LOS ANGELES – Kenny Kingston, the self-described “psychic to the stars” who claimed numerous celebrity clients – and said that he could communicate with dead ones – died Monday at home in Studio City. He was 87.
The cause was cardiovascular disease, said his longtime partner Valerie Porter.
Kingston was most widely known in the 1970s, when he appeared on national talk shows. But he got publicity long after that for his annual predictions of Academy Award winners based on messages he received from dead stars, who could presumably see the future or have access to the inner sanctums of ballot tallying firm Price Waterhouse.
The predictions were often no better than those in an office pool. For example, in 1994 Kingston said he had it on good authority from the likes of Greta Garbo, Gloria Swanson and James Dean that the acting winners would include Holly Hunter and Tommy Lee Jones. Those picks turned out to be correct, but the dead stars also wrongly picked Liam Neeson and Emma Thompson.
The always genial Kingston, known for his oversized tinted glasses and ample mop of blond hair, blamed misfires on the dead stars, saying that they rigged it by choosing the people they wanted to win.