Day in History 23 January – Arthur Guinness – Gustave Doré – Anna Pavlova – Edvard Munch – Salvador Dalí – Johnny Carson – Jack Lalanne – Hal Holbrook – Charles Osgood – Melanie

Posted on 29 JanamFri, 23 Jan 2026 00:54:00 -06002026-01-23T00:54:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

Arthur_GuinnessOn this day in 1803, Irish brewer, entrepreneur, philanthropist and the founder of the Guinness brewery business, Arthur Guinness died in Dublin at the approximate age of 78.  Born into the Irish Protestant Guinness family in 1724 or 1725 in Celbridge, County Kildare, Ireland.  In 1752, Guinness’s godfather Arthur Price, the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Cashel, bequeathed him £100 in his will.  Guinness invested the money and in 1755 had a brewery at Leixlip, just 17 km from Dublin.  In 1759, Guinness went to the city and set up his own business.  He took a 9,000 year lease on the 4-acre (16,000 m2) brewery at St. James’s Gate from the descendants of Sir Mark Rainsford for an annual rent of £45.  In 1761 he married Olivia Whitmore in St. Mary’s Church, Dublin, and they had 21 children, 10 of whom lived to adulthood.  Guinness’s florid signature is still copied on every label of bottled Guinness.

The Final Footprint – Guinness is buried in his mother’s family plot at Oughterard, County Kildare.

#RIP #OTD in 1883 artist, as a printmaker, illustrator (Paradise Lost, The Tempest, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, The Raven), painter, comics artist, caricaturist, and sculptor Gustave Doré died in Paris, aged 51. Père Lachaise Cemetery

#RIP #OTD in 1931 prima ballerina with the Imperial Russian Ballet & the Ballets Russes, (The Dying Swann) Anna Pavlova died of pleurisy, in the bedroom next to the Japanese Salon of the Hotel Des Indes in The Hague, aged 49. Cremated remains at Golders Green Crematorium, London

Edvard_Munch_1921On this day in 1944, painter Edvard Munch died in his house at Ekely near Oslo, about a month after his 80th birthday.  Born in a farmhouse in the village of Ådalsbruk in Løten on 12 December 1863.  Munch’s intensely evocative treatment of psychological themes built upon some of the main tenets of late 19th-century Symbolism and greatly influenced German Expressionism in the early 20th century.  Perhaps best known for The Scream (1893). 

The Final Footprint – Munch is interred in Vår Frelsers Gravlund (Cemetery of Our Saviour), Oslo.  When Munch died, his remaining works were bequeathed to the city of Oslo, which built the Munch Museum at Tøyen (it opened in 1963).  The museum hosts a collection of approximately 1,100 paintings, 4,500 drawings, and 18,000 prints, the broadest collection of his works in the world. 

    • Gallery
    • The Scream. 1893. Oil, tempera, and pastel on cardboard. Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo
    • The Dance of Life. 1899–1900. Oil on canvas, 49½ × 75 in. Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo
    • Ashes. 1894. Oil on canvas. 120.5 × 141 cm. Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo
    • Madonna. 1894. Oil on canvas. 90 × 68 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo
    • The Seine at Saint-Cloud. 1890. 46 × 38 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo
    • At the Roulette Table in Monte Carlo. 1892. 74,5 × 116 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo
    • August Strindberg. 1892. Oil on canvas, 120 × 90 cm. Museum of Modern Art, Stockholm, Sweden
    • Death in the Sickroom. 1893. 134 × 160 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo
    • Starry Night. 1893. 135.6 × 140 cm. J. Paul Getty Museum.
    • Vampire. 1895. 91 × 109 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo
    • Anxiety. 1894. 94 × 74 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo
    • Death in the Sickroom. c. 1895. Oil on canvas. 59 × 66 in. Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo
    • Lady From the Sea (detail). 1896. Oil on canvas. 39½ × 126 in.
    • Separation. 1896. 96 × 127 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo
    • The Voice / Summer Night. 1896. 90 × 119 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo
    • The Kiss. 1897. 99 × 81 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo
    • Inheritance. 1897–99. 141 × 120 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo

Metabolism. 1898–99. 172 × 142 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo
    • Red and White. 1899–1900. 93 × 129 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo
    • Train Smoke. 1900. 84 × 109 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo
    • Consul Christen Sandberg. 1901. 215 × 147 cm. Munch Museum, Osl0
    • Four Girls in Åsgårdstrand. 1903. 87 × 111 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo
    • Shore with Red House. 1904. 69 × 109 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo
    • Portrait of Friedrich Nietzsche (1906)
    • Death of Marat I (1907)
    • Jealousy. 1907. 75 × 98 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo
    • The Sun. 1910–11. 450 × 772 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo
    • Galloping Horse. 1910–12. 148 × 120 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo
    • The Yellow Log. 1912. 129.5 × 159.5 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo
    • On the Sofa. 1913. 80 × 150 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo
  • Weeping Nude. 1913–14. 110 × 135 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo

Self-portraits

    • Self-Portrait. 1882. 26 × 19 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo
    • Self-Portrait in Hell. 1903. 82 × 66 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo
    • Self-Portrait with Brushes. 1904. 197 × 91 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo
  • Self-Portrait with a Bottle of Wine. 1906. 110 × 120 cm. Munch Museum, Oslo

Photographs

    • Portrait at 26 years
    • Portrait of Edvard Munch 1902.
    • Portrait of Edvard Munch
  • Portrait of Edvard Munch 1929

Salvador_Dalí_1939On this day in 1989 prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter, Salvador Dali died while his favorite record of Tristan and Isolde played, of heart failure at Figueres, Spain at the age of 84.  Born Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech on 11 May 1904, in the town of Figueres, in the Empordà region, close to the French border in Catalonia.  Dalí was a skilled draftsman, perhaps best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work.  His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of Renaissance masters.  Perhaps his best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in August 1931.  Dalí’s expansive artistic repertoire included film, sculpture, and photography, in collaboration with a range of artists in a variety of media.  Dalí attributed his “love of everything that is gilded and excessive, my passion for luxury and my love of oriental clothes” to an “Arab lineage”, claiming that his ancestors were descended from the Moors.  Dalí was highly imaginative, and also enjoyed indulging in unusual and grandiose behavior.  Dalí married Elena Ivanovna Diakonova “Gala”.

The Final Footprint – Dalí  is entombed in the crypt below the stage of his Theatre and Museum in Figueres.  The location is across the street from the church of Sant Pere, where he had his baptism, first communion, and funeral, and is only three blocks from the house where he was born.  The Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation currently serves as his official estate.  Dalí has been cited as major inspiration from many modern artists.  His manic expression and famous moustache have made him something of a cultural icon for the bizarre and surreal.  He has been portrayed on film by Robert Pattinson in Little Ashes, and Adrien Brody in Midnight in Paris.

Gallery

    • Gala in the Window (1933) Marbella

    • The Rainbow (1972), M.T. Abraham Foundation

    • Rinoceronte vestido con puntillas (1956) Puerto José Banús

    • Plaza de Dalí (Dalí Square), Madrid

    • Perseo (Perseus) Marbella

  • Children at Dalí exhibition in Sakıp Sabancı Museum, Istanbul

Johnny_Carson_1965-231x300On this day in 2005, U.S. Navy veteran, television host, comedian, Emmy winner, American icon, Johnny Carson, died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center of respiratory failure arising from emphysema, in Los Angeles, California at the age of 79.  Born John William Carson on 23 October 1925 in Corning, Iowa.  NBC invited him to replace Jack Paar as host of The Tonight Show, who would leave in March 1962.  Carson declined the offer, but NBC asked him again after Bob Newhart, Jackie Gleason, and Joey Bishop also refused.  Carson accepted in March and on 1 October 1962, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson premiered.  His announcer and sidekick was Ed McMahon throughout the program. McMahon’s opening line, “Heeeere’s Johnny” became a hallmark.  Carson’s trademark was a phantom golf swing at the end of his monologues, aimed stage left where Doc Severinsen and the Tonight Show Band were located.  Paul Anka wrote the theme song (“Johnny’s Theme”), a reworking of his “Toot Sweet”.  In May 1972, the show moved from New York to Burbank, California.  Carson often joked about “beautiful downtown Burbank”.  Carson played several continuing characters on sketches during the show, including; Art Fern the “Tea Time Movie” announcer, Carnac the Magnificent and Floyd R. Turbo American.  Carson retired from show business on 22 May 1992, when he stepped down as host of The Tonight Show.  His farewell was a major media event, and stretched over several nights.  It was often emotional for Carson, his colleagues, and the audiences, particularly the farewell statement he delivered on his 4,531st and final Tonight Show:

