On this day in 1977, beautiful, temperamental, tragic, turbulent opera soprano, La Divina, Maria Callas died at the age of 53 in her Paris apartment from a heart attack. Born Sophia Cecelia Kalos in Manhattan on 2 December 1923 to Greek parents. She was christened Maria Anna Sophia Kalogeropoulou. Callas married wealthy Italian industrialist Giovanni Battista Meneghini, who was about 30 years older than her. She made her official debut at La Scala in Verdi’s I vespri siciliani. In my opionion, Callas is one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century. Critics praised her bel canto technique, wide-ranging voice and dramatic gifts. Her repertoire ranged from classical opera seria to the bel canto operas of Donizetti, Bellini and Rossini; further, to the works of Verdi and Puccini; and, in her early career, to the music dramas of Wagner. Her musical and dramatic talents led to her being hailed as La Divina. In 1957, she met Aristotle Onassis at a party. They began an affair which resulted in Callas leaving her husband and lasted for nine years until Onassis left Callas for Jacqueline Kennedy.
The Final Footprint – Callas was cremated and her ashes were placed in a niche in the cemetery of Pere Lachaise in Paris until 1979 when the ashes were removed and scattered over the Aegean Sea off the coast of Greece in accordance with her wishes. A niche plaque remains at Pere Lachaise to memorialize Callas. Père Lachaise is the largest cemetery in Paris and one of the most visited cemeteries in the world. Other notable Final Footprints at Père Lachaise include; Guillaume Apollinaire, Honoré de Balzac, Georges Bizet, Jean-Dominique Bauby, Frédéric Chopin, Colette, Auguste Comte, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Max Ernst, Marcel Marceau, Molière, Jim Morrison, Édith Piaf, Camille Pissarro, Marcel Proust, Sully Prudhomme, Gioachino Rossini, Georges-Pierre Seurat, Gertrude Stein, Dorothea Tanning,Alice B. Toklas, Oscar Wilde, and Richard Wright.
On this day in 1977, singer-songwriter, musician, guitarist, and poet Marc Bolan died in a car accident near Gipsy Lane on Queens Ride, Barnes, southwest London, a fortnight before his 30th birthday. Born Mark Feld on 30 September 1947 in Stoke Newington, London. Perhaps best known as the lead singer of the glam rock band T. Rex. Bolan was one of the pioneers of the glam rock movement of the 1970s. He died at the age of 29 in a car accident a fortnight before his 30th birthday.
The Final Footprint
His funeral service was held at the Golders Green Crematorium, a secular provision in north London, where his ashes were interred. At the service, attended by David Bowie and Rod Stewart, a swan-shaped floral tribute was displayed in recognition of his breakthrough hit single “Ride a White Swan”. The car crash site has subsequently become a shrine to his memory, where fans leave tributes beside the tree. In 2013, the shrine was featured on the BBC Four series Pagans and Pilgrims: Britain’s Holiest Places. The site, referred to as Bolan’s Rock Shrine, is owned and maintained by the T. Rex Action Group. Other notable cremations at GGC include; Kingsley Amis, Neville Chamberlain, T. S. Eliot, Sigmund Freud, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, Vivien Leigh, Keith Moon, Peter Sellers, Bram Stoker, H. G. Wells, and Amy Winehouse.
Bolan’s shrine, on what would have been his 60th birthday, 30 September 2007
#RIP #OTD in 2009 singer-songwriter and member of the folk music group Peter, Paul and Mary (“Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”, “Leaving on a Jet Plane”), Mary Travers died of leukemia at Danbury Hospital, Danbury, Connecticut, age 72. Umpawaug Cemetery in Redding, Connecticut
On this day in 2016, playwright Edward Albee died at his home in Montauk, New York at the age of 88. Born Edward Franklin Albee III on March 12, 1928 in at his home in Montauk, New York, aged 88. Perhaps best known for his plays; The Zoo Story (1958), The Sandbox (1959), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962), A Delicate Balance (1966), and Three Tall Women (1994). Three of his plays won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (A Delicate Balance, Seascape, Three Tall Women), and two of his plays won the Tony Award for Best Play (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?).
The Final Footprint
Cremation.
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