Hollywood's industry bible Variety mistakenly declared Monty Python star Terry Gilliam had died and published his obituary, but the 74-year-old responded in a typically Monty Python fashion by apologising for "being dead".
Variety's pre-prepared obituary was published on Tuesday, with the headline: "Monty Python's Terry Gilliam, director of Brazil, dies at XXX".
The report began: "Director Terry Gilliam, the only American member of the Monty Python comedy troupe and an Oscar nominee for the screenplay to his film Brazil, has died."
It was live for several hours before someone at the website corrected the mistake and posted an apology on Twitter which read: "Correction: Variety incorrectly published an article stating that director Terry Gilliam passed away. We're deeply sorry for the mistake."
Gilliam went on Facebook and, in a Pythonesque way, posted an apology for "being dead".
"I apologize for being dead especially to those who have already bought tickets to the upcoming talks, but, Variety has announced my demise. Don't believe their retraction and apology!" the text read.
After Variety's blunder went viral, Twitter exploded with Monty Python fans posting references to the comedy gang's famous Dead Parrot sketch.
@humphriesmark wrote: "Monty Python's Terry Gilliam is not dead. He's resting... he's stunned... he's pining for the fjords." Another, by @lisamarks, said: "Apparently the parrot is still dead but Terry Gilliam is not."
Terry Gilliam is releasing autobiography Gilliamesque on Thursday October 1. He will follow this up with some talks on the memoir later in the same month in New York and London.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here