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On this day in 30 BC, Roman politician and general, Cleopatra‘s lover, Mark Antony died at the age of 53 from a self inflicted stab wound in the arms of Cleopatra at her monument in Eqypt. Born Marcus Antonius most likely on 14 January 83 BC in Rome. As a military commander and administrator, he was an important supporter and loyal friend of his mother’s cousin Julius Caesar. After Caesar’s assassination, Antony formed an official political alliance with Octavian (the future Augustus) and Lepidus, known to historians today as the Second Triumvirate. The triumvirate broke up in 33 BC. Disagreement between Octavian and Antony erupted into civil war, the Final War of the Roman Republic, in 31 BC. Antony was defeated by Octavian at the naval Battle of Actium, and in a brief land battle at Alexandria. He and Cleopatra committed suicide shortly thereafter. His career and defeat are significant in Rome’s transformation from Republic to Empire.
The Final Footprint – The site of Antony and Cleopatra’s mausoleum is uncertain, though the Egyptian Antiquities Service believes it is in or near the temple of Taposiris Magna, southwest of Alexandria. Artistic portrayals in which the character of Mark Antony plays a central role include:
- William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra, and the films made from these two plays (played by Marlon Brando and Charlton Heston, respectively).
- The 1963 film Cleopatra (played by Richard Burton)
- The HBO/BBC TV series Rome (played by James Purefoy)
- The 1999 film Cleopatra (played by Billy Zane)
On this day in 1903, frontierswoman and scout Calamity Jane died in the Calloway Hotel in Terry, South Dakota at the age of 51. Born Martha Jane Cannary on 1 May 1852 in Princeton, Missouri. Perhaps best know for being an acquaintance of Wild Bill Hickok. She evidently claimed to have been married to Hickok. In 1893, Calamity Jane started to appear in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show as a horse rider and a trick shooter. She married Texan Clinton Burke. Did she love Hickok? Did Hickok have no use for her?
The Final Footprint – Calamity Jane is interred next to Hickok in Mount Moriah Cemetery on Mount Moriah in Deadwood, South Dakota. Her grave is marked by an upright granite urn monument. In addition, a memorial plaque was installed with her name on the wall above Hickok’s grave. Calamity Jane has been a popular character in books and films. My favorites include: in Larry McMurty’s novel Buffalo Girls (1990); she appears in Thomas Berger’s novel Little Big Man (1964); as played by Jean Arthur in the film The Plainsman (1936) with Gary Cooper as Hickok; as played by Jane Russell in the film The Paleface (1948); as played by Doris Day in the film Calamity Jane (1953) with Howard Keel as Hickok; as played by Anjelica Huston in the television film Buffalo Girls (1995) based on McMurtry’s novel and featuring Sam Elliott as Hickok; as played by Ellen Barkin in the film Wild Bill (1995) with Jeff Bridges as Hickok and John Hurt as Charley Prince, Diane Lane as Susannah Moore, Keith Carradine as Buffalo Bill Cody, David Arquette as Jack McCall, Christina Applegate as Lurline Newcomb, Bruce Dern as Will Plummer.
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On this day in 1963 poet Theodore Roethke died from a heart attack in his friend S. Rasnics’ swimming pool in Bainbridge Island, Washington at the age of 55. Born Theodore Huebner Roethke on May 25, 1908 in Saginaw, Michigan. In my opinion, Roethke is one of the most accomplished and influential poets of his generation.
Roethke’s work is characterized by its introspection, rhythm and natural imagery. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954 for his book The Waking, and he won the annual National Book Award for Poetry twice, in 1959 for Words for the Wind and posthumously in 1965 for The Far Field.
In the November 1968 edition of The Atlantic Monthly, former U.S. Poet Laureate and author James Dickey wrote Roethke was “in my opinion the greatest poet this country has yet produced.”
In 1953, Roethke married Beatrice O’Connell, a former student. Like many other American poets of his generation, Roethke was a heavy drinker and susceptible to bouts of mental illness. He did not initially inform O’Connell of his repeated episodes of mania and depression, yet she remained dedicated to him and his work. She ensured the posthumous publication of his final volume of poetry, The Far Field, as well as a book of his collected children’s verse, Dirty Dinky and Other Creatures, in 1973.
The Final Footprint
Roethke is interred in Oakwo0d Cemetery in Saginaw. The pool Roethke died in was later filled in and is now a zen rock garden, which can be viewed by the public at the Bloedel Reserve, a 150-acre (60 hectare) former private estate. There is no sign to indicate that the rock garden was the site of Roethke’s death.
There is a sign that commemorates his boyhood home and burial in Saginaw, Michigan. The historical marker notes in part:
Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) wrote of his poetry: The greenhouse “is my symbol for the whole of life, a womb, a heaven-on-earth.” Roethke drew inspiration from his childhood experiences of working in his family’s Saginaw floral company. Beginning in 1941 with Open House, the distinguished poet and teacher published extensively, receiving a Pulitzer Prize for poetry and two National Book Awards among an array of honors. In 1959 Pennsylvania University awarded him the Bollingen Prize. Roethke taught at Michigan State College, (present-day Michigan State University) and at colleges in Pennsylvania and Vermont, before joining the faculty of the University of Washington at Seattle in 1947. Roethke died in Washington in 1963. His remains are interred in Saginaw’s Oakwood Cemetery.
The Friends of Theodore Roethke Foundation maintains his birthplace at 1805 Gratiot in Saginaw as a museum. Roethke Auditorium (Kane Hall 130) at the University of Washington is named in his honor.
