Premature Obituaries

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.

Jonathan Agnew: in January 2007, this alumnus of Cambridge University heard that his death had recently been reported in the Trinity Record. 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.

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.

Luca Barbareschi was one of four actors (with Francesca Ciardi, Perry Pirkanen, Carl Gabriel Yorke) whom the Italian courts believed had been murdered in the making of the 1980 horror film Cannibal Holocaust. So realistic was the film that shortly after it was released its director Ruggero Deodato was arrested for murder. The actors had signed contracts to stay out of the media for a year in order to fuel rumours that the film was a snuff movie. The courts were only convinced that they were alive when the contracts were cancelled and the actors appeared on a television show as proof.

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.

Lal Bihari, Indian founder of the Association of the Dead, an organisation which highlights the plight of people in Uttar Pradesh who are incorrectly declared dead by relatives in order to steal their land, usually in collusion with corrupt officials. Bihari himself was officially dead from 1976 to 1994 as a result of his uncle's attempt to acquire his land. Among various attempts to publicize his situation and demonstrate that he was alive, he stood for election against Rajiv Gandhi in 1989 (and lost). He was awarded the Ig Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for his 'posthumous' activities.

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'.

Carlos Camejo, a Venezuelan man declared dead in September 2007 after a traffic accident, revived during his autopsy. After making an incision in his face, examiners realized something was wrong when he started bleeding. "I woke up because the pain was unbearable," Camejo said.

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'.

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 actual death.

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.'

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."

Delimar Vera Cuevas: this new-born girl was declared by police to have died in a Philadelphia house fire in 1997. Six years later her mother became suspicious when a girl at a birthday party she was attending bore similarities to her other children. Subsequent DNA tests proved the girl was Delimar. Local resident Carolyn Correa was thought to have started the fire in order to kidnap her. Police could not explain why they had originally declared Delimar dead, as no human remains had been found in the fire, which had not been intense enough to completely destroy a body.

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.

John Duns Scotus (philosopher) is said to have been accidentally buried alive - when his tomb was reopened, his body was reportedly found outside his coffin with his hands torn and bloody after attempting to escape.

Marjorie Halcrow Erskine: having presumably been declared dead, this resident of Chirnside, Scotland was buried in 1674 in a shallow grave by a sexton, who returned later to steal her jewellery. When he tried to cut off her finger to remove a ring, she awoke, and the robber fled the scene.

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.

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.

Nicephorus Glycas: in 1896, having presumably been declared dead, the Greek Orthodox bishop of Lesbos awoke in his coffin after he had been lying in state for two days. He sat up and asked what mourners were staring at.

Lincoln Hall, an Australian mountaineer who in May 2006 had to be abandoned by his Sherpa guides near the summit of Mount Everest when he became severely ill from oxygen deprivation. He was declared dead. However he was discovered alive the following morning and rescued.

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.

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.

Pope John Paul II is the only known triple recipient:
Immediately after the 1981 attempt on his life, CNN implied the Pope had died by repeatedly referring to him in the past tense.
In 2003, 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'.
On the eve of his actual death on April 1, 2005, Fox News claimed he had died after it received incorrect reports from the Italian media that his ECG had gone flat.

James Earl Jones: in 1998 the actor (voice of Darth Vader, Mufasa) was erroneously pronounced dead during a radio broadcast of a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game by play-by-play announcer Lanny Frattare; Frattare had confused him with James Earl Ray.

Kailash (surname unknown): this farm labourer from Uttar Pradesh, India was officially registered as dead by cousins in order to steal land he had inherited. He went to court, but the case was mired in legal delays, and his cousins beat him and threatened to kill him. "It is better to be dead on paper than to be really dead", he said.

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."

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.

Sipho William Mdletshe, a South African man who was thought to have died in a 1993 traffic accident. After spending two days in a metal box in a mortuary, he was freed when his cries alerted workers. However his fiancee refused to see him thereafter, believing he had turned into a zombie.

