#RIP #OTD in 1959 comedian, actor (Abbott & Costello, “Who’s on First?”) Lou Costello died at Doctors Hospital, Beverly Hills from a heart attack, aged 52. Calvary Cemetery, East Los Angeles.
#RIP #OTD in 1987 actor (The Kid from Brooklyn, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Hans Christian Andersen, White Christmas, The Court Jester), singer, dancer, philanthropist, cook, Danny Kaye died of heart failure in Los Angeles, aged 76. Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, New York.
#RIP #OTD in 1996, novelist (L’Amant), playwright, screenwriter (Hiroshima mon amour), essayist, and experimental filmmaker Marguerite Duras died in Paris at the age of 81. Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris
On this day in 2003, U. S. Navy veteran, journalist, Assistant White House Press Secretary, Malcolm MacGregor “Mac” Kilduff, Jr. died in a nursing home in Beattyville, Kentucky at the age of 75. Born on 26 September 1927 in New Jersey. As the ranking press secretary accompanying JFK on his trip to Dallas, Texas in November 1963, Kilduff announced to the assembled press in the nurse’s room at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, “President John F. Kennedy died at approximately 1:00 CST today here in Dallas. He died of a gunshot wound to the brain. I have no other details regarding the assassination of the president.” Shortly before his announcement to the press, Kilduff told the news to LBJ by simply walking up to Johnson and calling him, Mr. President. Johnson’s wife, Lady Bird, let out a short scream, realizing what that meant. Kilduff maintained that Oswald was the lone gunman that day, but he believed that Governor John B. Connally was the intended target and not JFK. According to Kilduff’s biographical sketch on Arlington National Cemetery’s website, Oswald had appealed his dishonorable discharge from the Marine Corps to Connally, who served as secretary of the Navy before being elected governor in 1962.
The Final Footprint – Kilduff is interred in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. His grave is marked by an upright marble VA marker. Other notable Final Footprints at Arlington include; Space Shuttle Challenger, Space Shuttle Columbia, Medgar Evers, JFK, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, RFK, Edward Kennedy, Lee Marvin, and Audie Murphy.
Also on this day in 2003 actor Horst Buchholz died unexpectedly at the age of sixty-nine in the Berlin Charité from pneumonia that developed after an operation for a hip fracture. Born Horst Werner Buchholz on 4 December 1933 . He appeared in more than sixty feature films from 1951 to 2002. During his youth he was sometimes called “the German James Dean.” He is perhaps best known in English-speaking countries for his role as Chico in The Magnificent Seven (1960), as a communist in Billy Wilder’s One, Two, Three (1961) and as Dr. Lessing in Life Is Beautiful (1997).
Buchholz was married to Myriam Bru from 1958 until his death in 2003.
The Final Footprint
Berlin was the city to which his loyalty was constant, and he was buried there in the Friedhof Heerstraße. The word below his name on his marker means “actor”. Below his birth and death dates it says in German, “Love the world and the world will love you”.
Have you planned yours yet?
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