“ And so it has come to this: I, uh — am one of the lucky people in the world; I found something I always wanted to do, and I have enjoyed every single minute of it. I want to thank the gentlemen who’ve shared this stage with me for thirty years, Mr. Ed McMahon — Mr. Doc Severinsen — and — you people watching, I can only tell you that it has been an honor and a privilege to come into your homes all these years and entertain you — and I hope when I find something that I want to do, and I think you would like, and come back, that you’ll be as gracious in inviting me into your home as you have been. I bid you a very heartfelt good night. ”

Carson was married four times; Joan Morril Wolcott (1949 – 1963 divorce), Joanne Copeland (1963 – 1972 divorce), Joanna Holland (1972 – 1985 divorce) and Alexandra Mass (1987 – 2005 his death).

The Final Footprint – Carson was cremated and his cremains were given to his family.  In accordance with his family’s wishes, no public memorial service was held.  Numerous tributes were paid to Carson upon his death including a statement by then-President George W. Bush, all recognizing the deep and enduring affection held for him.  The day after his death, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno paid tribute to Carson with guests McMahon, Newhart, Don Rickles, Drew Carey and k.d. lang.  David Letterman followed suit on January 31 with former Tonight Show executive producer Peter Lassally and Severinsen.  At the beginning of this show, Letterman said that for thirty years no matter what was going on in the world, whether people had a good or bad day, they wanted to end it being “tucked in by Johnny.”  He also told his viewers that the monologue he had just spoken, which was very well received by the studio audience, consisted entirely of jokes sent to him by Carson in the last few months of his life.  Severinsen ended the Letterman show that night by playing, along with Tommy Newsom, one of Carson’s two favorite songs, “Here’s That Rainy Day” (the other was “I’ll Be Seeing You”).  The 2005 film The Aristocrats was dedicated to Carson.  At the 1st Annual Comedy Awards on Comedy Central, the Johnny Carson Award was given to Letterman.  A two-hour documentary about his life, Johnny Carson: King of Late Night, aired on PBS on 14 May 2012, as part of their American Masters series.  It is narrated by Kevin Spacey and features interviews with many of Carson’s family, fellow comedians and protégés.

#RIP #OTD in 2011 fitness and nutrition guru and motivational speaker Jack LaLanne died of respiratory failure due to pneumonia at his home in Morro Bay, California, aged 96. Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, California.

#RIP #OTD in 2021 actor (Mark Twain Tonight!, All the President’s Men, Wall Street, The Firm, Men of Honor, Into the Wild), Hal Holbrook died at his home in Beverly Hills, aged 95. McLemoresville Cemetery in McLemoresville, Tennessee, alongside his wife, Dixie Carter

#RIP #OTD in 2024, radio and television commentator, writer, musician, host of CBS News Sunday Morning for over 22 years, Charles Osgood died from complications of dementia at his home in Saddle River, New Jersey, at age 91. Cremation

#RIP #OTD in 2024, singer (Ruby Tuesday), songwriter (Brand New Key, What Have They Done to My Song Ma, Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)), Melanie (Safka) died in Nashville aged 76. Larkspur Conservation at Taylor Hollow, Westmoreland, Tennessee

Have you planned yours yet?

Follow TFF on twitter @RIPTFF

Posted in American Icon, Artistic Footprints | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Day in History 22 January – LBJ – Telly Savalas – Rose Kennedy – Heath Ledger – Jean Simmons – Ursula K. Le Guin – Hank Aaron

Posted on 29 JanamThu, 22 Jan 2026 00:09:00 -06002026-01-22T00:09:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

How ironic: Johnson and the Kennedys, inextricably linked in life.  And linked in death.

On this day in 1973, U.S. congressman from Texas, U.S. Senator from Texas, 11th U.S. Senate Majority leader, 37th Vice President of the United States, 36th President of the United States, LBJ, Lyndon Johnson, died from a heart attack at his ranch near Stonewall, Texas, in bed with a phone in his hand at the age of 64.  Born Lyndon Baines Johnson near Stonewall, Texas, on 27 August 1908, in a small farmhouse near the Pedernales River (pronounced perd-uh-nall-us).  His father was a farmer, cattle speculator and Texas congressman who always struggled financially and LBJ apparently desperately wanted to escape the poverty he grew up with.  He graduated from Southwest Texas Texas State Teacher’s College, now known as Texas State University – San Marcos.   LBJ is one of four people who served in all four elected Federal offices of the United States.  In my opinion, LBJ was the most powerful and influential senate leader in the history of the senate.  After campaigning unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination in 1960, LBJ was asked by John F. Kennedy to be his running mate for the 1960 presidential election.  LBJ succeeded to the presidency following the assassination of JFK, completed Kennedy’s term and was elected President in his own right, winning by a large margin in the 1964 Presidential election over Republican candidate Barry Goldwater.  LBJ was responsible for designing the “Great Society” legislation that included laws that upheld civil rights, Public Broadcasting, Medicare, Medicaid, environmental protection, aid to education, and his “War on Poverty.”  He was renowned for his domineering personality and the “Johnson treatment,” his coercion of powerful politicians in order to advance legislation.  LBJ greatly escalated direct American involvement in the Vietnam War.  As the war dragged on, LBJ’s popularity as president steadily declined.  He decided not to run in the 1968 United States presidential election amid growing opposition to his policy on the Vietnam War.  He was married to Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” Taylor.  Together, they purchased and created a media empire in Austin, Texas that came to inlcude KLBJ-FM, KLBJ-AM and the KLBJ CBS affiliate.  After leaving the presidency, LBJ went home to his ranch in Stonewall, Texas.  The Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs (or LBJ School of Public Affairs), a graduate school at The University of Texas at Austin, was founded in 1970 to offer professional training in public policy analysis and administration for students interested in pursuing careers in government and public affairs-related areas of the private and nonprofit sectors.  Degree programs include a Masters of Public Affairs (MPAff), a mid-career MPAff sequence, thirteen MPAff dual degree programs, a Masters of Global Policy Studies (MGPS), six MGPS dual degree programs and a Ph.D. in Public Policy.  In 1971, he published his memoirs, The Vantage Point.  That year, the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum opened near the campus of The University of Texas at Austin.  LBJ donated his Texas ranch in his will to the public to form the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park, with the provision that the ranch “remain a working ranch and not become a sterile relic of the past”.  LBJ is ranked favorably by some historians based on his domestic policies.  He understood power; how to find it, how to get it and how to use it.  I believe LBJ was driven by three things; he wanted to be wealthy, he wanted to be president and he wanted to help people.  He wanted his initials, LBJ, to be as widely recognized, if not more so than FDR and JFK.  A fascinating, complex and controversial man.  For those who want to know more about LBJ, I highly recommend Robert Caro‘s four volume biography; The Years of Lyndon Johnson.  The first book, The Path to Power (1982) covers LBJ’s life up to his failed 1941 campaign for the United States Senate.  The second volume, Means of Ascent (1990), commences in the aftermath of that defeat and continues through his election to that office in 1948.  The third volume, Master of the Senate (2002) chronicles LBJ’s rapid ascent and rule as Senate Majority Leader.  The fourth volume, The Passage of Power (2012), covers LBJ’s life from 1958 to 1964.  Caro announced in November 2011 that the full project had expanded to five volumes with the fifth volume requiring another two to three years to write.  Also recommended are Taking Charge (1998) and Reaching for Glory (2002), the two volume set of LBJ’s secret White House tapes transcribed, edited and explained by Michael Beschloss.  The grounds of the LBJ library include a fountain, large live oak trees, benches and tables.  I have spent much time there; walking the grounds at night and during the day, picnics with one of my daughters.  I even kissed a pretty girl there one night. 

