Don Knotts (1924 - 2006)

Some sad news today.

Actor Don Knotts, best known for his role as Deputy Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith Show," died of pulmonary and respiratory complications at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Beverly Hills, California. He was 81.

On a lighter note, today I will be scratching Don Knotts' name from my celibrity death list!


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Here is a link to when I first talked about the Death List: LINK

In the past year I have predicted the deaths of two other well-known figures: The Tonight Show's Johnny Carson and Catholicism's Pope John Paul II. With three of the twenty names on the list now deceased, that equates to a 15% accuracy rate. Sure, most of the people on the list are old, and given enough time, I will have a 100% accuracy rate -- but 15% of the list in under a year? That's pretty impressive -- in a... morbid kind of way.

I have a feeling Andy Griffith will be the next to go. After seeing his former co-star die, he'll begin to question is own mortality. He'll stop taking "unecessary risks," become a shut-in, do one final interview for Larry King one night and then croak.

Kirk Douglas? Dude was born in 1916! He can't have much of a shelf life left. Ernest Borgnine has got to be declining, too. He was born in 1917 and I read in his biography that he was involved in an "air crash" in 1996, and that he had both his knees replaced in 1999. Hugh Downs, number eleven on the list, also had his knees replaced some years back. His time is near.

But it's kind of sad to cross off Don Knotts. He seemed like a friendly guy. If Bob Barker, Larry King or Dick Cheney had died (numbers 7, 17 and 19), I wouldn't have cared in the slightest. They seem mean. But Knotts seemed really good natured. I should have included a space for Dick Cheney's hunting pals, though. Ha. But I guess most of them wouldn't be celebrities.