The X Best Celebrity Fights to the Death (we think) in 2008, Part One

Celebrities are different from us. We have jobs where we sit at desks all day; they have a job where they have to sing a pop song every night to thousands of screaming 14-year-olds. On the weekends we stay at home drinking and watching their movies, they’re kite surfing on a beach in Australia and getting rubbed down by beautiful women. Even low-level notoriety changes someone… like how the creator of the slinky left his family to join a cult in Bolivia.

When a celebrity dies, we usually get an information overload: Coroners’ reports, leaked crime scene pictures and suicide notes, tearful ‘my last moment with him’ accounts. But what if it was all bullshit? What if the arrogance that often comes with notoriety led to a heightened sense of honour, and if that honour was ever questioned, led to a fight to the death?

Here are a few well-known people who died on the same day this year, and the real story behind what happened. We think.



MAYOR V MAYOR

Date: January 3
Who Died: Harry L. ‘Butch’ Felker III, former Mayor of Topeka, cancer. Joseph Aaron Lazarow, former Mayor of Atlantic City, New Jersey, cause of death unspecified.

What Really Happened: The year started off slow. Well-known socialites and celebrities alike were recovering from the holidays on yachts and in spas worldwide. But these two had a score to settle, possibly regarding parking restrictions.

The Fallout: Mayor V Mayor becomes a new Marvel comic, with three spinoffs: Commissioner V Commissioner, Comptrollers at War and Ombudsmen Collide!


THE RESTAURANTEUR V THE COMPETITIVE EATER

Date: January 7

Who Died: Jean-Claude Vrinat, owner of the Haute Cuisine Taillevent restaurant, lung cancer. Edward Abraham ‘Bozo’ Miller, Gastronomical Champion of competitive eating, ‘natural causes’.

What Really Happened: the Times UK has called Taillevent ‘one of the grandest traditional establishments in Paris’. With a discounted lunch menu at 80 Euros, ($100 USD), it’s obvious what happened. Bozo came, he ate his fill, he got the cheque, he asked to see the owner… and then things got ugly. Deliciously, fatally ugly.

The Fallout: Once the heroic battle is publicised, a book on the life and times of Bozo Miller is released. This is a man who weighed 300 pounds, ate up to 25,000 calories per day, once ate 1000 packets of potato chips (flavour unspecified) and once drank a lion under the table. Yet he lived until the age of 89, and married a former Princess of the Pasadena Rose Bowl (basically, a beauty queen). Upon the book’s release, we’ll see an increase in competitive eating, alcoholism, and domestic abuse among big cats.


ACTRESS V BALLERINA

Date: January 10

Who Died: Maila Nurmi, actress known for her ‘Vampira’ character, the inspiration for both Elvira and Booberella. Andrée Marlière, internationally renown ballerina, cancer.

What Really Happened: Who knows what it was about. But considering Nurmi was 85 and Marlière was 73, we can’t help but think this battle would have been way, way hotter had it happened five decades ago.

The Fallout: The vicious, sexy, decades-long feud between actresses and ballerinas is finally brought to light.


MEDIA PERSONALITY V BUSINESSMAN: A TALE OF TWO GAMEHUNTERS

Date: February 18

Who Died: Alec Wildenstein, French international art dealer, ex-husband of socialite Jocelyn Wildenstein, cancer. Grits Gresham, American conservationist, sportsman, and actor, complications with pneumonia.

What Really Happened: You may know Alec as the ex of Socialite and Very Scary Person Jocelyn Wildenstein:



It turns out they had a… difficult relationship. When Jocelyn suspected Alec of having affairs, she started the plastic surgery that would eventually make her:



When she confronted him about the affairs, he threatened her with a gun, and was briefly jailed. Once divorce proceedings started, both refused to leave their New York City townhouse, so they divided the apartment (we assume with a sitcom-esque white line drawn straight down the middle). When Jocelyn discovered she now only had one servant and didn’t have access to the private jet, things got really ugly.

Grits, meanwhile, was just your average retired media personality with a love for hunting. He’d hunted all his life, and was once terrifyingly quoted as saying ‘two things were going to happen every day when I was growing up. The sun was going to rise, and I was going to shoot something’.

Being a hunter his all life, he would have bagged a fair amount of game over the years. But there was one trophy left: the big cat.



The fatal fight started when Alec told Grits he was the one who wanted to shoot her first.


The Fallout:

To this day she remains in her natural habitat: the New York socialite scene.


THE SPY V THE SUBMARINER

Date: February 24

Who Died: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Witherington, British Secret Service Agent. Floyd Matthews, America’s oldest living submariner. Cause of death unknown in both cases.

What Really Happened: During WWII, Cornioley’s troops killed over 1000 German soldiers. The Nazis put a 1,000,000-franc bounty on her head. Post-war, this bounty may or may not have been lifted. Matthews, a WWII veteran himself, had access to a submarine: a silent, nautical killing machine. We’re just saying.

The Fallout: Living ex-Nazis remember that they had a few things to tie-up at the end of WWII, get to work lifting any other outstanding bounties with a chuckle and a ‘whoops!’ then decide they’d rather do a crossword puzzle. What? Just because they’re old, doesn’t mean their not jerks anymore.


BATTLE OF THE CENTENARIANS

Date: February 28

Who Died: Joseph M. Juran, management consultant and creator of the misleadingly-exciting-named Juran's Trilogy, stroke at 103 years of age. Philip ‘Flying Phil’ Rabinowitz, South African Sprinter, also stroke, 104 years old.

What Really Happened: Two centenarians, but only one could be... the fastest centenarian. When Juran challenged Rabinowitz that fateful February morn, a fight broke out so vicious that the only sound for miles was the gnashing of teeth and the breaking of hips.

The Fallout: a movie based on the battle, 2 Fast 2 Elderly, released in time for summer 2010.


Stay tuned for the next part, posted soon!