The Final Footprint –  Walter Cronkite was live on the air with the CBS Evening News when word was received that LBJ had died.  A report on Vietnam was cut short abruptly so he could break the news.  Cronkite also announced JFK’s death live on air.  Johnson was honored with a state funeral in which Texas Congressman J. J. Pickle and former Secretary of State Dean Rusk eulogized him at the Capitol.  The final services took place on January 25.  The funeral was held at the National City Christian Church in Washington, D.C., where he had often worshiped as president.  The service was presided over by President Richard Nixon and attended by foreign dignitaries, led by former Japanese prime minister Eisaku Satō, who served as Japanese prime minister during Johnson’s presidency.  Eulogies were given by the Rev. Dr. George Davis, the church’s pastor, and W. Marvin Watson, former postmaster general.  Nixon mentioned Johnson’s death in a speech he gave the day after Johnson died, announcing the peace agreement to end the Vietnam War.  Johnson was buried in his family cemetery (which, although it is part of the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park in Stonewall, Texas, is still privately owned by the Johnson family, who have requested that the public not enter the cemetery), a few yards from the house in which he was born.  Eulogies were given by John Connally and the Rev. Billy Graham, the minister who officiated the burial rites.  The state funeral, the last for a president until Ronald Reagan’s in 2004, was part of an unexpectedly busy week in Washington, as the Military District of Washington (MDW) dealt with their second major task in less than a week, beginning with Nixon’s second inauguration.  The inauguration had an impact on the state funeral in various ways, because Johnson died only two days after the inauguration.  The MDW and the Armed Forces Inaugural Committee canceled the remainder of the ceremonies surrounding the inauguration to allow for a full state funeral, and many of the military men who participated in the inauguration took part in the funeral.  It also meant Johnson’s casket traveled the entire length of the Capitol, entering through the Senate wing when taken into the rotunda to lie in state and exited through the House wing steps due to construction on the East Front steps.

#RIP #OTD in 1994 actor, singer (Kojak, Ernst Stavro Blofeld in James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) Telly Savalas died of complications of bladder & prostate cancer at the Sheraton-Universal Hotel in Universal City, California. Forest Lawn – Hollywood Hills Cemetery

Rose_Kennedy_1967On this day in 1995, American philanthropist, the wife of Joseph P. Kennedy, and the mother of nine children, among them United States President John F. Kennedy, United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and United States Senator Edward Moore “Ted” Kennedy, Countess (title granted by Pope Pius XII), Rose Kennedy died from complications from pneumonia at the age of 104 in Hyannis, Massachusetts.  Born Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald on 22 July 1890 in the North End neighborhood of Boston. 

The Final Footprint – Kennedy is interred in the Kennedy family estate in Holyhood Cemetery, Middlesex County, Massachusetts.

Heath Ledger
Heath Ledger.jpg

at the 56th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2006
   

On this day in 2008, actor and director Heath Ledger died from cardiac arrest brought on by prescription drug intoxication in his fourth-floor loft apartment at 421 Broome Street in the SoHo neighbourhood of Manhattan, at the age of 28. Born Heathcliff Andrew Ledger on 4 April 1979 in Perth, Australia. His work comprised nineteen films, including 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), The Patriot (2000), A Knight’s Tale (2001), Monster’s Ball (2001), Lords of Dogtown (2005), Brokeback Mountain (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus(2009), the latter two being posthumous releases. He also produced and directed music videos and aspired to be a film director.

For his portrayal of Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain, Ledger won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor and Best International Actor from the Australian Film Institute, and was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role and for the Academy Award for Best Actor. For his portrayal of The Joker in The Dark Knight, Ledger won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, a Best Actor International Award at the 2008 Australian Film Institute Awards (for which he became the first actor to win an award posthumously), the 2008 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor, the 2009 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture, and the 2009 BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Ledger’s portrayal of Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain led him to receive his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in 2005.

at the 56th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2006

 

The Final Footprint

After attending private memorial ceremonies in Los Angeles, Ledger’s family members returned with his body to Perth.

On 9 February, a memorial service attended by several hundred invited guests was held at Penrhos College. Ledger was cremated at Fremantle Cemetery, followed by a private service.  His cremains are interred in a family plot at Karrakatta Cemetery, next to two of his grandparents. Later that night, his family and friends gathered for a wake on Cottesloe Beach.

on the March 2006 cover of Rolling Stone

 

“You know when you see the preachers down South? And they grab a believer and they go, ‘Bwoom! I touch you with the hand of God!’ And they believe so strongly, they’re on the ground shaking and spitting. And fuck’s sake, that’s the power of belief… Now, I don’t believe in Jesus, but I believe in my performance. And if you can understand that the power of belief is one of the great tools of our time and that a lot of acting comes from it, you can do anything.”

—Ledger, during the interview with Rolling Stone in 2006, on belief, power and acting.

as The Joker

 

On this day in 2010, actress and singer Jean Simmons died from lung cancer at her home in Santa Monica at the age of 80. Born Jean Merilyn Simmons on 31 January 1929 in . She appeared predominantly in films, beginning with those made in Great Britain during and after World War II, followed mainly by Hollywood films from 1950 onwards. Simmons was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Hamlet (1948), and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for Guys and Dolls (1955). Other notable film appearances included Young Bess (1953), The Robe (1953), The Big Country (1958), Elmer Gantry (1960), Spartacus (1960), and the 1969 film The Happy Ending, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She also won an Emmy Award for the 1983 miniseries The Thorn Birds.

Simmons was married and divorced twice. She married Stewart Granger in Tucson, Arizona on 20 December 1950. In 1956, Granger and she became U.S. citizens. The couple divorced in 1960. On 1 November 1960, Simmons married director Richard Brooks. Simmons and Brooks divorced in 1980. Simmons moved to the East Coast of the US in the late 1970s, briefly owning a home in New Milford, Connecticut. Later, she returned to California, settling in Santa Monica, California, where she lived until her death.

The Final Footprint

She was buried in Highgate Cemetery in north London. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West Cemetery and the East Cemetery at Highgate Cemetery. Highgate Cemetery is notable both for some of the people buried there as well as for its de facto status as a nature reserve. The Cemetery is designated Grade I on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. It is one of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries in London. Her epitaph from the Thomas Hardy poem, ‘’Regret Not Me…’’

Swift as the light
I flew my faery flight;
Ecstatically I moved,
and feared no night.

Other notable final footprints at Highgate include; George Eliot, Karl Marx, George Michael, Christina Rossetti, and Elizabeth Siddal.

#RIP #OTD in 2018, author of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the Earthseafantasy series, Ursula K. Le Guin died at her home in Portland, at the age of 88. Body donated to medical science

And on this day in 2021 “Hammer” or “Hammerin’ Hank“, professional baseball right fielder who played 23 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), from 1954 through 1976, Hank Aaron died in his sleep in his Atlanta residence at the age of 86.  Born Henry Louis Aaron in Mobile, Alabama on 5 February 1934.

In my opinion, one of the greatest baseball players in history, he spent 21 seasons with the Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves in the National League (NL) and two seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers in the American League (AL). At the time of his retirement, Aaron held most of the game’s key career power-hitting records. He broke the long-standing MLB record for home runs held by Babe Ruth. He hit 24 or more home runs every year from 1955 through 1973 and hit 30 or more home runs in a season at least fifteen times.

The Final Footprint – His funeral was held on January 27, 2021, followed by his burial at South View Cemetery, Atlanta.

Have you planned yours yet?

