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Death News

Everybody gets a date. Some people get a headline first. This is where Morty's news desk files the ones worth reading — every celebrity death, actor death, politician death and sports figure death we cover, written from real reporting, illustrated with real photographs, and delivered without the funeral-parlour voice.

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Celebrity Death

31 July 2026 · Actor Death

Celebrity Death: Sam Neill, Jurassic Park's Dr Grant

Sam Neill died in Sydney on 13 July 2026, aged 78 — “sudden and unexpected,” his family said, and three months after he announced he was finally cancer free. He was the man who taught two generations to fear a doorknob turning slowly, and he did it while being almost aggressively unbothered by fame. On film he survived velociraptors, the Antichrist and a spaceship that had visited Hell. Off it he ran a pinot vineyard that lost money and joked about it beautifully. Prime ministers on both sides of the Tasman queued up to say so.

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Celebrity Death

31 July 2026 · Actress Death

Celebrity Death: Brenda Fricker, Home Alone's Pigeon Lady

Brenda Fricker died in Dublin on 16 July 2026, aged 81, after a period of ill health. Most people hearing the news had the same two-step reaction: who? — and then, four seconds later, on seeing the photograph, oh no, not the pigeon lady. She was the first Irish woman to win an Academy Award, for My Left Foot, and she used her fourteen seconds at the microphone to deliver the best acceptance speech in Oscars history. Sixty years of work, ninety-odd credits, and one small role that quietly owns everyone's December.

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New death news is filed most weeks — celebrity deaths, actor deaths, politician deaths, sports figure deaths and the occasional influencer nobody over forty has heard of. To see who went today, try Who Died Today, or browse the running ledger in the Dead Celebs guest book.