David Stewart Freeman was an American advertising executive best known for co-authoring the 1999 book 100 Things to Do Before You Die with his friend Neil Teplica. It was based on the Web site whatsgoingon.com, which the pair ran together from 1996 to 2001. The book's recommendations ranged from attending the Academy Awards and running with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, to the more obscure, like taking a voodoo pilgrimage in Haiti and "land diving

Land diving

Land diving is a ritual performed by the men of the southern part of Pentecost Island, Vanuatu. The precursor to bungee jumping, men jump off of wooden towers around high, with two tree vines wrapped around the ankles. Land diving is done without any safety equipment...

" in Vanuatu, which Freeman once called "the original bungee jumping". The success of 100 Things spawned numerous similar compendia of essential places and things such as 1,000 Places to See Before You Die

1,000 Places to See Before You Die

1,000 Places to See Before You Die is a 2003 travel book by Patricia Schultz.Among the "1,000 places" in the book are historic ones such as Robert Louis Stevenson's home in Western Samoa and the trail of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in the United States, cultural ones such as the Oregon...

, leaving a legacy of "... Before You Die" and "Before You Turn 40" books still in the bestseller charts today.

Freeman was born in Whittier, California

Whittier, California

Whittier is a city in Los Angeles County, California about southeast of Los Angeles. The city had a population of 85,331 at the 2010 census, up from 83,680 as of the 2000 census, and encompasses 14.7 square miles . Like nearby Montebello, the city constitutes part of the Gateway Cities...

. He graduated from the University of Southern California

University of Southern California

The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

 in 1983 with a bachelor's degree in urban planning

Urban planning

Urban planning incorporates areas such as economics, design, ecology, sociology, geography, law, political science, and statistics to guide and ensure the orderly development of settlements and communities....

. He worked in advertising for his whole professional career, including jobs at agencies Grey Advertising and TBWA\Chiat\Day. On September 11, 2001, Freeman watched the second plane hit the World Trade Center from his apartment just blocks away. He moved back to Southern California to be closer to his family.

Freeman died in his Venice, California, home on August 17, 2008, after falling and hitting his head. He was 47. At the time of his death, the Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

noted that Freeman had seen "about half the sites" in his book.