Follow TFF on twitter @RIPTFF

Posted in Extravagant Footprints, Political Footprints | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Day in History 21 January – Louis XVI – Lytton Strachey – George Orwell – Cecil B. Demille – Carl Switzer – Ann Sheridan – Jackie Wilson – Jack Lord – Susan Strasberg – Peggy Lee

Posted on 29 JanamWed, 21 Jan 2026 00:03:00 -06002026-01-21T00:03:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

On this day in 1793, King of France and Navarre from 1774 until 1791, then King of the French from 1791 to 1792, Louis XVI, was executed by guillotine at the age of 37 at the Place de la Révolution, now known as the Place de la Concorde in Paris.  Born Louis Auguste de France, Duc de Berry on 23 August 1754 in the Palace of Versailles.  Louis-Auguste was the third son of Louis, the Dauphin of France, and thus the grandson of Louis XV of France.  His brothers and father predeceased Louis XV, thus Louis-Auguste became the new Dauphin.  On 16 May 1770, at the age of fifteen, Louis-Auguste married the fourteen-year-old Habsburg Archduchess Maria Antonia (better known by the French form of her name, Marie Antoinette), his second cousin once removed and the youngest daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and his wife, the formidable Empress Maria Theresa.  Louis XV died on 10 May 1774 and Louis-Auguste Dauphin was crowned king on 11 June 1775 at the age of 20.  Suspended and arrested as part of the insurrection of the 10th of August in 1792 during the French Revolution, he was tried by the National Convention and found guilty of high treason, the only king of France ever to be executed.  Although Louis XVI was beloved at first, his indecisiveness and conservatism led some elements of the people of France to eventually view him as a symbol of the perceived tyranny of the Ancien Régime and gave him the nickname Oncle Louis (“Uncle Louis”).  Louis was also nicknamed Louis le Dernier (Louis the Last), a derisive use of the traditional nicknaming of French kings.

Funerary statue of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette

The Final Footprint – Upon arrival at the Place de la Révolution, Louis stepped out of the carriage and removed his outer garments, refusing any offers of help, and folded them neatly.  The gendarmes made a move to bind his hands, but Louis recoiled, and a struggle seemed imminent, until Father Edgeworth reminded him that Jesus had suffered his hands to be bound on Good Friday.  Louis said, “So be it, then, that too, my God,” and offered his hands to be bound.  He ascended the steps to the scaffold alone, with strength and determination.  Upon reaching the top, he addressed the people:

“I die innocent of all the crimes laid to my charge; I pardon those who have occasioned my death; and I pray to God that the blood you are going to shed may never be visited on France.”

He would have said more, but a man on horseback called for the drums, and the crowd called for the execution, which was hastily carried out.  A young guard picked up the severed head and promenaded it around the scaffold.  The silence was broken with a cry of “Vive la République!” and thousands began cheering the death of the king.  Louis XVI’s body was interred in an unmarked grave in the churchyard of L’église de la Madeleine.  When Marie was guillotined on 16 October 1793, she was interred there as well.  The Chapelle expiatoire was partly constructed on the grounds of the former Madeleine Cemetery.  There is an inscription above the entrance, which reads (translated): “King Louis XVIII raised this monumnet to consecrate the place where the mortal remains of King Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, transferred on 21 January 1815 in the royal tomb of Saint-Denis, reposed for 21 years.  It was finished during the second year of the reign of Charles X , year of grace 1826.”  During Napoleon’s exile in Elba, the restored Bourbons ordered a search for the corpses of Louis XVI and Marie.  The few remains, a few bones that were presumably the king’s and a clump of greyish matter containing a lady’s garter, were found on 21 January 1815, brought to the Cathedral Basilica of Saint-Denis and entombed in the crypt.

#RIP #OTD in 1932 writer (Eminent Victorians), critic, a founding member of the Bloomsbury Group, Lytton Strachey died of stomach cancer in Ham, Wiltshire, England, aged 51. St. Andrew’s Churchyard, Chew Magna, Somerset, England.  His reported final words were: “If this is dying, then I don’t think much of it.”

On this day in 1950, novelist, essayist, journalist and critic George Orwell died from a pulmonary aneurysm in University College Hospital in London, at the age of 46. Born Eric Arthur Blair on 25 June 1903 in Motihari, Bihar, British India (present-day East Champaran, Bihar, India). His work is marked by lucid prose, awareness of social injustice, opposition to totalitarianism, and outspoken support of democratic socialism.

Orwell wrote literary criticism, poetry, fiction and polemical journalism. He is best known for the allegorical novella Animal Farm (1945) and the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). His non-fiction works, including The Road to Wigan Pier (1937), documenting his experience of working class life in the north of England, and Homage to Catalonia (1938), an account of his experiences on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War, are widely acclaimed, as are his essays on politics, literature, language and culture.

Orwell’s work continues to influence popular and political culture and the term “Orwellian”—descriptive of totalitarian or authoritarian social practices—has entered the language together with many of his neologisms, including “Big Brother”, “Thought Police”, “Room 101”, “memory hole”, “newspeak”, “doublethink”, “proles”, “unperson” and “thoughtcrime”.

Orwell married Eileen O’Shaugnessy on 9 June 1936, at St Mary’s Church, Wallington, Hertfordshire. Eileen died on 29 March 1945 in Newcastle upon Tyne.

In mid-1949, he courted Sonia Brownell, and they announced their engagement in September, shortly before he was removed to University College Hospital in London. Orwell’s wedding took place in the hospital room on 13 October 1949.

The Final Footprint 

Orwell had requested to be buried in accordance with the Anglican rite in the graveyard of the closest church to wherever he happened to die. The graveyards in central London had no space, and fearing that he might have to be cremated against his wishes, his widow appealed to his friends to see whether any of them knew of a church with space in its graveyard. His friend David Astor lived in Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire, and arranged for Orwell to be interred in the churchyard of All Saints’ there. Orwell’s gravestone bears the simple epitaph: “Here lies Eric Arthur Blair, born June 25th 1903, died January 21st 1950”; no mention is made on the gravestone of his more famous pen name.

#RIP #OTD in 1959 film director (The Ten Commandments, Cleopatra, Samson and Delilah, The Greatest Show on Earth), producer and actor Cecil B. DeMille died from a heart attack in Hollywood, aged 77. Hollywood Forever Cemetery

#RIP #OTD in 1959 singer, child actor (Alfalfa in Our Gang), dog breeder, and guide, Carl Switzer was fatally shot by an acquaintance in a dispute over money; Mission Hills, California aged 31. Hollywood Forever

#RIP #OTD in 1967 actress (San Quentin, Angels with Dirty Faces, They Drive by Night, The Man Who Came to Dinner, Kings Row, Nora Prentiss, I Was a Male War Bride) Ann Sheridan died from esophageal cancer in Los Angeles, aged 51. Chapel Columbarium, Hollywood Forever Cemetery

#RIP #OTD in 1984 singer (“That’s Why (I Love You So)”, “I’ll Be Satisfied”, “Lonely Teardrops”) Mr. Excitement, Jackie Wilson died from pneumonia complications in Mount Holly, New Jersey, aged 49. Westlawn Cemetery, Wayne, Michigan

On this day in 1998, actor, director and producer Jack Lord died of congestive heart failure at his home in Honolulu, at age 77. Born John Joseph Patrick Ryan on December 30, 1920 in Brooklyn. Perhaps best known for his starring role as Steve McGarrett in the CBS television program Hawaii Five-O, which ran from 1968 to 1980. Lord was the first actor to play the character Felix Leiter in the James Bond film series, introduced in the first Bond film, Dr. No.

Lord’s first marriage to Anne Willard ended in divorce in 1947. He met his second wife while house hunting in upstate New York. On January 17, 1949, Lord married Marie de Narde, who gave up her career in fashion design to devote her life to him. Marie designed Lord’s off-camera wardrobe, as well as her own.

Lord was known for being a cultured man who loved reading poetry out loud on the set of his television show and for being reclusive at his Honolulu home.

The Final Footprint

Cremains scattered in the Pacific near his home.

