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A premature obituary occurs when someone's death is reported while they are still alive. Such situations have various causes, such as hoaxes or mix-ups over names, and usually produce great embarrassment or sometimes more dramatic consequences. Examples range from arms manufacturer Alfred Nobel, whose premature obituary condemning him as a 'merchant of death' may have caused him to create the Nobel Prize[1], to black nationalist Marcus Garvey, whose actual death was apparently caused by reading his own obituary.[2]
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. People who were presumed (though not categorically declared) to be dead, and joke death reports that were widely believed, are also included.
Causes
Each premature obituary listed below has one of the following causes (where the cause is known):
- Brush with death: when the subject unexpectedly survives a serious illness or accident which made them appear to be dead or certain to die.
- 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.
- Prank: though the prankster is usually unknown, it is often either a radio DJ (who is typically fired as a result), or the subject of the obituary himself.
- Pseudocide: when the subject fakes his own death in order to evade legal, financial or marital difficulties and start a new life. This usually involves a fake drowning, as it provides a plausible reason why no body was found.
- 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, in 2003, CNN accidentally released draft obituaries for no fewer than seven major world figures.
- Impostor: when an ordinary person who for years has passed himself off to family and friends as a retired minor celebrity dies, it can prompt an erroneous obituary for the real (but still-living) celebrity.
- Missing in action: soldiers who go missing in war are sometimes incorrectly declared dead if no body is found. In particular, a number of Japanese soldiers thought to have died in World War II in fact survived - typically hiding in remote jungle for years or even decades, believing that the war had not ended.
- Misidentified body: when a corpse (often from a road crash) is misidentified as someone else who was involved in the same incident or who happened to go missing at the same time.
- Land theft victims: many people from Uttar Pradesh, India have been registered dead by officials who are bribed by relatives who want to steal the victim's land. The ensuing legal disputes often continue for many years, with victims growing elderly and sometimes dying in reality before they are resolved. (See Association of the Dead).
- Misunderstandings: such as when a Sky News employee thought that an internal rehearsal for the future death of the Queen Mother was for real.
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 recipient of three separate death reports.
Though writer Mark Twain was twice feared dead by newspapers, on only one of these occasions did they report that he might be 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.
Humphrey the Downing Street cat was twice feared dead by politicians and the media: once when he went missing for three months, and a second time following allegations that he had been killed by Cherie Blair.
Cricketer Frederick Fane and his father each independently received a premature obituary.
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- 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.[3]
- Jonathan Agnew: in January 2007, this alumnus of Cambridge University heard that his death had recently been reported in the Trinity Record (presumably a newsletter of Trinity College, Cambridge). He contacted the Record saying he had apparently also been removed from its mailing list, and requested a copy of the obituary so he could check and if necessary correct it.[4]
- Ali Hassan al-Majid ('Chemical Ali'): in April 2003, obituaries of the Iraqi general and politician were published in many newspapers after British and US officials reported that he had died in an air strike in Basra. He had been seen going into the building that was attacked, and corpses of his bodyguards were positively identified, though there was less certainty about the identity of al-Majid's supposed corpse. Reports then circulated that he had escaped by boat, and subsequently been seen joking with staff in a hospital in Baghdad. Al-Majid was captured several months later, and sentenced to death in 2007 for war crimes.[5]
- Anthony John Allen, a serial criminal, faked his own suicide by drowning off Beachy Head (Britain's most notorious suicide spot) in 1966 to escape prosecution for theft, presumably resulting in his being declared dead. In fact he swam around 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.[6]
- Nancy Allen: the Carrie and 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.[7]
- Rex Alston (sports commentator, journalist and sportsman): when The Times updated its internal obituary file for him in 1985, it was accidentally published as an obituary. Alston remarried the following year (aged 85), thus having the unusual distinction of having his marriage announced in The Times after his obituary. He lived until 1994. [8]
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