Obituaries

I remember a moment in The Sopranos when Grandmother Livia was using a magnifying glass to read newspaper obituaries!

Ever had the experience of reading of someone's death and thinking, "I thought he was already dead"? You'd be surprised how many celebrities have reached 100, like actors Olivia de Havilland and Kirk Douglas, and the wartime singer Vera Lynn. (Bob Hope just made it to 100.)

I remember in Grade 3 when the teacher told us that Coco Chanel had died. (I'd never heard of her.) I also remember reading in the newspaper about deaths like Betty Grable and Frederic March and Bud Abbott.

British newspapers like The Guardian have some really good obituary writers.  In America writing obituaries seems to be, pardon the pun, a dying art!  When The New York Times reported Nelson Rockefeller's death, their obituary had a classic passage: "He was a patron of the Museum of Modern Art, entered it in a fireman's outfit when it caught fire, and founded the Museum of Primitive Art." It's one of those unintentionally funny lines, like when California governor Pat Brown said about a flood, "This is California's worst disaster since I was elected governor."