Hercule Poirot Is Dead; Famed Belgian Detective is a well-known news story by Thomas Lask published in the 6 Aug 1975 issue of New York Times. The story announces the death of Hercule Poirot and proceeds to give an obituary. This would be the first time that a fictional character was given such front page treatment by the New York Times.
The article announces that Hercule Poirot is dead, "age unknown" and proceeds to describe him as being arthritic and with a bad heart in the last years of his life. He was in a wheelchair often, and was carried from his bedroom to the public lounge at Styles Court, a nursing home in Essex. At the time of his death he was "wearing a wig and false mustaches to mask the signs of age that offended his vanity." The article goes on to give a brief history of Poirot's career and also that of his chronicler Agatha Christie. It also carried an announcement by Dodd, Mead, Christie's publishers, that “Curtain,” the novel that chronicles Poirot's last days would be released on 15 October.
The article includes a picture of Poirot as painted by painted W. Smithson Broadhead in the 1920s to accompany the Poirot short stories published in The Sketch.
The article was subsequently reprinted in Murder Ink: The Mystery Reader’s Companion (Workman Publishing, 1977 edited by Dilys Winn).