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Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger |
Bob Hope got last laugh,
outliving his obituary writerONE of the little-known yet most unsettling aspects of being a newspaper reporter is having to write what editors call "advance obits."
When a local celebrity coughs funny or a well-known politician looks a little pale, a writer is dispatched to write the poor soul's obituary. Then, in the event the person suddenly croaks, the story is ready to go.
It's a deadline thing -- although, to me, it's always been a bachi thing. I think it's bad luck to write an obituary about someone who is still drawing breath. Vincent Canby found that out. Canby wrote the New York Times' obituary for Bob Hope, who died at age 100 last week. Unfortunately for Canby, he wrote the obit three years ago and died shortly thereafter. So, many readers were puzzled to pick up the Times and see that Hope's obituary was penned by a dead man.
People in the business immediately knew what had happened. Hope was pushing 98 when Canby wrote the obit, and odds were good that he'd soon be shuffling off this mortal coil, as Hamlet might put it. (Hamlet was a heck of an advance obit man.)
It is really an honor to have a fine writer like Canby write your obituary. Had things worked out differently, Hope's obit might have been written by Jayson Blair, the disgraced Times reporter who never let facts (or real life, for that matter) get in the way of a good story. That would have been a doozy of an obit, with Blair presenting little-known historical tidbits about Hope, like the time he played strip poker with the pope and Geraldine Ferraro.
Canby got the nod to write the Hope obit and then did a little shuffling off the ol' mortal coil himself. Bachi, brah.
I ALWAYS HATED writing advance obits but did it when pressed. It was particularly hard to write an advance obit about a fellow staff member who was feeling poorly. I don't know what's worse, knowing that an obituary has been written about you or knowing that an obituary has been written about you and no one will let you read it.
A staff member at this paper flirted with the grim reaper only to bounce back. Staff members were all rooting for him to recover, even as they shared touching tales about his life with the guy writing the advance obit.
I have it on good authority that there are some newspapers where staff members have to write their OWN obituaries. That way, if they suddenly drop dead typing up police briefs, editors can just drag the corpse away from the desk, pop in a warm body and run the deceased reporter's own obituary, all without missing a deadline.
It must be odd writing your own obituary, especially if you are a fairly young reporter. What can you say? He was a fine man. His life was ahead of him. Well, not anymore.
It's probably better to write your own obit than to face the possibility that it would be assigned to someone on the staff who hates your guts. Dying is bad enough without having some jerk smacking you around in print on your way out.
You can tell how important a person is by the size of their obituary. Bob Hope's was huge. But I can see him now, pinning Vincent Canby to a cloud with his golf club saying, "Vinny, buddy, did you really have to mention the Geraldine Ferraro thing?"
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com
