All you have to say is "mole near the lip," and instant recognition.

Anne Francis was all sex appeal. She was all wisecrack and innuendo. Did every baby boomer boy fall in love with her Honey West? They're not talking, but I'll bet I'm right. But what about the girls?

It's been said she was the inspiration for the Barbie doll, which I'm sure isn't the case, but think about it. She could have been. Her waist was small enough.

And yet she was a role model in her way. She was the first female private eye on TV. She was as tough as Bond or Hammer, and she did it before Emma Peel ever made an appearance. She had a pet ocelot named Bruce and they wore matching outfits. They wouldn't let her sleep with anyone in the show. Too soon, too soon for that on TV. But you could picture it.

Most important: She was smart and not afraid to show it.

Sexy and smart. Well, at least it's better than sexy and dumb, which is most of what we've always had on TV.

Anne Francis has died at 80. I'm looking at photos and she seemed to be sexy (and smart) pretty much to the end. Bill Schenley, new player Brave Last Dave, Dead People Server, Fireball and Monarc each get 5 points. Welcome to the game, Dave.

— Amelia

Did you know that Beijing forbids any official mention of the killings in Tiananmen Square on the mainland?

So when Szeto Wah died on the first day of the new year, it didn't come up in the memorial statements. Not that it needed to.

Szeto Wah was a Hong Kong union leader and critic of British colonial rule. A prominent leftist, he was a company man, assured of an important role when the British returned Hong Kong to Chinese rule. He was even drafting the new constitution. But he broke all ties with Beijing when a peaceful demonstration turned deadly in Tiananmen Square. Instead, he formed an alliance that organizes candlelight vigils every year to honor the memory of those who were murdered. The 20th anniversary drew a record 150,000 people. (62,500, according to the police.)

In 1990, Wah was instrumental in organizing the Democratic Party, now one of the largest political parties in Hong Kong. He was also one of the 60 members of the Legislative Council, and never stopped criticizing the government's use of force. He was greatly admired.

Although not expressly forbidden, there was no mention on the mainland that Szeto Wah was the first hit of the 2011 alt.obituaries deadpool, and that Deceased Hose got the solo. Wah was 79, so DH gets 8 points for the hit and 5 for the solo, and gets off to a big lead!

— Amelia

Mick Karn began his life on Cyprus. Went back to Cyprus at the end of his life. Inbetween he lived in England, learned the bassoon, then learned the bass guitar when the bassoon was stolen, and he eventually formed a band called Japan. They became an alternative glam rock band. I have no idea what that means, but I have a feeling I wouldn't like it. I suspect makeup is involved. Their big album was called Tin Drum, a blend of Chinese pop music. Don't ask.

Coincidentally, he was only really big in Japan. So if he had named his band America, would he have had more success? Oh wait. After Japan broke up, he briefly formed Dali's Car (why not Spain?) with vocalist Peter Murphy (who I should also know) from the postpunk band Bauhaus, but don't. (The Guardian wrote "postpunk bank Bauhaus," a typo I like a lot.)

He was also a very interesting sculptor, no doubt with an international following.

Mick Karn died of cancer at 52 a few countries short of a lifetime. Allen Kirshner, DDT, Deceased Hose, EdV, Hulka (who I should have made write this) and McKie each get a hefty 14 points.

— Amelia

When Gerry Rafferty brought the song "Baker Street" to the studio, he had hoped session guitarist Hugh Burns could fill in the many gaps. But Burns was late for the session, so Raphael Ravenscroft, who had been scheduled to play a brief soprano sax part, offered his alto. Ravenscroft was paid £27 in check by Rafferty, who is credited as the songwriter. The check bounced. "Baker Street," Rafferty's most well-known song, has more than five million performances. Even Lisa Simpson played the sax riff on The Simpsons. Rafferty never made the check good. Also, next time you hear this song, pay close attention to Hugh Burns' guitar ... Pretty tasty ...