#RIP #OTD in 1999 stage and screen actress (The Diary of Anne Frank; In Praise of Older Women;, Manitou), memoirist, Susan Strasberg died of breast cancer at her home in New York City aged 60. Cremation

On this day in 2002, jazz and popular music singer, songwriter, composer, and actress Peggy Lee died of complications from diabetes and a heart attack in Bel Air, Los Angeles, at the age of 81. Born Norma Deloris Egstrom on May 26, 1920 in Jamestown, North Dakota. Her career spanned six decades. From her beginning as a vocalist on local radio to singing with Benny Goodman‘s big band, she forged a sophisticated persona, evolving into a multi-faceted artist and performer. During her career, she wrote music for films, acted, and recorded conceptual record albums that combined poetry and music. Lee was nominated for twelve Grammy Awards, winning Best Contemporary Vocal Performance for her 1969 hit “Is That All There Is?” In 1995 she was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Lee was married four times: to guitarist and composer Dave Barbour (1943–1951), actor Brad Dexter (1953), actor Dewey Martin (1956–1958), and percussionist Jack Del Rio (1964–1965). All the marriages ended in divorce.

The Final Footprint

She was cremated and her ashes were inurned in a bench-style monument in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. Other notable final footprints at Westwood include; Ray Bradbury, Sammy Cahn, James Coburn, Rodney Dangerfield, Kirk Douglas, Janet Leigh, Farrah Fawcett, Hugh Hefner, Brian Keith, Don Knotts, Burt Lancaster, Peter Lawford, Jack Lemmon, Karl Malden, Dean Martin, Walter Mathau, Marilyn Monroe, Carroll O’Connor, Roy Orbison, George C. Scott, Dorothy Stratten, Natalie Wood and Frank Zappa.

Have you planned yours yet?

Follow TFF on twitter @RIPTFF

Posted in Day in History, Extravagant Footprints, Royal Footprints | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Day in History 20 January – Robinson Jeffers – Johnny Weissmuller – Audrey Hepburn – Barbara Stanwyck – Al Hirschfeld – Etta James – Meat Loaf

Posted on 29 JanamTue, 20 Jan 2026 00:33:00 -06002026-01-20T00:33:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

#RIP #OTD in 1962 poet, known for his work about the central California coast, much of it written in narrative and epic form, icon of the environmental movement, Robinson Jeffers died in Carmel, California, aged 75. Cremated remains scattered at his home, Tor House in Carmel

On this day in 1984, competition swimmer and actor Johnny Weissmuller died from pulmonary edema in Acapulco at the age of 79. Born 2 June 1904 in Szabadfalva (Freidorf), Austro-Hungarian Empire (today part of Timișoara (Temeschwar), Romania). Perhaps best known for playing Edgar Rice Burroughs‘s Tarzan in films of the 1930s and 1940s and for having one of the best competitive swimming records of the 20th century.

Weissmuller was one of the world’s fastest swimmers in the 1920s, winning five Olympic gold medals for swimming and one bronze medal for water polo. He was the first to break the one minute barrier for 100-meter freestyle, and the first to swim 440-yard freestyle under five minutes. He won fifty-two U.S. national championships, set more than 50 world records (spread over both freestyle and backstroke), and was purportedly undefeated in official competition for the entirety of his competitive career. After retiring from competitions, he became the sixth actor to portray Tarzan, a role he played in twelve feature films. Weissmuller’s distinctive Tarzan yell is still often used in films in his legacy.

With his second wife, the Mexican actress Lupe Vélez in a newspaper press photo (1934)

Weissmuller had five wives: band and club singer Bobbe Arnst (married 1931 – divorced 1933); actress Lupe Vélez (married 1933 – divorced 1939); Beryl Scott (married 1939 – divorced 1948); Allene Gates (married 1948 – divorced 1962); and Maria Baumann (from 1963 until his death in 1984).

The Final Footprint

He was buried just outside Acapulco, Valle de La Luz at the Valley of the Light Cemetery. As his coffin was lowered into the ground, a recording of the Tarzan yell he invented was played three times, at his request. He was honored with a 21-gun salute, befitting a head-of-state, which was arranged by Senator Ted Kennedy and President Ronald Reagan.

On this day in 1993, Oscar, Tony, Grammy and Emmy-winner, actress, humanitarian, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, Audrey Hepburn died at her home in Tolochenaz, Vaud, Switzerland at the age of 63 from appendiceal cancer.  Born Audrey Kathleen Ruston on 4 May 1929 in Ixelles, Belgium.  Hepburn’s father was an English banker of Irish descent and her mother was a Dutch aristocrat.  Her father later prefixed the surname of his maternal grandmother, Kathleen Hepburn, to the their and her surname became Hepburn-Ruston.  Oh my, where do we begin.  She is one of my very favorite actresses.  My favorite Hepburn movies: Roman Holiday (1953), Sabrina (1954), Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), My Fair Lady (1964).  Hepburn was chosen to play the lead character in the Broadway play Gigi, that opened on 24 November 1951.  The writer Colette, when she first saw Hepburn, reportedly said “Voilà! There’s our Gigi”.  She and her co-star from Roman Holiday, Gregory Peck, became lifelong friends.  During the shooting of Sabrina, Hepburn was sent to a then young and upcoming fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy to decide on her wardrobe.  Givenchy and Hepburn developed a lasting friendship, and she was often a muse for many of his designs.  They formed a lifelong friendship and partnership.  Also, during the filming of Sabrina, Hepburn became romantically involved with co-star William Holden.  Hepburn was married twice; Mel Ferrer (1954 -1968 divorce) and Andrea Dotti (1969 – 1982 divorce). 

The Final Footprint – Funeral services were held at the village church of Tolochenaz, Switzerland, on 24 January 1993.  Maurice Eindiguer, the same pastor who wed Hepburn and Ferrer and baptised her son Sean in 1960, presided over her funeral while Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, of UNICEF, delivered a eulogy.  Family members and friends attended the funeral, including her sons, partner Robert Wolders, brother Ian Quarles van Ufford, ex-husbands Dotti and Ferrer, Givenchy, executives of UNICEF, and fellow actors Alain Delon and Roger Moore.  Flower arrangements were sent to the funeral by Peck, Elizabeth Taylor and the Dutch royal family.  Hepburn is interred in Tolochenaz Cemetery.  Her grave is marked by a full ledger granite marker with a granite cross.  After her death, Peck went on camera and tearfully recited her favourite poem, “Unending Love” by Rabindranath Tagore.  This is one of my favorite poems.  Do yourself a favor and read it, soon and often.

Barbara Stanwyck

Barbara Stanwyck 1943.jpg

in 1943

On this day in 1990, model, dancer and actress Barbara Stanwyck died aged 82, of congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) at Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California. Born Ruby Catherine Stevens on July 16, 1907 in Brooklyn. Stanwyck was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career for her strong, realistic screen presence. After a short but notable career as a stage actress in the late 1920s, she made 85 films in 38 years in Hollywood, before turning to television.

Orphaned at the age of four and partially raised in foster homes, by 1944 Stanwyck had become the highest-paid woman in the United States. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress four times, for Stella Dallas (1937), Ball of Fire (1941), Double Indemnity (1944) and Sorry, Wrong Number (1948). For her television work, she won three Emmy Awards, for The Barbara Stanwyck Show (1961), The Big Valley (1966) and The Thorn Birds (1983).

She received an Honorary Oscar at the 1982 Academy Award ceremony. Stanwyck received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.

as a Ziegfeld girl (c. 1924)

In The Gay Sisters (1942)

With Ralph Meeker in Jeopardy (1953)

With Robert Taylor in 1941

While playing in The Noose, Stanwyck reportedly fell in love with her married co-star, Rex Cherryman. Cherryman had become ill early in 1928 and his doctor advised him to take a sea voyage to Paris where he and Stanwyck had arranged to meet. While still at sea, he died of septic poisoning at the age of 31.

On August 26, 1928, Stanwyck married her Burlesque co-star, Frank Fay. She and Fay later claimed they disliked each other at first, but became close after Cherryman’s death. A botched abortion at the age of 15 had resulted in complications which left Stanwyck unable to have children. The marriage was a troubled one. Fay’s successful career on Broadway did not translate to the big screen, whereas Stanwyck achieved Hollywood stardom. Fay was reportedly physically abusive to his young wife, especially when he was inebriated. Some claim that this union was the basis for A Star Is Born. The couple divorced on December 30, 1935.

