Jackass

Actor Richard Kiel died at age 74.

Lauren Bacall Dies at 89, Taking America's Mind off of Robin Williams

Hollywood legend Lauren Bacall died today at the age of 89, putting a final note on an era of Old-Hollywood glamor and providing a celebrity death which makes sense to take our collective mind of the mind-fuck that is Robin Williams' suicide.

"Okay, no, this one, I get it," said SAG president Ken Howard. "Robin, I can't even fucking deal with, but this, I mean, it's sad, but she was almost fucking 90."

Bacall rocketed to fame in the film To Have and Have Not, playing opposite Humphrey Bogart and giving the film world an iconically sexy screen presence that secured her place in film history at the tender age of 19. Her romance with Bogart provided America with a new kind of Hollywood royalty.

Williams, on the other hand, what the fuck?

So, we thank you, Lauren Bacall, for your life, your contribution to film and for reminding us how our famous actors are supposed to leave us.

Casey Kasem Dead; Millions of Lazy Impressionists Mourn

Radio/voice-acting legend Casey Kasem has died at age 82, after a long illness and a truly undignified battle between his wife and children.

Mr. Kasem is best-remembered for his long-running American Top 40 radio program, which ran in syndication in the 80s and allowed rural Ohio teenagers access to the cheesy pop music that they so desperately craved.

Additionally, Kasem provided the voice for Shaggy and Robin in the Hanna-Barbera cartoons Scooby Doo and Superfriends, respectively.

We here at DeathWatch are particularly saddened by Kasem's loss. His was one of the very few voices that the founders of the site have ever been able to successfully imitate. Many was the hour Keith and Joe spent improvising requests from pretend listeners in Carson City, Nevada and cracking each other up.

With Kasem gone, we will be forced to work on our Christopher Walken impressions.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Stopped Singing

America has lost a great poet. To be more precise: America has lost that one lady that talked with that voice and spoke at Presidents' Day or something and I think my mom had a book she wrote or something.

Maya Angelou, one of three poets without a day-job has died at age 86.

Dr. Angelou lived an amazing life. She rose to fame as a singer in 1950s San Francisco. She worked as a civil rights activist alongside Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She was celebrated as one of the most inspirational poets of the modern day.

Perhaps her greatest accomplishment was a 2009 guest spot on Two and a Half Men, where she played a barfly who made out with Charlie Sheen.

Dr. Angelou will be greatly missed. If Charlie Sheen died, he most likely wouldn't be. Maybe the gang at the VD clinic would get misty, but that's about it.

Photo by Children's Television Workshop

H.R. Giger's Will Stipulates the Creepiest Fucking Coffin Possible

Design genius H.R. Giger has died at age 74, after sustaining injuries in a fall. A spokesman for Giger's family told Deathwatch that, in addition to being horribly saddened by his demise, their woes are compounded by Giger's request, stipulated in his will, that he be buried in "something that looks like a goat anally violating the Pope."

Giger apparently left some preliminary sketches for his coffin, but the family is considering burning them because they "gave us fucking horrendous nightmares."

One of the premiere surrealist artists of the modern era, the Swiss Giger is best known to Americans as the designer of the creature in the Alien movies. His instantly recognizable aesthetic helped lend the film series its otherworldly look, in addition to creeping most people the hell out.

Giger's work will live on, especially as posters in the dorm rooms of college guys who don't understand why women won't sleep with them.

Large Percentage of Americans Now Claiming to Have Read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Obituary

The great writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez has died at the age of 87.

Marquez was beloved around the world as the author of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Love in the Time of Cholera and other books. In America, he was mostly someone whose novels people told other people they'd read when they actually hadn't.

Now, a survey by Quinnipiac University has found that 68% of Americans are claiming to have read Marquez's obituary when they actually only scanned the headline.

The same survey shows that 14% of Americans, spurred on by the author's passing, will now put a Marquez book on their Amazon wishlist or reserve it at the library, then never get around actually picking it up.

Photo by Isabel Steva Hernandez

Mickey Rooney Will Never Again Get a Barn and Put on a Show

Mickey Rooney, an actor whose popularity predates 90% of everyone alive on earth, died this week at age 93.

Rooney, whose sensitive portrayal of an Japanese-American landlord in Breakfast at Tiffany's somehow failed to win him a Spirit of Asian America award, was, according to a Quinnipiac poll, already thought dead by the vast majority of Americans. A spokesman for Google says that "When+did+Mickey+Rooney+die" was the 57th most frequent search in 2013, right behind "What+are+signs+of+chlamydia."

Today, Rooney is remembered mostly for being referenced in old Warner Brothers cartoons that 40-year-olds watched constantly during childhood. And also because he apparently was married a lot or something.

Mr. Rooney died at home with his family. He was preceded in death by his fanbase.

Photo: Public domain studio still.