Nah, obits for normal people are written off questionnaires the funeral homes fax to the papers. I know they made my first reporting job a lot easier. All you had to do was follow the checkboxes correctly, add verbs and you were set to put the paper to bed.
Good thing, since on funeral home always faxed obits over about an hour before deadline every Friday night. Of course, in revenge I’d always call up the funeral director to confirm spellings. 
So who’s going next?
Bob Hope or maybe Katherine Hepburn.
Betcha those were written decades ago.
I’ve been thinking it would be Bob Hope or Katharine Hepburn FOR YEARS!!! Those two just refuse to pass. Or maybe they’ve already passed and nobody has noticed.
Another possibility is the other two thirds of the Queen Mum triangle. Gotta be non-theatrical. So, we suggest: Ronald Reagan and THE POPE! (With acknowledgment to Semp!)
:::I can’t believe I’m using my 100th post on something as morbid as this:::
Of those four (Hope, Hepburn, Reagan and the Pope), I think at least three of them will not make it to the end of the year. I would say Reagan, the Pope, and probably Hepburn. I’ve heard she’s not doing well.
Why is Reagan not theatrical? We could have another entertainment triumvirate and have Reagan, Hope and Hepburn all at once.
If I wake up tomorrow morning and find out all four of them have kicked off in the night, I’m going to feel really bad.
It’s not just obits that are prepared far in advance of need - during yesterday’s procession of the Queen Mother’s casket, it was reported that the protocol to be followed at the time of her death was planned in 1980. Who would’ve thought that she would’ve hung on 22 years afterward?
Not unless it’s “Weekend at Arthur’s”.
Good thing I wasn’t drinking anything.