On this day in 1967, blues guitarist and singer-songwriter J. B. Lenoir died in Urbana, Illinois, at the age 38, of internal bleeding related to injuries he had suffered in a car crash three weeks earlier, which had not been properly treated in a hospital in Illinois. Born on March 5, 1929 in Monticello, Mississippi. He was active in the Chicago blues scene in the 1950s and 1960s.
The Final Footprint
Salem Church Cemetery, Monticello, Lawrence County, Mississippi.
His death was lamented by John Mayall in the songs “I’m Gonna Fight for You, J.B.” and “Death of J. B. Lenoir”.
The 2003 documentary film The Soul of a Man, directed by Wim Wenders as the second installment of Martin Scorsese’s series The Blues, explored Lenoir’s career, together with those of Skip James and Blind Willie Johnson.
In 2011, Lenoir was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.
On this day in 1980, director and producer, Alfred Hitchcock died of renal failure in his Bel Air, Los Angeles, California home at the age of 80. Born Alfred Joseph Hitchcock on 13 August 1899 in Leytonstone, London, England. One of the most influential filmmakers of all time. Hitchcock took suspense and psychological thrills to a whole new level in his films. His stories frequently feature fugitives on the run and beautiful blonde female characters. My favorite Hitchcock movies include: Suspicion (1941) with Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine; Spellbound (1945) with Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman; Notorious (1946) with Grant and Bergman; Dial M for Murder (1954) with Ray Milland and Grace Kelly; Rear Window (1954) with Jimmy Stewart and Kelly; To Catch a Thief (1955) with Grant and Kelly; Vertigo (1958) with Stewart and Kim Novak; North by Northwest (1959) with Grant and Eva Marie Saint; and Psycho (1960) with Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh.
On 2 December 1926, Hitchcock married the English-American screenwriter Alma Reville (1899–1982) at the Brompton Oratory in South Kensington. The couple honeymooned in Paris, Lake Como and St. Moritz, before returning to London to live in a leased flat on the top two floors of 153 Cromwell Road, Kensington. Reville, who was born just hours after Hitchcock, converted from Protestantism to Catholicism, apparently at the insistence of Hitchcock’s mother.
Reville became her husband’s closest collaborator; Charles Champlin wrote in 1982: “The Hitchcock touch had four hands, and two were Alma’s.” When Hitchcock accepted the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1979, he said he wanted to mention “four people who have given me the most affection, appreciation and encouragement, and constant collaboration. The first of the four is a film editor, the second is a scriptwriter, the third is the mother of my daughter, Pat, and the fourth is as fine a cook as ever performed miracles in a domestic kitchen. And their names are Alma Reville.” Reville wrote or co-wrote on many of Hitchcock’s films, including Shadow of a Doubt, Suspicion and The 39 Steps.
The Final Footprint – Hitchcock was cremated and his cremains were scattered in the Pacific Ocean.
#RIP #OTD in 1992 actress (Henry Frankenstein’s bride Elizabeth in Frankenstein, The Public Enemy), Mae Clarke died of cancer at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California aged 81. Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery
#RIP #OTD in 1993 session musician (David Bowie, Ian Hunter), songwriter, arranger, producer, guitarist of the Spiders from Mars, Mick Ronson died from liver cancer in London, aged 46. Eastern Cemetery, Kingston upon Hull, England
#RIP #OTD in 2011 writer of science fiction, fantasy and feminist literary criticism (The Female Man, “When It Changed”), academic, feminist, Joanna Russ died after a series of strokes in Tucson, Arizona, aged 74.
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