In 1936, while making the film His Brother’s Wife (1936), Stanwyck became involved with her co-star, Robert Taylor. Stanwyck served as support and adviser to the younger Taylor, who had come from a small Nebraska town. She guided his career, and acclimated him to the sophisticated Hollywood culture. The couple began living together, sparking newspaper reports about the two. Stanwyck was hesitant to remarry after the failure of her first marriage. However, their 1939 marriage was arranged with the help of Taylor’s studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, a common practice in Hollywood’s golden age. Louis B. Mayer went as far as presiding over arrangements at the wedding. She and Taylor enjoyed time together outdoors during the early years of their marriage, and owned acres of prime West Los Angeles property. Their large ranch and home in the Mandeville Canyon section of Brentwood, Los Angeles, is still referred to by the locals as the old “Robert Taylor ranch.”

Stanwyck and Taylor mutually decided in 1950 to divorce. Taylor had romantic affairs, and there were unsubstantiated rumors about Stanwyck having had affairs as well. After the divorce, they acted together in Stanwyck’s last feature film, The Night Walker (1964). She never remarried and cited Taylor as the love of her life, according to her friend and Big Valley co-star Linda Evans. She took his death in 1969 very hard, and took a long break from film and television work.

Stanwyck had a romantic affair with actor Robert Wagner, whom she met on the set of Titanic (1953). Wagner, who was 22, and Stanwyck, who was 45 at the beginning of the relationship, had a four-year romance, which is described in Wagner’s memoir Pieces of My Heart (2008). Stanwyck ended the relationship. In the 1950s, Stanwyck reportedly also had a one-night stand with the much younger Farley Granger, which he wrote about in his autobiography Include Me Out: My Life from Goldwyn to Broadway (2007)

  The Final Footprint

She had indicated that she wanted no funeral service. In accordance with her wishes, her remains were cremated and the ashes scattered from a helicopter over Lone Pine, California, where she had made some of her western films.

On this day in 2012, singer, songwriter Etta James died from leukemia five days before her 74th birthday, at Riverside Community Hospital in Riverside, California.  Born Jamesetta Hawkins on 25 January 1938, in Los Angeles.  Her style spanned a variety of music genres including blues, R&B, soul, rock and roll, jazz and gospel.  Starting her career in 1954, she gained fame with hits such as “The Wallflower”, “At Last”, “Tell Mama”, “Something’s Got a Hold on Me”, and “I’d Rather Go Blind” for which she wrote the lyrics.  James is regarded as having bridged the gap between rhythm and blues and rock and roll, and was the winner of six Grammys and 17 Blues Music Awards.  She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, the Blues Hall of Fame in 2001, and the Grammy Hall of Fame in both 1999 and 2008.  James was married to Artis Mills. 

The Final Footprint – Her funeral, presided over by Reverend Al Sharpton, took place in Gardena, California eight days after her death.  Stevie Wonder and Christina Aguilera each gave a musical tribute.  She was entombed at Inglewood Park Cemetery in Los Angeles County, California.  Other notable Final Footprints at Inglewood Park include; Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Betty Grable, Robert Kardashian, Billy Preston, Big Mama Thornton, and T-Bone Walker.

#RIP #OTD in 2022 singer (“Bat Out of Hell”, “Paradise by the Dashboard Light”, “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad”, “I’d Do Anything for Love”), actor (The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Fight Club) Meat Loaf died from COVID-19 in Nashville aged 74. Cremation

Have you planned yours yet?

Follow TFF on twitter @RIPTFF

Posted in Day in History, Film Footprints, Musical Footprints | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Day in History 19 January – Francesca Woodman – James Dickey – Carl Perkins – Hedy Lamarr – Wilson Pickett – Suzanne Pleshette

Posted on 29 JanamMon, 19 Jan 2026 00:06:00 -06002026-01-19T00:06:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

#RIP #OTD in 1981 photographer best known for her black and white pictures featuring either herself or female models, Francesca Woodman died jumping out of a loft window of a building on the East Side of New York City, aged 22.

On this day in 1997, U.S. Army and U.S Air Force veteran, poet, novelist, eighteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, James Dickey, died in Columbia, South Carolina at the age of 73.  Born James Lafayette Dickey on 2 February 1923 in Atlanta, Georgia.  He attended Clemson and later graduated from Vanderbilt.  Dickey taught at Rice University and The University of South Carolina.  Perhaps best known for his novel Deliverance (1970).  The film version was released in 1972 starring Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight and Ned Beatty and was nominated for an Academy Award.  Both the book and the movie are unforgettable.  I highly recommend both.

The Final Footprint – Dickey is interred in All Saints Episcopal Church Cemetery in Pawleys Island, South Carolina.  His grave is marked with an upright marble marker inscribed with his name, birth and death years and; POET and “I MOVE AT THE HEART OF THE WORLD”.

Carlperkins_Sun_recordsOn this day in 1998, singer, songwriter, musician, the King of Rockabilly, Carl Perkins died at the age of 65 at Jackson-Madison County Hospital in Jackson, Tennessee from throat cancer after suffering several strokes.  Born Carl Lee Perkins on 9 April 1932 in Tiptonville, Tennessee.  Perkins, who recorded most notably at Sun Records Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, beginning in 1954, is perhaps best known for his song is “Blue Suede Shoes”.  Charlie Daniels said, “Carl Perkins’ songs personified the rockabilly era, and Carl Perkins’ sound personifies the rockabilly sound more so than anybody involved in it, because he never changed.”  Paul McCartney claimed that “if there were no Carl Perkins, there would be no Beatles.”   Perkins was inducted into the Rock and Roll, the Rockabilly, and the Nashville Songwriters Halls of Fame; and was a Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipient.

The Final Footprint – Among mourners at Perkin’s funeral at Lambuth University were George Harrison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Wynonna Judd, Garth Brooks, Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash.  Perkins was entombed at Ridgecrest Cemetery in Jackson.

Publicity photo for the film The Heavenly Body, 1944

On this day in 2000, actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr died in Casselberry, Florida of heart disease, aged 85. Born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler on November 9, 1914 in Vienna. 

After a brief early film career in Czechoslovakia, including the controversial Ecstasy (1933), she fled from her husband, a wealthy Austrian ammunition manufacturer, and secretly moved to Paris. Traveling to London, she met Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio head Louis B. Mayer, who offered her a movie contract in Hollywood. She became a film star with her performance in Algiers (1938). Her MGM films include Lady of the Tropics (1939), Boom Town(1940), H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941), and White Cargo (1942). Perhaps her greatest success was as Delilah in Cecil B. DeMille‘s Samson and Delilah (1949). She also acted on television before the release of her final film, The Female Animal (1958). She was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.

At the beginning of World War II, she and composer George Antheil developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes that used spread spectrum and frequency hopping technology to defeat the threat of jamming by the Axis powers. Although the US Navy did not adopt the technology until the 1960s, the principles of their work are incorporated into Bluetooth technology and are similar to methods used in legacy versions of CDMA and Wi-Fi. This work led to their induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.

In a 1934 publicity photo with the name “Heddie Kietzler”

Hedy Lamarr, 1944

Sigrid Gurie (left) and Hedy Lamarr (right) were Charles Boyer’s leading ladies in Algiers (1938)

Clark Gable and Lamarr in Comrade X (1940)

In Her Highness and the Bellboy (1945)

With Victor Mature in Samson and Delilah (1949)

With John Hodiak in A Lady Without Passport (1950)

Lamarr was married and divorced six times:

  1. Friedrich Mandl (married 1933–1937), chairman of the Hirtenberger Patronen-Fabrik
  2. Gene Markey (married 1939–1941), screenwriter and producer. Lamarr and Markey lived at 2727 Benedict Canyon Drive in Beverly Hills, California during their marriage.
  3. John Loder (married 1943–1947), actor. 
  4. Ernest “Ted” Stauffer (married 1951–1952), nightclub owner, restaurateur, and former bandleader
  5. W. Howard Lee (married 1953–1960), a Texas oilman (who later married film actress Gene Tierney)
  6. Lewis J. Boies (married 1963–1965), Lamarr’s divorce lawyer

Following her sixth and final divorce in 1965, Lamarr remained unmarried for the last 35 years of her life.

