Magazines raced to include his obituary in upcoming issues. And 48 people came a little closer to winning $2,000.

Clockwise, from left to right: The Golden Girls rank as Nos. 61, 302, 225 and 178 in Stiffs.com's popular 'dead pool.'

by Gary Null, NBC

     Stiffs.com, an online "celebrity death pool" has thrived on famous people's obituaries since 1995. How it works: For a $15 fee, visitors submit the names of 10 stars they predict will die before Dec. 31. At the end of the year, prizes are awarded to the top participants.

     The site, which features a smiling skull on its home page, is shamelessly morbid, crude and tasteless. But that hasn't deterred 1,036 people from registering this year. In fact, it's spawned quite a wave of dead-pool competition, although most sites don't offer cash to the "winners."

     Brando, in case you were wondering, was Stiffs' 47th most-popular entry, a notch below Psycho's Janet Leigh and one above former Mouseketeer Annette Funicello. The top 10 celebrities include Pope John Paul II, King Kong star Fay Wray, Lady Bird Johnson and 99-year-old former boxing champ Max Schmeling.

     Queasy yet? As cruel as the list can be — imagine Jerry Lewis' shock upon discovering he's No. 16 — the dead pool provides some insights into people's most morbid thoughts: Saddam Hussein, for instance, made No. 20 this year. (Osama bin Laden ranks 51st.)

     It looks like many participants didn't believe Roy Horn was going to pull through his tiger attack, either; he's at No. 58. And poor Ozzy Osbourne may only be 55, but more people predicted he'd die this year than 94-year-old Titanic actress Gloria Stuart or 85-year-old actor Jack Palance.

     Other sites manage to satisfy people's need for morbid celebrity gossip without turning it into a sport. Sign up at CelebrityDeathBeeper.com, and they'll e-mail you the minute a celebrity or sports figure dies. The more serious Blog of Death links to notable obituaries daily, and lets users post their own tributes.

     Dead or Alive? specializes in answering water-cooler stumpers such as, "Is Abe Vigoda still with us?" (Although I think I'd rather visit this site www.abevigoda.com to find out.) Ditto for Who's Alive and Who's Dead, the Dead People Server, you get the picture. Judging by the wealth of death sites, it's only a matter of time before Dead Celebrity Magazine pops up next to Star on the newsstand.

     It's no secret the media keep dozens, if not hundreds, of obituaries on file, "just in case." (One of my first college journalism assignments, in fact, was to pen an early obit of James Earl Ray.) It wouldn't surprise me if some editors peruse dead-pool sites when compiling their databases.

     In a February article for The New York Times, music critic Neil Strauss revealed an editor had recently asked him to write Courtney Love's obituary. "Nobody actually believed that Courtney Love had died," he wrote, "but many thought she was heading in that direction."

     Courtney might be relieved to learn that only 12 of Stiffs.com's participants think she's headed "in that direction." Then again, the same number of people said the same about Tony Randall.

     What is it about our fascination with dead celebrities? Isn't our world dark enough? It would be so much cheerier to see celebrity pregnancy pools, marriage pools — even plastic-surgery pools — surpass the popularity of online death watches.

     But I'd be a fool to bet on it.