LOS ANGELES, Jan. 27 (UPI) -- After a life that included sabotaging the famed Hollywood sign, prankster Daniel N. Finegood has died from a cancer-related illness at the age of 52.
The Los Angeles Times reported that Finegood, who altered the spelling of the California sign so it read Hollyweed back in 1976, died last Monday at the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center from multiple myeloma.
Multiple myeloma is a form of cancer that damages the body's plasma cells, the immune system cells directly responsible for producing antibodies.
His wife, Bonnie, fondly remembered her husband's successful rewording of the Hollywood sign to honor the day California passed its more tolerant marijuana policy, the Times said.
"For a long time, he had this idea that if you just changed the two O's you could change the whole meaning of the sign," she said.
Finegood also gained notoriety for a pair of similar lavish rewordings that opposed the Persian Gulf War and Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North.
The newspaper said in addition to his wife, Finegood is survived by his mother, Rachel; two children, Natalie and Matthew; and his sister, Freddi Sue.
