Bottom Ten: 2010 Deaths

By Matt Keeley

Man, the Grim Reaper sucks. I know, I know, he provides a valuable service and when he gets stuck up a tree, all sorts of bad stuff happens, but sometimes his aim sucks. Like seriously, Mister Rogers? Talk about all-time candidates for immortality. Anyway, here’s a list of the Ten Least-worthy Folks to have kicked the bucket this year.

Leslie Nielsen

Leslie Nielsen was awesome. Sure, he made a lot of crappy movies, but he also made ones so awesome that no one minded! Yeah, Mr. Magoo exists, but so does The Naked Gun. And, really, Spy Hard wasn’t that bad. But the cool thing is that Nielsen was also a renowned dramatic actor and even—in his youth—a heartthrob, which kinda messes with folks of the younger generation, just because we think of Lt. Frank Drebin. But, honestly, Frank Drebin was pretty hot.

Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson

This one was a total shock, because I don’t even think he’d been sick or anything. I mean, man . . . dude was wicked cool. He was in Throbbing Gristle, the founding band of the Industrial movement, and then he was in Coil (who I dug a whole lot more) plus he also designed a bunch of cool record sleeves and made cool music videos. Throbbing Gristle broke up shortly before his death, and Coil ended when Jhonn Balance died, but there should have been more. Also, from everything I’ve heard, Sleazy was a hell of a nice guy, too.

Kevin McCarthy

Kevin McCarthy was in a lot of stuff, and he was usually the best in everything he was in, even if he was only there for a few seconds. But there’re two absolute classics that he was in that should be “get out of death free” cards for everyone involved: Invasion of the Body Snatchers and UHF. And he was brilliant in both.

Jack Horkheimer

This one was real sad. Jack Horkheimer was a super interesting guy, even aside from just being the Star Hustler, which just in and of itself should have been cool enough. But he led a very interesting life. I did a longer obit when he died, but if you get anything out of that, it should be to read this 1982 article about him. So interesting.

Harvey Pekar

If you haven’t read any of the American Splendor comics, you need to go do that right now. At least see the movie. I mean, dang, do you really need me to tell you why this is a horrible loss? Dude could write.

Pages: 1 2