Another example is yesterday's obit of Monty Hall by Dennis Hevesi
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I was the Awards Coordinator for Bloomberg News from 1993-2016. As part of my job description, I was always looking for new opportunities to showcase our talented journalists. There is an award for obituary writers. This is the organization: http://www.societyofprofessionalobituarywriters.org/
Their award is called "The Grimmys." http://www.societyofprofessionalobituarywriters.org/the-grimmys.html
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I pointed out this aspect of the Ross obit to my wife the other day, and she remembered she'd seen the same thing happened for Harold Pinter's years ago. What a memory! And if there's any doubt, boy, did I marry the right person.
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As a long time personal friend of Michael Kaufman and his wife, and knowing that obits are most often written in advance, I can tell you that I smiled when I saw Michael's name. Maybe even a tear, as I whispered to myself, "hi Michael. How have you been these past few years? So good to see you again, even if just your name...". It's like having them back, for just a fleeting moment.
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If you enjoy this Times Insider article, see the documentary OBIT. This summer, a full length cinema documentary about the Times Obituary staff appeared. TItled OBIT, it's already running on Amazon Prime so I suspect it is also available on some other sources as video on demand. Very entertaining.
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A beloved and accomplished Friend brought the value of NYT obituaries to my attention. She loved to read about both the glorious and the notorious, preferably with a bite of chocolate. Her interest brought me to ask myself, "What would be a succinct statement of my life?"
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I'm waiting to see the day that an obituary writer who wrote in advance the obituary of a famous person is himself sufficiently prominent so that HIS obituary also is written in advance. This could then lead to the eventuality whereby a famous person might outlive his obituary writer's obituary writer.
(What do you want, I'm a mathematician.)
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OBIT is not available on Netflix streaming, but is available on Amazon Prime. Check it out. Very much worth it.
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Marilyn Johnson, author of 'The Dead Beat, Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries' tells us the beyond the grave obit is called the 'double down,' I'm sure because the writer and the subject have both passed away.
The best double down, and not mentioned, is when the deceased Red Smith's obit for Jack Dempsey appeared on the front page of the paper. I wrote to Dave Anderson and asked if Red had shown Jack the obit. Dave didn't think so.
It seems the policy of the paper is that there are no peeks. The subject may have a late-in-life interview with the paper, and quotes may appear in the obit when it is finally needed, but no peeks at the text.
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Marilyn Johnson, author of 'The Dead Beat, Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries' describes the beyond the grave obit as a 'Double Down.' I guess because the subject and the writer are no longer with us.
I first noticed the 'double down' when the already deceased Red Smith had his pre-written obit for Jack Dempsey appear on the front page of the paper when Dempsey answered the bell for the beyond. I wrote Dave Anderson and asked if Dempsey had ever seen his obit. He didn't think so. And it seems that's the policy of the paper. No advance peeks, although some subjects do sit for a late-in-life interview that is sometimes mined for its quotes when the subject dies.
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"answered the bell gor the great beyond"..... nice work.
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I have noticed this before, especially with Mel Gussow. Sort of fascinating that the writer dies before the subject and/but is then identified as the author.
I like it!!
A great tradition. As a 30+ year reader, I appreciate the inside info and want you to give credit where it is due even to your writers in the great beyond.
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NYT obits often contain some of the best writing in the newspaper on any given day. We don't stop reading books after the author dies, so it's reassuring to know you continue publishing the creative and informative work of writers who beat their subjects into the wherever.
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Nice to see Michael Kaufman's byline. He had a nice touch in his writing.
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Yes, Michael Kaufman had a great touch. I try to keep up on this stuff but had forgotten that he, too, was the subject of an obit.
And the best video obit I have seen is for Ed Kock where, if I remember correctly, it opens with Koch saying: do you miss me now?
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Some years ago, I was reading a frontpage obit in the NYT. I skimmed the byline and thought, "DIdn't he just retire from the paper? So I googled him. He had sort of retired; he was dead.
As a reader, I actually like the experience of reading new work from a journalist who's died. It's a pleasant surprise, like running into an old friend on the street who you haven't seen in years. The pieces also serve as a kind of inadvertent tribute.
