If dead is defined medically and legally, you might be right. But what if you read their obituary only to find out they have something to say that makes the evening news, then what? Something like the famous Mark Twain quote, "News of my death has been greatly exaggerated."
The news lit up the other day when it was revealed that a French radio station mistakenly moved 100 of its pre-written V.I.P. obits to its website as if the deaths were the latest news. Oh-oh.
Names such as Brigitte Bardot, Clint Eastwood, Queen Elizabeth and Pelé were all reported to have passed on. For 100 notables to have simultaneously been reported as dead is quite a haul. Life insurers the world over must have gone scrambling to shore up their losses.
But that wasn't really the case. The radio station had inadvertently shifted the raw, pre-written obits from one platform to another when doing some IT work. A click of the mouse, and violá, you're dead.
The news of their collective demises amused the subjects who got that rarest of opportunities to read what's going to be written about them before they really do leave us.
To some, it was surprise that obituaries were pre-written. But they are, to the greatest extent possible for notables so that when they do go to the hereafter the news agency doesn't have to start from scratch with basic information starting from their birth. When Alex Trebek passed away, the NYT and others was ready because it was known how sick he was.
The current NYT story about the premature notices was written by Aurélien Breeden, bylined from Paris. Mr. Breeden points out in his story how many such pre-written obits a newspaper such as the NYT has, ready to go, so to speak: 1,500.
When Marilyn Johnson wrote her now seminal book on obituary writing, "The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries" in 2006 she met with the then editor of the NYT obituary page, Charles Strum, who told her of 1,200 advance obits sitting in their files.
So, if you needed proof that we're living longer and that the definition of notable/celebrity has widened, consider the inflation of 1,200 to now 1,500.
When Ms. Johnson met with Mr. Strum she lovingly described the care that the NYT was taking in cocooning these advance obits. " It touches me to see them guarded so carefully, as if the obits were hearts that Strum will transplant to the obits page after their hosts are declared dead."
Ms. Johnson herself used to write obits for Life magazine, having written an elegant one for Katherine Hepburn when she passed away in 2003 at 96. She had a pre-written one for Liz Taylor, who on several occasions gave the world the belief that she was ready to go, and so was Ms. Johnson, with the last word. But each time Ms. Taylor rallied, perhaps to marry again, and kept the obituaries in the file cabinet.
When Liz finally did pass away, Ms. Johnson shared her Liz Taylor obituary in 2011 with the world from the perch of her website, and not a major publication. Stubborn Liz outlasted Ms. Johnson's employment at Life and then Life itself (the magazine).
As these obits rise to the surface, the obituarist has sometimes themselves predeceased the subject. Ms. Johnson's playfully calls these "double downs." Red Smith's bylined obit for Jack Dempsey showed up after Smith himself had passed on. Mel Gussow's obit for Liz Taylor appeared after Mr. Gussow had passed away.
It is the policy at the NYT that the obit's subject never gets to see the proposed obituary. So, for the brief window that the French radio station had obits on their website, the subjects, if they were quick on the draw, got to see what was going to be said about themselves. A rare opportunity.
As a bit of a safeguard against making the mistake of prematurely telling the world someone has passed away when they haven't, the NYT requires the obiturist to put somewhere in the obit, preferable right in the beginning, that so-and-so confirmed the subject's demise. (They did once screw up and make a premature notice) This of course doesn't help prevent the click-of-a-mouse file transfer.
The reporter Mr. Breeden tells us that from the French fiasco, one subject, Bernard Tapie, a flamboyant French businessman, has already on two prior occasions been reported as having passed away. He just got his third notice and is still breathing.
Some people just won't go quietly into that good night.
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