The Final Footprint

Honorary grave at Vienna’s Central Cemetery

Her son Anthony Loder spread her ashes in Austria’s Vienna Woods in accordance with her last wishes. Lamarr was given an honorary grave in Vienna’s Central Cemetery in 2014.

Wilson_PickettOn this day in 2006, singer, songwriter, the Wicked Pickett, Wilson Pickett died from a heart attack in Reston, Virginia at the age of 64.  Born on 18 March 1941 in Prattville, Alabama.  A major figure in the development of American soul music, Pickett recorded over 50 songs which hit the US R&B charts, and frequently crossed over to the US Billboard Hot 100.  Among his best known hits are “In the Midnight Hour” (which he co-wrote), “Land of 1,000 Dances”, “Mustang Sally”, and “Funky Broadway”.  The impact of Pickett’s songwriting and recording led to his 1991 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 

The Final Footprint – Pickett was laid to rest in a mausoleum in Louisville, Kentucky at Evergreen Cemetery on Preston Highway.  The eulogy was delivered by Pastor Steve Owens of Decatur, Georgia.  Little Richard, a long-time friend of Pickett’s, spoke about him and preached a message at the funeral.  He was remembered on 20 March 2006, at New York’s B.B. King Blues Club with performances by the Commitments, Ben E King, his long-term backing band the Midnight Movers, soul singer Bruce “Big Daddy” Wayne, and Southside Johnny in front of an audience that included members of his family, including two brothers.

#RIP #OTD in 2008 actress (Rome Adventure, The Birds, The Bob Newhart Show) Suzanne Pleshette died from lung cancer at her Los Angeles home, aged 70. Interment near her third husband, Tom Poston, in Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City, California

Have you planned yours yet?

Follow TFF on twitter @RIPTFF

Posted in Day in History, Literary Footprints, Musical Footprints | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Day in History 18 January – Rudyard Kipling – Curly Howard – Kate McGarrigle – Glenn Frey – Roberta Peters – Yvette Mimieux – David Crosby

Posted on 29 JanamSun, 18 Jan 2026 00:21:00 -06002026-01-18T00:21:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

On this day in 1936, poet, writer, Nobel Prized recipient, Rudyard Kipling, died in Middlesex Hospital, London, England at the age of 70 of a perforated duodenal ulcer.  Born Joseph Rudyard Kipling on 30 December 1865 in Bombay, British India.  He was named after Rudyard Lake in Rudyard, Staffordshire, England where his parents met.  Kipling is best known for his works of fiction, including The Jungle Book (1894), Kim (1901), many short stories including “The Man Who Would Be King” (1888); and his poems, including Mandalay (1890), Gunga Din (1890), and If— (1910).  The Jungle Book is one of my favorite books from childhood.  Memorizing If is a rite of passage for the children of one of my friends.  Kipling was married to Carrie Balestier.  On marriage, he wrote that marriage principally taught “the tougher virtues—such as humility, restraint, order, and forethought“.  Partly in response to the tragic death of his only son, John in 1915 in the Battle of Loos, Kipling joined Sir Fabian Ware’s Imperial War Graves Commission (now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission), the group responsible for the garden-like British war graves that can be found to this day dotted along the former Western Front and all the other locations around the world where troops of the British Empire lie buried.  His most significant contribution to the project was his selection of the biblical phrase “Their Name Liveth For Evermore” (Sirach 44.14, KJV) found on the Stones of Remembrance in larger war graves and his suggestion of the phrase “Known unto God” for the gravestones of unidentified servicemen.  Kipling chose the inscription “The Glorious Dead” on the Cenotaph, Whitehall, London.

Poet’s Corner

The Final Footprint – Kipling was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium and his cremains were inurned in Poets’ Corner, part of the South Transept of Westminster Abbey.  Other notable cremations at GGC include; Kingsley Amis, Neville Chamberlain, T. S. Eliot, Sigmund Freud, Henry James, Vivien Leigh, Keith Moon, Peter Sellers, Bram Stoker, H. G. Wells and Amy Winehouse.  Other notable Final Footprints at Westminster include; Robert Browning, Lord Byron, Geoffrey Chaucer, Oliver Cromwell, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Edward The Confessor, Elizabeth I, George II, George Friederic Handel, Stephen Hawking, James I (James VI of Scotland), Samuel Johnson, Ben Jonson, Charles II, Edward III, Edward VI, Henry III, Henry V, Henry VII, Richard II, Rudyard Kipling, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Milton, Sir Isaac Newton, Laurence Olivier, Henry Purcell, Mary I, Mary II, Mary Queen of Scots, Thomas Shadwell, Edmund Spenser, Lord Alfred Tennyson, Dylan Thomas, and William III. 

#RIP #OTD in 1952 vaudevillian actor and comedian, one of the Three Stooges, Curly Howard died from stroke complications in San Gabriel, California, aged 48. Western Jewish Institute section of Home of Peace Cemetery in East Los Angeles

#RIP #OTD in 2010 singer-songwriter ((Talk to Me of) Mendocino), who wrote and performed as a duo with her sister Anna McGarrigle, mother of Rufus and Martha Wainwright, Kate McGarrigle died of sarcoma at her home in Montreal aged 63. Cimetière de Saint-Sauveur-des-Monts, Quebec

Glenn Frey

Glenn Frey.jpg

performing with the Eagles in 2008

On this day in 2016, singer, songwriter and actor Glenn Frey died while recovering from gastrointestinal tract surgery at Columbia University Medical Center in Manhattan at the age of 67. Born Glenn Lewis Frey on November 6, 1948 in Detroit, Michigan. Perhaps best known as a founding member of the rock band Eagles. Frey was the lead singer and frontman for the Eagles, roles he came to share with fellow member Don Henley, with whom he wrote most of the Eagles’ material. Frey played guitar and keyboards as well as singing lead vocals on songs such as “Take It Easy”, “Peaceful Easy Feeling”, “Tequila Sunrise”, “Already Gone”, “James Dean”, “Lyin’ Eyes”, “New Kid in Town”, and “Heartache Tonight”.

After the breakup of the Eagles in 1980, Frey embarked on a successful solo career. He released his debut album, No Fun Aloud, in 1982 and went on to record Top 40 hits “The One You Love”, “Smuggler’s Blues”, “Sexy Girl”, “The Heat Is On”, “You Belong to the City”, “True Love”, “Soul Searchin'” and “Livin’ Right”. As a member of the Eagles, Frey won six Grammy Awards. The Eagles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, the first year they were nominated.

Frey was married twice. From 1983 to 1988, he was married to artist Janie Beggs. He married dancer and choreographer Cindy Millican in 1990 and they remained together until his death.

The Final Footprint

At the 58th Annual Grammy Awards, the remaining members of the Eagles and Jackson Browne performed “Take It Easy” in his honor. A life-sized statue of Frey was unveiled at the Standin’ on the Corner Park in Winslow, Arizona, on September 24, 2016. Frey was cremated. 

in 1974

On this day in 2017, coloratura soprano Roberta Peters died of Parkinson’s disease at the age of 87. Born Roberta Peterman in The Bronx on May 4, 1930. In my opinion, one of the most prominent singers to achieve lasting fame and success in opera.  Peters is noted for her 35-year association with the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York, among the longest such associations between a singer and a company in opera. She was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1998.

Peters made her debut on 17 November 1950 as Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Peters who knew the role, but had not yet ever performed on stage, or even sung with a full orchestra, accepted. Her performance was received with great enthusiasm, and her career was established.