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A more appropriate example of an obit written from beyond the grave would be Aaron Hernandez' brain. While I would normally despise such a violent thug, it really gave me pause to consider the similarity of effects which his brain damage, which for some reason or other, medical science is incapable of detecting in a living patient. Like Hernandez, my injury, caused not by blunt trauma to the brain but by radiation to the head as cancer treatment, has resulted in memory loss and rage, and were I of a different culture it would have lead to physical violence. Unlike this unfortunate, who the world will likely forget all about when they watch football on Monday instead of making everyone from the NFL execs down to the high school gym coach stand trial as they really should, my injury can be detected when I'm not already dead. That there is still any sort of brain damage which modern medicine hasn't the power to detect is truly frightening, and if Hernandez were a white guy (and I'm a white guy), his case would appropriately become the wake-up call to prioritize medical brain research, focused on advancing detection so that nobody in the future will suffer from injuries which cannot at least be detected while they are still alive!
But enjoy your football.
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Please explain: "...were I of a different culture it would have lead to physical violence."
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Do you really think that sounded like it meant "race", or are you really just looking to start a fight over something? It had nothing to do with that, so will you please relax!
"Culture" is such a nebulous term - it applies to almost every background factor, including education and upbringing. My parents weren't pacifists, but they they were much too smart to encourage violence, which for some children growing up in trailer parks or on the streets can become a way of life.
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Well, that took the conversation off in another direction. I'm heading back to the original literary path, see you there.
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There are also occasions when an obituary appears while the subject is alive.
Has this happened at the NYT?
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Wish you would share Mr. Trump's advance obituary.
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Could I volunteer (unpaid), to write it?
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A friend who had his advance obit done by the Times a good twenty years ago (and is still alive and kicking, at least metaphorically) asked to see it. "Oh, no," he was told. "You can only see it the morning after you die!"
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May I suggest that the Times think about A Second Look or Reappraisal series of obituaries that need to be updated after the original piece. For example, the Times ran a small obituary when animator Tex Avery died. Years later, after the Roger Rabbit movie came out, there was a new appreciation for Tex. Or when Margaret Keane, not her husband Walter Keane, was discovered to be the artist. The "final word" maybe is not the final word.
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History is only as good as the historians, and what they have to work with. The latter is why smart people, regardless of what else they may believe, understand that Jesus is NOT a historical figure.
I love the paradox of the writer not living to see the subject f his/her obit.
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I'm a correspondent who writes advance obituaries for ABC News Radio and
this article in today's paper I could definitely identify with. A couple of years
ago I saw author Philip Roth sitting on a bench on Columbus Avenue. I introduced myself and he asked me what I did at ABC. Advance obituaries I
said. "Do you want to do mine,"he said. I told him how about an interview?
"no, no, just write it up, send me a copy and if I like it you can use it. The NY Times was at my apartment recently to do some fact checking with me." Roth's advance obit without an interview is now in our HFR (hold for release file)
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I hope you get to hold it long enough for him to get the Nobel he has so long deserved.
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I have been told that I am dead from the neck up. Can I get a 16% obituary now, with 84% to follow when the rest of me joins my upper extremity?
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Because I am not famous, I am certain my obituary has not been prepared in the NYTimes newsroom — even though I have crossed the 80+ year mark. So, I have written my own. When I croak, one of several designated survivors will fill in the blanks (age, date of death, place of death) and remove the password requirement on my Web site. That survivor will place small advertisements in newspapers in cities where I have lived, including the obituary Web site. Now, if only I can be sure of that survivor, and also hope I don't outlive him/her.
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Muskateer,
Spouse and I have professionally-written obits on file at the local funeral home where we have prepaid for our funerals.
When the time comes, the funeral home will send the obit out to the designated outlets. The estate will be billed for the expense.
Maybe there is a funeral home in your area that would do the same for you, so you won't have to depend on a survivor.
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You folks are pretty busy and I wonder that you do not solicit "autobiographical" obits from individuals for whom you anticipate publishing an obit; with a little fact-checking and editing after their demise it could significantly increase the number of drafts in your vault and might increase efficiency on a daily basis. Complaints about bylines should be minimal. I will happily provide my draft on request - just ask, and maybe send me the guidelines.
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When words fail me, as they frequently do these days, I frequently seek out my betters.