Gerry Rafferty, who died at 63, was once the subject of a Rules Committee meeting that left everyone with a headache when the question was asked: "What if someone goes missing in (insert month of choice) but their body is not found until January of the following year? Sounds like an easy inquiry, right? Oh, man ... This one guy on TRC ... just un-freakin'-believable ... "If the party of the first part ... If the temperature has kept the body ... But if the coroner's office declares ... " JFC ... It was never-ending ...By the time he was done ... I needed a fentanyl patch.

Anyway, Rafferty, who had pickled himself, is dead, and they found the body in a topical manner. Allezblancs, Chaptal, Morris the Cat, and Hulka (who was responsible for that Rules Committee fiasco), all snag eleven points for the hit. Total: 11.

But Hulka, who refuses to be stuck in the middle, gets an additional ten-point bonus for hitting the Daily Double with Mick Karn. Hulka's total: 21.

— Bill Schenley

Phil Kennemore was the longtime bassist of the band Y&T, which used to be called Yesterday and Today, but now they believe that's obvious, I guess. He and his frontman, Dave Meniketti, were the only original members of Y&T still playing. Phil was a real character, from all reports. He showed up ready to party, in full stage gear, up for anything. The consummate rock star. A passionate fan base. Not much in the way of luck, however. They toured with the big names, Motley Crue, AC/DC and Ozzy Osbourne, but never made Y&T a household name. (That might have something to do with the name.) But they loved what they were doing, didn't fuss when the rooms were a third filled, and played their hearts out, when they were young and when they were middle-aged. "As long as Phil had food on the table, Y&T was never about money," one of his former bandmates said. ("Former" probably means it was about money for him.)

There's an interesting connection to alt.obituaries' other on-topic subject. When he could no longer bear his back pain, the band called on friend Tony LaRussa and the St. Louis Cardinals team doctors to take a look at him. They, or whoever they sent him to, diagnosed lung cancer within days.

DDT will not be letting EdV have the Moxie again this year. Kennemore was 57, so it's 14 for the hit and 5 for the solo, for a total of 19. Rock on, DDT.

— Amelia

He never achieved the fame other playwrights, some great, most mediocre, have. He only ever had one play on Broadway, and even that was a flop. He barely or maybe even didn't make a living writing plays off and off-off. (Most don't. They'll be your server tonight.) And he lived a nice long time, teaching to pay the rent, only to finally achieve status as Laura's dad, which undoubtedly pleased him, but a legacy it ain't.

Romulus Linney wrote serious plays, 30 of them, and I can't name a one. Neither can you. They were thematic, soaked in obscure literary references, and told stories that really made you work. These days, people don't want to work at their entertainment. Linney wrote plays about 19th century Russia and 18th century Prussia. He wrote about Nuremberg, Vietnam and North Carolina. He wrote about snake-handlers, Episcopal bishops and soldiers going AWOL. He even wrote a couple of novels you've never heard of, and I'm happy to report my library has them. They are not checked out, so I will. Unless it's too much work.

Linney admitted to being frustrated that he didn't have the name recognition of a Mamet or a Shepard. But he would have continued to write plays even if they never got produced. May they all be produced and reproduced after his death, at least, which has occurred at 80.

Morris the Cat got the solo. That's 5 for the hit and 5 for the bonus. Total: 10.

— Amelia

You know what they say about people outliving their fame? It would be a kindness to say that about Sargent Shriver. I'm not sure he was famous enough for the masses at any time in his life.

When he died, I was with a group of colleagues and clients and they know my hobby, so one of them said, has anyone interesting died? To which I replied, yes, Sargent Shriver.

The room was filled with 20-, 30-, 40- and 50-something faces. All blank.

The JFK brother-in-law? Blank. Married to Eunice? Blank.

The creator of the Peace Corps? Blank.

Wait, this'll work! He ran for Vice-President with McGovern! You know, the year Eagleton ... blank, blank, blank.

Then I said to myself, one must approach this from the People Magazine angle. So I said what I had to.

Maria Shriver's father. Arnold's father-in-law.

AHHHHHHHH! Why didn't you say so???

I'm not making this up. I swear to you. I'm not making this up.

