The Lee Atwater
Invitational Dead Pool

...a game of sickness and chance...

Welcome
to the home of the world's most delightfully deviant pastime,
the celebrity dead pool, specifically,
The Lee Atwater Invitational Dead Pool.
Play along and root for your favorites
as we go for the gold that lies in the back teeth of the rich and feeble.

Here's how it works ...
Want to see the current standings?
This just in ... it's the latest deaths.
How about last year's results?
Download your very own entry form for 1997!
Or just send e-mail to Lee Atwater.

The Rules, Simplified

"Hey," you might be saying to yourself, "what the hell is a dead pool?" Well, pay attention.
At the beginning of the year, players submit a list (or 2) of the ten famous people they think are most likely to die during the next 12 months. Whoever gets the most right wins. Of course, since '96 is well underway, you can't play this year, unless you're already entered. But we'll let you watch, which should be fun, and you can even have dibs on next year (see entry form below). Now, where were we? Oh, yeah, the rules. In the case of, uh, a dead heat (sorry) a point-system is employed as a tie-breaker. The name at the top of your list is worth 10 points, the next name 9, and so on. The points only come into play if there's a tie, but this year we've got 47 entries, so it could happen. We each throw some money in the pot (as if it's not interesting enough) and away we go! All in the name of good, sick fun. There's a little more to it than that--details about eligibility of candidates, mailing procedures, etc.--but it's pretty clearly spelled out in the entry form toward the bottom of the page. If you have any unanswered questions, or if you just want to tell us how charming you find all this, contact us at Lee Atwater, and let the dying begin!

The 1996 Lee Atwater Invitational Dead Pool

Here are the standings for this year's competition, as of August 21st. In case you can't figure it out, the names with a line through 'em are history. What a dogfight we've got on our hands! You can almost feel the intensity in the air, can't you? Incredible.

Drew & Julie (1st with 5 stiffs)

~~Timothy Leary~~ (10 points)
~~Andreas Papandreou~~ (9 points)
~~George Burns~~ (8 points)
~~Lee Mathis~~ (7 points)
George Wallace
~~Claudette Colbert~~ (5 points)
Katharine Hepburn
Boris Yeltsin
Buddy Ebsen
Stephen Hawking

Julie (2nd place, four bodies)

~~George Burns~~ (10 points)
~~Timothy Leary~~ (9 points)
~~Andreas Papandreou~~ (8 points)
Bob Hope
~~Gene Kelly~~ (6 points)
Deng Xiaopeng
Jimmy Stewart
Pope John Paul II
Mother Teresa
Sylvia Sidney

Greg (3rd, also with four)

~~Timothy Leary~~ (10 points)
~~George Burns~~ (9 points)
Gene Autry
Hume Cronyn
~~Melvin Belli~~ (6 points)
Bob Hope
Ronald Reagan
~~Gene Kelly~~ (3 points)
Jimmy Stewart
Billy Graham

Followed by 44 losers' lists!

Watch here for regular updates as the long, cold winter approaches and the beautiful people we all love to hate start dropping like pre-adolescent pilots in single-engine aircraft. Remember, CNN is your friend, and if you want to get in on the fun, take a look at the entry form.

The Casualty List

Looks like '96 is shaping up to be a banner year for the Grim Reaper, at least if those scores are any indication. Take a look at some of the big names who've cashed in their chips since this punk-rock poker party of a year began.

Mel Allen How about that?
Martin Balsam You'd know him if you saw him, really you would.
Les Baxter In fact, there's a lot less Baxter, now that you mention it.
Melvin Belli Lawyer.
Whit Bissel Character actor who made a fortune in the carpet sweeper business.
Erma Bombeck The grass is greener still in the cemetary.
Roger Bowen He met his maker one day after McLean Stevenson. Must've been Bump Henry Blake Week.
Albert R. Broccoli Just as well. It's awful to think of anyone spending the rest of his days as a vegetable.
Joseph Brodsky Newly inducted member of the Dead Poets Society.
Edmund G. "Pat" Brown How do you get Pat out of Edmund?
George Burns The granddaddy of 'em all, G.B. has appeared on more dead pool lists than any other celebrity in history. We understand he was once famous for something other than being old.
John Chancellor Somewhere in custody.
Chas Chandler If there's a rock 'n' roll heaven, then you know they got a hell of a band, except for the bass player.
Virginia Christine It may be mountain grown, Mrs. Olsen, and that may well be the richest kind, but if you drink enough of it, it'll kill you, as we guess you're now aware.
Claudette Colbert It happened one night last July.
William Colby It further tests our dwindling faith in government that the former head of the CIA can't paddle a canoe without drowning.
Shamus Culhane Pioneering animator of Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs fame. In his later years, he came to be known as "Coughie".
Marguerite Duras She was one of France's most famed and prolific writers, but she never had a TV show, so you probably never heard of her.
Herb Edelman One of the poker buddies from The Odd Couple. Stay away from the brown sandwiches.
Vince Edwards Ben Casey has struck out.
Max Factor Took a powder.
Charlie O. Finley For his part in bringing the designated hitter to Major League Baseball, may he burn in hell. Bitter? You bet we are.
Ella Fitzgerald ... or is it Memorex?
Greer Garson Goodbye, Mrs. Chips.
Morton Gould Modern decomposer.
Margaux Hemingway Closet Karen Carpenter fan, right to the end.
Ben Johnson It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
Barbara Jordan We liked her, too.
Gene Kelly Didn't anyone ever tell him if he didn't come in out of the rain he'd catch his death?
Timothy Leary Turned in, tuned out, dropped dead.
Guy Madison A friend of ours mourned his recent passing, saying how much he'd idolized him on Lost In Space. Touching, except that it was Guy Williams who was on Lost In Space.
Pamela Mason Here's a weird one. She had her own TV show, and was in no fewer than four films as herself, and yet, until she died, we'd never heard of her.
Lee Mathis We never heard of him either, but Julie swears he was a big soap opera star.
Brownie McGhee Oh, fudge, Brownie's dead.
John McSherry Through the magic of videotape, he gave us solid evidence that the bigger they are, the harder they fall.
Audrey Meadows Pow, right in the kisser.
Tom Mees Excellent Swimmer? Perhaps Not.
Minnnesota Fats An octogenarian that goes by the name "Fats"--how did we miss this one? It's downright embarrassing.
Jessica Mitford In 1963, she authored The American Way Of Death. So, Jessica, what took you?
Francois Mitterand Somewhat romanticized because he was French, but in truth, he was just another politician.
Gerry Mulligan In golf, a mulligan is a do-over. Unfortunately, Gerry was a sax player.
Edmund Muskie He was a big fish in a little state.
Haing Ngor He survived the killing fields of Cambodia, but they got him on the streets of L.A.
Andreas Papandreou As it turns out, this long-time leader was pretty cool, for a Greek.
Minnie Pearl The world was her oyster.
Roger Tory Peterson Bird-brain.
Tommy Rettig The first in a series of child-actors who played second fiddle to a dog.
Leon Schwab Legendary Hollywood drug pusher.
Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder Here's where we make our case for euthenasia.
McLean Stevenson Goodbye, Larry.
Jo Van Fleet Kate is now way east of Eden.
Chubby Wise Actually, he was neither.

Is this a kooky good time or what? Bet you can't wait to get a look at that entry form now, huh?

The 1995 L.A.I.D.P. Final Standings

This was dead pool excitement at it's absolute zenith, and not one of the eleven combatants involved in the furious, frenzied, fabulous finish that brought the coffin lid crashing down on '95 will likely soon forget it. Ah, but it's late. We'll tell you some other time. Drew won the trophy.