Here are the closing lines of H. L. Mencken’s famous obituary of William Jennings Bryan -- a three-time Democratic candidate for President -- whom he encountered at the Scopes Trial in Dayton, TN. Written in 1925, it reads as if it could have been written yesterday.
“The issues that he bawled about usually meant nothing to him. He was ready to abandon them whenever he could make votes by doing so, and to take up new ones at a moment's notice....
Bryan was a vulgar and common man, a cad undiluted. He was ignorant, bigoted, self-seeking, blatant and dishonest. His career brought him into contact with the first men of his time; he preferred the company of rustic ignoramuses. It was hard to believe, watching him at Dayton, that he had traveled, that he had been received in civilized societies, that he had been a high officer of state. He seemed only a poor clod like those around him, deluded by a childish theology, full of an almost pathological hatred of all learning, all human dignity, all beauty, all fine and noble things. He was a peasant come home to the dung-pile. Imagine a gentleman, and you have imagined everything that he was not.
The job before democracy is to get rid of such canaille. If it fails, they will devour it.”
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delicious.
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Wait wait: are you writing about Bryan, or that New York real estate tycoon?
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Save yourself some effort Timespeople. You can use Mencken's obit for William Jennings Bryan for the current occupant of the White House. It fits him like a custom-made glove.
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There's great documentary about the NYT obituary writers on Netflix called "Obit" - fascinating!
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Yest, It's on Netflix but it's what Netflix calls "Saved." Who knows when they will will release to subscribers.
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A commenter above mentions Obit being available on Amazon Prime
The fact that the NY Times wrote the obituary of Fidel Castro in 1959 speaks volumes as to the objectivity of coverage over the decades.
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That is one where I would love to read the original version. In April 1959 he was greeted in NYC as a hero, and fetedall around the city. From some of the pix - with politicians abd children and the crowds - he might have been running for mayor!
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Huh?
I disagree. It shows the drama of the events of the time and the likelihood that a revolutionary who drove out the dictator might, himself, end up assassinated. It shows that the newsroom of the NYT was planning ahead.
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Since time tends to bring to light so much we did not know about a person, I am surprised the NYT continues this practice.
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That's because advance obits are frequently updated. There are occasions when an advance contains material no longer deemed as compelling at the time the subject actually dies. in 1996, The Times celebrated the 100th anniversary of its acquisition by Adolph S. Ochs with a wonderful exhibit about itself at the New York Public Library. One of the exhibition cases was devoted to obits. Among the artifacts on display was a handwritten advance obituary of Frederick W. Wurster, then the mayor of Brooklyn. He was the last mayor of Brooklyn, which would not become consolidated into New York City until 1898. The advance obit went on at great length, page after page, as befits a death notice for the mayor of what was then a major city. By the time Wurster died in 1917, however, The Times felt that his death was no longer as newsworthy as it once was. Hence, the obit that was eventually published — and that was displayed alongside the much longer advance obit — was exactly two paragraphs long. He lived long enough to push himself right off the front page.
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The obituaries are updated before publication.
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Pre-written obits are updated before they're published, obviously. For example, they include the date and place of death, the cause and who the survivors are. If other important new info is available, there's no reason it can't be included.
I found this to be an interesting article; not so much for the "beyond the grave" overtones, but for the infrequency of occurrences. Using the "rough figures" quoted, it comes out to approximately 1 of every 200 obituaries fit this profile.
Worth the read.
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Interesting story. The NYT obit reporters might think twice now when assigned to write a obit. on a younger person.
It is sorta like when the world's oldest person is designated by Guin. World Records. The person must hate it since they live probably on average for a few months more.
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In keeping with the spirit of the piece, I can't help but wonder: has any comment ever been published * after * the death of the commenter?
(Come to think of it, I'm not really sure I want to know the answer to that question.*)
* Especially in light of the fact that -- seeing as I am not a young man -- the answer just might turn out to be... * me * !**
** A not entirely negative development, to be sure, since -- were such a situation to come to pass -- this comment would almost certainly garner a recommendation from "The Times" itself!***
*** A pity I wouldn't be around to enjoy it, though....
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Still there?
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I admire the NY Times for writing in-depth obits about people of great achievement. These women and men deserve highlighted remembrance. That said, I do wish the editors would print fewer remembrances of people whose celebrity was having been wealthy and/or a socialite.
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