Even Sondheim knew. Here's a little bit of the lyric from "Bobby and Jackie and Jack" in Merrily We Roll Along:

And to top it all off, he wasn't worth much in the way of points. Two points go to Carl&Cherie, Dead Batteries, Erik (happy birthday!) Exuma, Happy No Year, Loki, Mo, Morris the Cat, Roxanne Wiggs and The Wiz. Welcome to the game, Carl&Cherie, Happy No Year and Loki.

— Amelia

Jack is not dead.

If you go to Jack LaLanne's website right now, you won't find one of those banners that say, "We're saddened to report that our beloved Jack has lost his courageous battle with old age and passed away surrounded by his dear family."

No, what you get is Jack, alive and kicking and talking about the AMERICAN FLAG and what it stands for. And how we've become soft mentally and physically and why when he's out of condition and I, the viewer, am out of condition, then America is sick. It's actually quite convincing and makes me understand a little better how effective he was as a public speaker. Because when you think about it, all those other bozo TV exercise freaks concentrate on your flabby abs, not on your role as an American citizen.

And since he famously said, I can't die ... it would ruin my image, it should not come as much of a surprise to see that he's still trying to get us up and moving. Nor is it probably much of a stretch to imagine him as one of his own pallbearers. Or the man who delivers the platters of appetizers for his own shiva.

Jack will never die.

He will continue to say things like "If it tastes good, spit it out."

He will push you until you drop from exhaustion.

He will sell you tapes and juicers and exercise mats. Operators are standing by.

Jack LaLanne opened the first modern spa, had the first national exercise show, developed the first nutrition snack bar, and it goes on and on. He is also the first man to live well after death. I'm surprised the obits didn't pick up on that.

I'm almost reluctant to give out points in the AO Deadpool.

What the hell.

Two points for Chipmunk Roasting, Dead Batteries, Jenstrikesagain, Kixco, RH Draney, Roxanne Wiggs and Wendy, who's bringing up the rear. Like old times, eh, Wendy?

— Amelia

Hulka volunteered for this one, and it sure looks like he was the right man for the job. Thanks, E.

* * *

Charlie Louvin and his brother Ira came out of the church — specifically a strict Southern Baptist theology that emphasized the omnipresence of sin and temptation, and man's duty to triumph over it — and the struggle between good and evil was a recurring theme throughout Charlie's 70-year career in country music.

The brothers started out singing hymns on the radio until a sponsor persuaded them that "you can't sell tobacco with gospel music." When they crossed over into secular songwriting, they kept with them an unwavering earnestness that served them equally well with love songs and gory murder ballads. Their spine-chilling close-harmony sound — typically Ira's high tenor harmony on top of Charlie's lower lead vocal — wasn't unique in their time, but they were among the first to back it up with electrified instruments. Although their popularity faded with the rise of Elvis (who once opened a tour for the Louvins until Ira drunkenly insulted him), the Louvins' close-harmony sound remained in the pop mainstream thanks to the Everly Brothers and (later) Simon & Garfunkel, who substituted themes of teenage puppy-dog love and urban angst for what an early Louvin Brothers album title called "Tragic Songs of Life."

Later generations of country revivalists often mistook the brothers' fervor for kitsch and treated it with ironic distance, if not outright contempt: See, for example, the Byrds' desecration of "The Christian Life," in which Roger McGuinn's fake drawl and winking delivery make a caricature of the Louvins' salute to temperance. By then, in all fairness, Ira's drinking and hellraising* had put an end not only to the brothers' partnership but any moral authority they might have had to sing about resisting temptation, although Ira's 1965 death in a drunken car accident made for the kind of cautionary tale that could have been featured in one of their songs. Charlie continued on as a grand old man of the Grand Ole Opry, even denting the bottom of the pop charts once or twice in the following decades, but it was never the same without Ira, as Charlie acknowledged in a touching tribute song.

