The London Telegraph is known for its colorful obits, but this lady had, shall we say, a “full life” even by their standards.
To put it mildly, yowzah!
Okay, now it’s definate. I have no life.
Certainly makes the case for dropping “combat boots” in favor of “Yer mother wears rock 'n roll panties”.
That’s not an obituary, it’s a movie treatment.
JoJo Laine was one of my favorite people. I’m sad to hear of her death.
But she did led a helluva life.
Them too?
I picked up four volumes of Telegraph obits, edited by Hugh Massingberd, for a pound a couple of weeks ago. Very amusing, and by golly some people have led extraordinary lives!
Not Air Chief Marshall Sir Hugh Massingbird-Massingbird, VC, DFC and Bar?
Blackadder Goes Forth?
So who had her in the Death Pool? 
So … wait, they weren’t making that stuff up? This person existed in real life?
Get it right, people…Rhoads never played for Sabbath, he played for Ozzy when he began his solo career…sheesh.
Yup. To put into context, the Telegraph is one of the two Establishment papers in Britain (the other being the Times), very High Church, very Eton, very old Tory, very squirearchy and incidentally the primary vehicle for “leaks” by the security and intelligence services.
Pretty much the opposite of my own views. However, the obituary page is delightfully waspish and witty and erudite.
Often the first paragraph of the obituary is a masterful encapsulation of a persons life, achievements and general oddness. Here are some examples, from random British oddballs to counter-culture icons:
The Very Reverend Hugh Heywood
Earl of Carnavorn
John Allegro
Anton LaVey
Not averse to a well placed stilletto in the back, either:
Spiro T. Agnew
This last is a favourite, I suspect the anonymous obituarist loved her:
Nico
We really need a periodic Obituary thread, this one is from the Torygraph of course, and it is not a life of a person I would have agreed with, but it is interesting:
Alvaro Domecq y Diez?(Filed: 19/10/2005)
Alvaro Domecq y Diez, who has died aged 88, was an aristocratic bullfighter, horseman, pilot and scion of a distinguished sherry family; he embodied the Andalusian virtues of the caballero, or gentleman, by dedicating his life to the lance and the rosary.
“Don Alvaro”, as he was known, fought in the Spanish Civil War as a pilot in General Franco’s air force and went on to become one of the finest horsemen of his generation, an eminent breeder of toros bravos, and the patriarch of a dynasty of rejoneodores, mounted bullfighters. Dubbed “the last gentleman” by the monarchist newspaper ABC, his fondness for tweeds and the sartorial style of the English gentry matched his desire to hark back to Jerez’s sherry families’ historic links with Britain.
Alvaro Domecq y Díez was born in Jerez on July 1 1917. His mother died in a riding accident when he was four, and Alvaro was educated by Jesuits in Madrid. After the fall of the monarchy, he travelled to Bordeaux and Estremoz in Portugal where he studied law. But any plans for a legal career were curtailed by the 1936-39 Civil War.
In 1725 an Irishman, Patrick Murphy, had set up the sherry company that the Domecq, then a minor French noble family, inherited in 1822. Pedro Domecq produced brandy and sherry until 1994, when the family was bought out and Pedro Domecq became part of the UK-based Allied Domecq.
In 1930 Alvaro’s father took over a large estate that had belonged to the Duke of Veragua, marking the beginning of the family’s relationship with the fiesta nacional, the bullfight.
During the Civil War Domecq joined the uprising against the elected government of the Republic. He later demonstrated his loyalty to the Franco regime by serving as mayor of Jerez (1952-57) and president of the provincial government of Cadiz from 1957 until 1967, when he became a deputy in the Cortes.
His father died in 1937 and so Domecq started work in the family’s bodegas, becoming managing director of the company aged 20. But it was not long before he returned to his passion for bulls, horses and the countryside.
Before the war had broken out he had managed to debut as a bullfighter in Santander, in 1934. He is deemed by most to have revived the then almost moribund form of bullfighting known as rejoneo. Sharing the regime’s avowed values of God, family and dignity, he epitomised what the Spanish Right-wing saw as Iberian virility. Bullfighting on horseback, carried out by rejoneadores, is still largely the preserve of the landed class from Andalusia. Bullfighting on foot sprang from nobles’ retainers drawing off the bull, a far braver but perhaps less elegant art.
In the 1943 season Domecq participated in more than 50 corridas, being feted in Portugal and as far afield as Mexico for his horsemanship. Domecq donated all his fees to charity. He retired from the bullring in 1950, a year after witnessing the goring and death of his close friend Manolete, the most famous bullfighter of his generation, at Linares.
But Domecq returned to the ring on three occasions: in 1960 in El Puerto de Santa Maria for the debut of his son, Alvaro; in October 1985 in Jerez to perform again alongside Alvaro, who was fighting for the last time; and finally, to even greater applause, in 1988 in Ronda, when his grandson, Luis, made his debut as a rejoneador.
In 1957 Domecq bought the rights to the branding iron of Salvador Suàrez Ternero, changing its name to Torrestrella. Over the last half-century the name has established itself as one of the leading bull breeds, renowned for its bravery. Domecq was also a pioneer in the use of artificial insemination to improve the quality of his bulls. His book, El Toro Bravo, is required reading for anyone seeking to understand bullfighting.
The Domecqs are sometimes believed to be beset by a tragic curse. In 1991 four of his grand-daughters were killed in a car accident. Eight years later his wife died, aged 81. Although she gave birth to 19 of his children, only two - Alvaro and Fabiola - survived.
Fourteen died as a consequence of their mother’s Rhesus Negative blood. A girl died during a blood transfusion, a boy died of dysentery at four months and another died, aged six, in a riding accident.
But Domecq, a fervent member of Opus Dei, believed life had to be suffered with faith.
Alvaro Domecq, who died on October 5, married María Josefa Romero in 1938. His two children survive him.
(Italics are mine.)
Those are absolutely wonderful.
Ooh, yes, Torygraph obits are wonderful. Do I recall correctly that it also said about Nico, words to the effect of " she gave up heroin for bicycling, of which the latter was to prove the more dangerous sport"?
“she gave up heroin for bicycling, of which the latter was to prove the more dangerous amusement” - just looked it up in the book. Well remembered, Celyn.
Oh, thank you, Struan - just one of those unimportant bits of stuff that infest the brain, but I thought I’d grab my chance to have it checked by people with whole books of the things. 
Ta muchly.
I used to have a girlfriend
known as Elsie
With whom I shared
Four sordid rooms in Chelsea
She wasn’t what you’d call
A blushing flower…
As a matter of fact
She rented by the hour.
The day she died the neighbors
came to snicker:
“Well, thats what comes
from to much pills and liquor.”
But when I saw her laid out like a Queen
She was the happiest…corpse…
I’d ever seen.
I think of Elsie to this very day.
I’d remember how’d she turn to me and say:
“What good is sitting alone in your room?
Come hear the music play.
Life is a Cabaret, old chum,
Come to the Cabaret.”
And as for me,
I made up my mind back in Chelsea,
When I go, I’m going like Elsie.