On this day in 1990, author Walker Percy died from prostate cancer in Covington, Louisiana, at the age of 73. Born on May 28, 1916 in Birmingham, Alabama. interests included philosophy and semiotics. Percy is known for his philosophical novels set in and around New Orleans, the first of which, The Moviegoer, won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. He devoted his literary life to the exploration of “the dislocation of man in the modern age.” His work displays a combination of existential questioning, Southern sensibility, and deep Catholic faith.
Percy married Mary Bernice Townsend, a medical technician, on November 7, 1946. They settled in the suburb of Covington, Louisiana across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans. Percy’s wife and one of their daughters later had a bookstore, where the writer often worked in an office on the second floor.
The Final Footprint
He is buried on the grounds of St. Joseph Benedictine Abbey in St. Benedict, Louisiana. He had become a secular oblate of the Abbey’s monastic community, making his final oblation on February 16, 1990, less than three months before his death.
On this day in 1977, Academy Award winning actress, Joan Crawford died at her New York apartment from a heart attack at the age of 72. Born Lucille Fay LeSueur on 23 March 1905 in San Antonio, Texas. Crawford became one of Hollywood’s most prominent movie stars and one of the highest paid women in the United States. In 1931, she starred opposite Clark Gable in Possessed. They began an affair during the production, that lasted for many years. Crawford won her Oscar for the title role in Mildred Pierce (1945). She was married four times; Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. (1929-1933 divorce), Franchot Tone (1935-1939 divorce), Phillip Terry (1942-1946 divorce) and Alfred Steele (1955-1959 his death).
The Final Footprint – Crawford was cremated. Her cremains were entombed in a crypt next to her husband, Alfred Steele, in the Ferncliff Mausoleum, Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. A funeral service was held at Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel (a Dignity Memorial property) in Manhattan. Crawford’s hand and footprints are immortalized in the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. She also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1750 Vine Street. In NovembeRrer 1978, a year and a half after Crawford’s death, her adopted daughter, Christina published Mommie Dearest, which contained allegations that Crawford was emotionally and physically abusive to Christina and her brother Christopher. The book was made into a movie of the same name in 1981 with Faye Dunaway as Crawford. Other notable funerals at Frank E. Campbell include; Aaliyah, Jean-Michael Basquiat, Irving Berlin, Lord Buckley, James Cagney, Oleg Cassini, Montgomery Clift, Frank Costello, Malcolm Forbes, Greta Garbo, Judy Garland, George Gershwin, Jim Henson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Peter Jennings, Madeline Kahn, Bat Masterson, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Heath Ledger, John Lennon, Norman Mailer, Mary Tyler Moore, Notorious B.I.G., Les Paul, Ayn Rand, Igor Stravinsky, Ed Sullivan, Arturo Toscanini, Rudolf Valentino, Luther Vandross, Mae West, and Tennessee Williams. Other notable Final Footprints at Ferncliff include: Aaliyah, James Baldwin, Béla Bartók, Cab Calloway, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Oscar Hammerstein II, Jerome Kern, Malcolm X, Thelonious Monk, and Ed Sullivan.
On this day in 1999, poet, singer-songwriter, cartoonist, screenwriter, and author of children’s books, Shel Silverstein died from a heart attack in Key West at the age of 68. Born Sheldon Allan Silverstein on 25
September 1932 in Chicago. I remember him best for the songs he wrote including; “A Boy Named Sue”, “Put Another Log on the Fire”, “One’s on the Way”, “25 Minutes to Go“, “The Cover of ‘Rolling Stone'”, “Freakin’ at the Freakers’ Ball,” “Sylvia’s Mother”, “The Things I Didn’t Say”, “Rosalie’s Good Eats Café”, “The Mermaid”, “The Winner”, “Warm and Free” and “Tequila Sheila”, he co-wrote with Baxter Taylor “Marie Laveau”, “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan“, and “Queen of the Silver Dollar”.
The Final Footprint – Silverstein is interred in Westlawn Cemetery in Norridge, Illinois. Other notable final footprints at Westlawn include Jack Ruby and Gene Siskel.