The 1990s alt-country movement that revived the careers of Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard, among others, also gave a second wind to Charlie Louvin. Younger bands such as Uncle Tupelo used the Louvin Brothers' songs to evoke a long-gone era in which "ironic distance" was an alien concept and songs like "The Great Atomic Power," a bizarre hymn to nuclear apocalypse, could be recorded with a straight face. Charlie himself released several critically acclaimed albums, toured nationwide, and collaborated with Elvis Costello and George Jones. If his last projects (including "Charlie Louvin Sings Murder Ballads and Disaster Songs" and an album of war-related songs called "The Battle Rages On") tended toward stylistic cliche, they were at least in keeping with the themes Charlie returned to throughout his career.

No Charlie Louvin obituary would be complete without mentioning the cover of the Louvin Brothers album "Satan is Real," a recurring presence on "goofiest album covers of all time" lists. "That's the way we were brought up to believe how the devil looked," Charlie once told an interviewer in defense of the twelve-foot red plywood Satan on the cover. "I found out later that the devil could be wearing a $1,000 mohair suit or even a bikini."

-----

*Watch this video and see if you can guess which of the two brothers was the one who lived to be 83 and which one was the alcoholic who tried to strangle his wife (who shot him three times in the back for it) and died at 41 with a DUI warrant out for his arrest. That look in Ira's eyes ... wow.

— Hulka

Charlie was 83 when he got to find out for himself whether Satan is real. Bill Schenley, Busgal, DDT, Deceased Hose, Gerard Tierney, Hulka, Mo, and Morris the Cat each get 5 points for the hit. (Welcome to the game, Gerard Tierney!)

Is this the best fucking deadpool, or what? We will admit anyone. Well, almost anyone. Anyone north of the late Gordon Murray. And for awhile, Tony DiPardo was north. Tony died on January 27 at 98.

You're wondering who the fuck was Tony DiPardo? Yeah, so was I. Tony, it seems, was a football fan ... a Kansas City Chiefs football fan — for 45 years. As an NFL franchise, the Chiefs themselves have been on life support for over forty years, so it was kind of a shock to find out they even had a fan.

In fairness to the late Mr. DiPardo, he was also a musician in Kansas City. Sometime in the 1940s he recorded a song called "Daddy's Got Woo-Woo In His Eyes." And, right now, Gerard Tierney has a little woo-woo in his eyes after scoring more points on one deadpool hit than I think the Chiefs did all last season. He gets two for the hit and another five for the solo. Total: 7. (Came this close to a Daily Double, too.)

— Bill Schenley

It's that time again ... You know, each year someone in the AO Deadpool tags the Oldest Living Person, and this year, it was lucky Eunice Sanborn, who went deflated tits up at 114. "The Lord just called her home," as they say in lovely downtown Jacksonville, Texas. Sanborn credited her long life and good health to her belief in "Christ." I'm assuming she was talking about Jesus when she called him by his last name, and not Bob and Raynell Christ, who own the Jacksonville hardware store. And she was probably thrilled with Jesus to be a rancid, rotting corpse for the last fifteen years. I mean, she outlived three husbands (how'd that whole "I'll love only you, forever and ever" thing work out for you, Eunice?), her daughter and all of her friends. She was under twenty-four-hour care, and that means swimming in body fluids and waste for most, if not all, of the day. Drool running down your K-Mart cotton house dress, covered in food stains.

It also means sleeping with your boobs neatly nestled under each arm ... You press your Hey-I-Think-I'm-Dying button and a minimum wage, ex-con attendant sticks her head in the door and says, "See you at bingo tonight ... " Arthritis, gastroparesis, psoriasis, rheumatism, bacterial vaginosis and Who-the-fuck-am-I disease all sneak into your body when you enter your eightieth decade ... Can you imagine what she had to put up with for that last quarter century? Thanks, Jesus, that was livin' ...

In the AO Deadpool, Allen Kirshner has an unnatural attraction to really old women. I dunno, maybe it's the bacterial vaginosis that draws him close in their final hours ... Whatever it is, he can thank Christ for answering at least one of his deadpool prayers this year. He walks away with one point for the hit. Plus 5 for the solo. Total: 6.

— Bill Schenley