page_title: List of premature obituaries
section_title: T
hierarchical_section_title: List of premature obituaries / T
caption_attribution_description: Mark Twain photo portrait. One of a series of photographs taken by A.F. Bradley for the purpose, arranged by George Wharton James, of helping California poet laureate Ina Coolbrith after she lost her home in the fire following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. In his New York City studio, Bradley placed Twain on a revolving platform to make the capture of different lighting "looks" easier on the subject. The portraits were signed by Twain and sold for Coolbrith's benefit. Twain said four of the series were the finest images ever taken of him. http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/publications/siycfall_05.pdf http://www.twainquotes.com/Bradley/bradley.html
context_page_description: A premature obituary is an obituary of someone who was still alive at the time of publication. Examples include that of inventor, businessman, and chemist Alfred Nobel, whose premature obituary condemning him as a "merchant of death" may have prompted him to create the Nobel Prize; black nationalist Marcus Garvey, whose actual death may have been precipitated by reading his own obituary; and actor Abe Vigoda, who was the subject of so many premature obituaries that a website was created to state whether he was alive or dead.
  People who were presumed to be dead, and joke death reports that were widely believed, are also included.
context_section_description: Gonçalo Ribeiro Telles: the online newspaper Observador published the news of his death on the day of his 98th anniversary ; it was corrected some hours later.
  Shashi Tharoor: Times Now tweeted that the Indian politician Shashi Tharoor has died on December 12, 2017, after the death of actor and producer Shashi Kapoor. Tharoor tweeted in response "We're getting condolence calls in the office! Reports of my demise are, if not exaggerated, at least premature."
  Margaret Thatcher: Text-message reports of Baroness Thatcher's death caused a stir at a 2009 Canadian political event, and officials in Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office were preparing to issue a statement of condolence, until it was determined that the deceased Thatcher in question was actually Transport Minister John Baird's cat. Thatcher actually died on April 8, 2013.
  Orlando Thomas: A former professional football player afflicted with Lou Gehrig's disease, Thomas was incorrectly reported as dead by the official website of the Minnesota Vikings, his former team, on October 28, 2009. The story of Thomas's death was then picked up and re-reported by various news services, including the Associated Press. He later died in 2014.
  Donald Walter Trautman (Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Erie, Pennsylvania) was reported dead in the edition of April 4, 2007 of the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano; in fact it was his predecessor Bishop Michael Murphy who had just died. "I told people that there was an early resurrection", Trautman said. The Tablet printed a cartoon about the incident, depicting one angel at a reception desk telling another: "Bishop Trautman's just e-mailed us with a cancellation."
  Mark Twain: American author, was reported dead twice:
  In 1897 when a journalist was sent to inquire after Twain's health, thinking he was near death; in fact it was his cousin who was very ill. Although (contrary to popular belief) no obituary was published, Twain recounted the event in the New York Journal of June 2, 1897, including his famous words "The report of my death was an exaggeration" (which is usually misquoted, e.g. as "The rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated", or "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated").
  On May 4, 1907, when people lost track of a yacht he was traveling on, The New York Times published an article saying he might have been lost at sea. In fact, the yacht had been held up by fog, and Twain had disembarked. Twain read the article, and cleared up the story by writing a humorous account in The New York Times the following day.
  Twain died in 1910.
caption: Mark Twain: "The report of my death was an exaggeration"
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