#RIP #OTD in 1966, 17 people died during the University of Texas at Austin tower shooting. Memorial plaque, Tower Garden on campus
On this day in 1970, stage and screen actress, Frances Farmer died at the age of 56 from esophageal cancer. Born Frances Elena Farmer on 19 September 1913 in Seattle. Perhaps best known for sensationalized and fictional accounts of her life, and her involuntary commitment to a mental hospital.
Farmer began acting in stage productions while a student at the University of Washington. After graduating, she began performing in stock theater before signing a film contract with Paramount Pictures on her twenty-second birthday in September 1935. She made her film debut in the B film Too Many Parents (1936), followed by another B picture, Border Flight, before being given the lead role opposite Bing Crosby in the musical western, Rhythm on the Range (1936). Unhappy with the opportunities given to her by the studio, Farmer returned to stock theater in 1937 before being cast in the original Broadway production of Clifford Odets’s Golden Boy, staged by New York City’s Group Theatre. She followed this with two Broadway productions directed by Elia Kazan in 1939, but a battle with depression and binge drinking caused her to drop out of a subsequent Ernest Hemingway stage adaptation.
Farmer returned to Los Angeles, earning supporting roles in the comedy World Premiere (1941) and the film noir Among the Living (1941). Farmer portrayed Calamity Jane (see above) in the film Badlands of Dakota (1941). In 1942, publicity of her reportedly erratic behavior began to surface, and after several arrests and committals to psychiatric institutions, Farmer was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. At the request of her family, particularly her mother, she was relocated to an institution in her home state of Washington, where she remained a patient until 1950. Farmer attempted an acting comeback, mainly appearing as a television host in Indianapolis on her own series, Frances Farmer Presents. Her final film role was in the 1958 drama The Party Crashers, after which she spent the majority of the 1960s occasionally performing in local theater productions staged by Purdue University.
The Final Footprint – She is interred at Oaklawn Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Fishers, Indiana. Farmer has been the subject of three films, three books, and numerous songs and magazine articles. She was portayed in the film Frances (1982) by Jessica Lange. The Nirvana song “Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle”, written by fellow Washington native Kurt Cobain, appears on the band’s 1993 In Utero album. She has been the subject of various works, including two feature films and several books, many of which focus heavily on her time spent institutionalized, during which she claimed to have been subject to various systemic abuses. Her posthumously released, ghost written autobiography, Will There Really Be a Morning? (1972), details these claims but has been exposed as largely a fictional work written by a friend of Farmer’s to clear debts. A 1978 biography of her life, Shadowland, alleged that Farmer underwent a transorbital lobotomy during her institutionalization but the author has since stated in court that he made this, and several other major aspects of the book, up himself. A 1982 biographical film based on this book erroneously depicted these events as true, resulting in renewed interest in her life and career. Farmer was portrayed by Jessica Lange.
On this day in 1980, actor Strother Martin died of a heart attack at the age of 61. Born Strother Martin, Jr. on 26 March 1919 in Kokomo, Indiana. Perhaps best known as the Captain in the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke, with Paul Newman, in which he uttered the line, “What we’ve got here is…failure to communicate.” Martin’s distinctive, reedy voice and menacing demeanor made him ideal for villainous roles in many of the best-known westerns of the 1950s and 1960s, including The Horse Soldiers (1959) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), both directed by John Ford. His lunatic turn in the latter film as Lee Marvin’s character’s insanely sadistic henchman, gleefully giggling in anticipation of each horrendous atrocity, remains a particularly memorable performance. Martin also excelled in comedy, playing an incompetent “Indian agent” in the Wayne film, McClintock (1963). By the late 1960s, Martin was almost as well-known a figure as many top-billed stars. Martin appeared in all three of the classic Westerns released in 1969: Sam Peckinpah‘s The Wild Bunch (as Coffer, a bloodthirsty bounty hunter); George Roy Hill‘s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (as Percy Garris, the “colorful” Bolivian mine boss who hires the two title characters); and Henry Hathaway‘s True Grit (as Colonel Stonehill, a horse dealer). He appeared six times each with both Wayne and Newman.
The Final Footprint – His widow, Helen Meisels-Martin, died in 1997, and her ashes were inurned with Martin’s in Court of Remembrance, Columbarium of Radiant Dawn, at Hollywood Hills Forest Lawn, in North Hollywood, California. Other notable final footprints at Hollywood Hills include; Gene Autry, Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, David Carradine, Scatman Crothers, Bette Davis, Sandra Dee, Ronnie James Dio, Michael Clarke Duncan, Carrie Fisher, Bobby Fuller, Andy Gibb, Michael Hutchence, Jill Ireland, Al Jarreau, Buster Keaton, Lemmy Kilmister, Jack LaLanne, Nicolette Larson, Liberace, Jayne Meadows, Ricky Nelson, Bill Paxton, Brock Peters, Freddie Prinze, Lou Rawls, Debbie Reynolds, Telly Savalas, Lee Van Cleef, and Paul Walker.
#RIP #OTD in 1981 playwright, screenwriter (Marty, Paint Your Wagon, The Hospital, Network), novelist Paddy Chayefsky died from cancer in New York City, aged 58. Sharon Gardens Division of Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York
#RIP #OTD in 2015 singer (“Anyone Who Had a Heart”, “You’re My World”), English television presenter Cilla Black died at her holiday home in Estepona, Spain from a stroke following a fall, aged 72. Allerton Cemetery in Allerton, Liverpool, England
#RIP #OTD in 2020, US Marine Corps Veteran, actor (The China Syndrome, The Electric Horseman, Absence of Malice, The Thing, Tender Mercies, The Natural, Cocoon, The Firm) Wilford Brimley died in St. George, Utah, age 85. Cremation
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