan deserves some credit from me. After all, I named my blog after his character. I started this thing when I moved to Australia in 2010 (it's almost been five years), and Crocodile DG, of course, is a play on Crocodile Dundee. Turns out in Australia, they are not such huge fans of Hogan. Once I was talking about Australian actors with an Australian colleague, and I brought up Hogan, and he said to me "Pfft... You guys can keep him." My colleague was also willing to give us Mel Gibson. Gee, thanks.
18. Boris Yeltsin: Dead
He died in 2007. He lives on in crossword puzzles, however, as his wife Naina makes an occasional appearance, and the clue is almost always something like "Boris' wife".
19. Mikhail Gorbachev: Alive
Wait, what? Gorbachev is still alive? Indeed he is, and he was active in politics as late as 2009. I feel like I haven't heard his name since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. (Except in crossword puzzles, where his wife, Raisa, also makes occasional appearances.) It's probably because that egoist Vladimir Putin is hogging all the headlines with his Super Bowl ring stealing and his shirtless horseback riding. I was listening to a podcast the other day about just how evil Putin is, and it made me think, you know, maybe Mitt Romney was right about the whole Russia being "our number one geopolitical foe" thing. Events over the past few years, certainly have added credence to that statement. However, it should be noted, Romney probably would have changed his position at some point anyway (he later hedged to "a geopolitical foe"). And when it comes to statements about Putin, the GOP doesn't have a lot of credibility -- not when their last president said the following: "I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul. He's a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country and I appreciate very much the frank dialogue and that's the beginning of a very constructive relationship." I can't believe George W. Bush was actually once the leader of the free world. It's surreal in retrospect.
20. Tammy Faye Bakker: Dead
She died in 2007, but her husband Jim is still alive. Bakker was a nutty right-wing fundamentalist Christian, but she was also kinda down with the gays. I think she just liked pageantry. I saw her picture on the wall of a wine bar I was at last weekend, and I had to ask the bartender (who was in the picture with her) if she was dead or alive, so I figured she was a good Dead of Alive candidate.
Well, that's it. How did you do?
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