Alfred Nobel (arms manufacturer and founder of the Nobel Prize): 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". It is said that Nobel's unhappiness with the obituaries prompted his founding of the Nobel Prize in order to improve his posthumous legacy.

Hiroo Onoda: this Japanese soldier survived for decades in the Philippines jungle, believing that World War II had not ended. Onoda, with three other soldiers who accompanied him for some years, continued to fight the war, killing many local Philippines. Though numerous attempts were made (e.g. by leaving leaflets) to persuade them that the war was over, every such effort was regarded as an enemy trick. Onoda - who was officially declared dead in 1959 - only gave himself up in 1974 when his commanding officer, who had long since retired from the military and become a bookseller, was sent to the island to order Onoda to surrender. He returned to Japan a national hero, and wrote a book No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War.

Oran, a sixth-century monk on Iona: having presumably been declared dead, he was buried, but was dug up again the following day and found to be alive. He is said to have subsequently been re-buried for heresy when he claimed that after his first burial he had seen heaven and hell.

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.

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.

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.

Trent Reznor (musician): in 1989, a Michigan farmer found a Super 8 film camera containing footage of a man apparently lying dead in a street. Local police thought it depicted a gang killing. In fact the footage was of Reznor, for the video of his song Down in It; during filming in Chicago, a weather balloon carrying the camera had broken loose and flown away. The police could not identify the "body" shown in the footage, and involved the FBI. After a year of investigation, police leafleted schools about the case, and an art student recognised the body as Reznor, who was alive and performing.

Reverend Schwartz (missionary) was found to be alive when singing was heard emerging from his coffin at his funeral. He had joined in when he heard his favourite hymn being sung.

Hasan Shalhoub: in 2006, this Lebanese four-year-old suffered apparently fatal head injuries in an Israeli attack. Presumably having been declared dead, he was placed in a makeshift morgue overnight. "In the morning I woke up. I started talking to a little girl next to me, but she turned out to be dead. Then I asked for my mother."

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.

Cardinal Somaglia: in 1837, the cardinal apparently died, and having presumably been declared dead, embalming was immediately begun. However, when his chest was cut open as part of the embalming procedure, his heart was found to be still beating; the cardinal then awoke and pushed the knife away. He died shortly afterwards, apparently as a result of being cut open.

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.

Mark Twain: on two occasions the writer was incorrectly feared dead:
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. Twain recounted the event in the New York Journal: "The report of my death is an exaggeration."
In 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. In fact, the yacht had been held up by fog, and Twain had disembarked. Twain cleared up the story by writing a humorous account in the New York Times the following day.[126]

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 but had sold the rights to the song many years earlier. The impostor's widow said she wasn't sure whether it was her husband or Vance who had been lying, though she would not pursue Vance for her husband's royalties.[128][129]

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 is best known for playing caporegime Sal Tessio, who is murdered offscreen at the end of ‘The Godfather’).

Matthew Wall: having presumably been declared dead, this 16th-century resident of Braughing, UK was revived when a pallbearer dropped his coffin during his funeral. He celebrated his 'resurrection' each year thereafter.

Philip Williams: in June 1982, this British soldier was knocked unconscious by an explosion during the Battle of Mount Tumbledown in the Falklands War, and left for dead. When he came to, the rest of the British soldiers had gone. Williams' parents were informed of his 'death' and a memorial service held for him. It took him nearly two months to find his way back to civilisation, braving extreme weather. He was then criticized by the media and fellow soldiers, who accused him of desertion.

Shoichi Yokoi: trapped on Guam when U.S. troops recaptured it near the end of World War II, this Japanese soldier lived in an underground cave in the jungle until 1972. On his return home, Yokoi was treated as a national hero for his extreme tenacity and loyalty. However, he felt he had not served the Emperor adequately, saying "It is with much embarrassment that I have returned alive." His discovery prompted a search for other missing Japanese soldiers such as Hiroo Onoda.