Combining an attractive voice with sparkling coloratura agility and good looks, Peters became a favorite of American audiences and a great proponent of opera for the masses. She quickly established herself in the standard soubrette and coloratura repertoire. Her roles at the Met included Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro; Despina in Così fan tutte; The Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute; Amore in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice; Marzeline in Beethoven’s Fidelio; Rosina in The Barber of Seville; Adina in L’elisir d’amore; Norina in Don Pasquale; Oscar in Un ballo in maschera; Nanetta in Falstaff; Olympia in The Tales of Hoffmann; Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier; Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos; and Adele in Die Fledermaus. She later added lyric-coloratura roles such as Amina in La sonnambula, Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoorand Gilda in Rigoletto, the last being her farewell role at the Met in 1985.

Peters was briefly married to baritone Robert Merrill in 1952, later admitting she had fallen in love with the voice and not the man. The two divorced amicably, remained friends and continued to perform together in opera and recitals. She remarried in 1955, to Bertram Fields.

The Final Footprint 

Peters is interred in Westchester Hills Cemetery  Hastings-on-Hudson, Westchester County, New York. Other notable final footprints at Westchester Hills include; George and Ira Gershwin and Lee Strasberg.

#RIP #OTD in 2022 actress (The Time Machine, Platinum High School, The Most Deadly Game, Where the Boys Are, Jackson County Jail, The Black Hole), Yvette Mimieux died at her home in Los Angeles aged 80. Cremated remains scattered off the coast of Los Angeles County

#RIP #OTD in 2023 singer, songwriter, guitarist, member of the Byrds, Crosby, Stills & Nash, David Crosby died at his home in Santa Ynez, California, aged 81. Cremation

Have you planned yours yet?

Follow TFF on twitter @RIPTFF

Posted in Day in History, Extravagant Footprints, Literary Footprints | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Day in History 17 January – Horace Vernet – Louis Comfort Tiffany – Barbara Jordan – Gregory Corso – Virginia Mayo – Erich Segal

Posted on 29 JanamSat, 17 Jan 2026 00:36:00 -06002026-01-17T00:36:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

On this day in 1863 painter Horace Vernet died in Paris at the age of 73. Born Émile Jean-Horace Vernet on 30 June 1789 in the Louvre in Paris. Vernet’s father Carle Vernet and grandfather Claude Joseph Vernet were painters.

He was born in the Paris Louvre, while his parents were staying there during the French Revolution. Vernet decided to paint subjects taken mostly from contemporary life. He gained recognition during the Bourbon Restoration for a series of battle paintings commissioned by the duc d’Orleans, the future King Louis-Philippe. Enjoying equal favour with the court and with the opposition, he was appointed director of the French Academy in Rome, from 1829 to 1835.

The King requested that he paint a gallery dedicated to the “fruits of colonization”. At the time, France was colonizing Algeria through war, and claiming it to be part of their mission civilsatrice, or their “civilizing mission”. In a neoclassical style, reflecting the Roman colonization in North Africa about 2000 years before, Horace painted stills of French non-commissioned officers training Algerian soldiers, French engineers building Algerian roads, and French soldiers tilling Algerian fields.

His depictions of Algerian battles, such as the Capture of the Smahla and the Capture of Constantine, were well-received by other French people, as they were vivid depictions of their army in the heat of battle. After the fall of the July Monarchy during the Revolution of 1848, Vernet discovered a new patron in Napoléon III of France. He accompanied the French Army during the Crimean War, producing several paintings. One well known and possibly apocryphal anecdote maintains that when Vernet was asked to remove a certain obnoxious general from one of his paintings, he replied, “I am a painter of history, sire, and I will not violate the truth,” hence demonstrating his fidelity to representing war.

Vernet also developed an interest in daguerreotype photography. He took photographs in Egypt as reference material for his paintings, and during a stop at Malta in March 1840 while en route to Egypt, he took the earliest known photographs of the island at Fort Manoel. Today these early photographs are believed to be lost.

In Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes story “The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter” Holmes claims to be related to Vernet, stating, “My ancestors were country squires… my grandmother… was the sister of Vernet, the French artist.”, without further clarifying which Vernet.

Gallery

 

Olympe Pélissier, étude pour Judith et Holopherne (1830), musée des Beaux-Arts de Boston.

 

Allégorie de la Pologne vaincue ou Le Prométhée polonais (vers 1831), Bibliothèque polonaise de Paris6.

 

Autoportrait (1835), Saint-Pétersbourg, musée de l’Ermitage.

 
  • Œuvres d’Horace Vernet

  • La Barrière de Clichy. Défense de Paris, le  (1820), Paris, musée du Louvre.

  • Allan M’Aulay (1823), Londres, Wallace Collection.

  • Mazeppa et les loups (1826), Avignon, musée Calvet.

  • Scène Berbère (1833), cabinet des estampes et des dessins de Strasbourg.

  • Chasse au sanglier (vers 1835), cabinet des estampes et des dessins de Strasbourg.

  • La Bataille d’Iéna,  (1836), Versailles, musée de l’Histoire de France.

  • La Retraite (Cavalier arabe) (1839).

  • Juda et Tamar (1840), Londres, Wallace Collection.

  • Barricade dans la rue de Soufflot, à Paris, le  (vers 1848-1849), Berlin, musée historique allemand

The Final Footprint

Vernet is entombed in cimetière de Montmartre in Paris. Other notable final footprints at Montmartre include; Hector Berlioz, Dalida, Edgar Degas, Alexandre Dumas, fils, Marie Duplessis, France Gall, Théophile Gautier, Gustave Moreau, Jeanne Moreau, Henri Murger, Jacques Offenbach, Stendhal, François Truffaut, and Alfred de Vigny.

On this day in 1933, artist and designer Louis Comfort Tiffany died in New York City at the age of 84.  Born on 18 February 1848 in New York City, the son of Charles Lewis Tiffany, founder of Tiffany and Company; and Harriet Olivia Avery Young.  Tiffany worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass.  He is the American artist most associated with the Art Nouveau and Aesthetic movements.  Tiffany was affiliated with a prestigious collaborative of designers known as the Associated Artists.  Tiffany designed stained glass windows and lamps, glass mosaics, blown glass, ceramics, jewelry, enamels and metalwork.  Tiffany married twice: Mary Woodbridge Goddard (1872 – 1884 her death) and Louise Wakeman Knox (1886 – 1904 her death).

The Final Footprint – Tiffany is interred in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn.  Other notable final footprints at Green-Wood include; Albert Anastasia, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Leonard Bernstein, Lorenzo da Ponte, and Charles Ebbes.

Gallery

    • Stained glass windows

    • Window of St. Augustine, in the Lightner Museum, St. Augustine, Florida.

    • Girl with Cherry Blossoms (c. 1890)

    • The Tree of Life stained glass

    • Angel of the Resurrection (1904), in the Indianapolis Museum of Art

    • The New Creation, at Brown Memorial Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, Maryland

    • The Baptism of Christ, at Brown Memorial

    • Nicodemus Came to Him by Night, First Presbyterian Church, Lockport, NY

    • John the Baptist at Arlington Street Church in Boston

    • Sermon on the Mount at Arlington Street Church in Boston

    • Christ the Consoler at Pullman Memorial Universalist Church, Albion, NY

  • Pastoral window at Second Presbyterian Church (Chicago, Illinois)

  • Education (Chittenden Memorial Window) at Yale University

Barbara_Jordan-221x300On this day in 1996, U.S. Congresswoman, Texas Senator, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, Barbara Jordan, died in Austin, Texas.  Born Barbara Charline Jordan on 21 February 1936 in Houston, Texas.  She was the first African-American elected to the Texas Senate after reconstruction and the first Southern black woman ever elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.  Jordan was mentioned as a possible running mate to Jimmy Carter in 1976.  That year, she became the first African-American woman to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention.  Jordan retired from politics in 1979 and became an adjunct professor teaching ethics at the University of Texas at Austin Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.

The Final Footprint – Jordan is interred in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin becoming the first African-American woman interred there.  Her grave is marked by a large granite upright column monument and a full ledger granite marker.  At the top of the column the word, PATRIOT, is engraved and the ledger is engraved in part; WE THE PEOPLE SALUTE YOU.  Upon her death, Jordan lay in state at the LBJ Library on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin.  The main terminal at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport is named after her.  On April 24, 2009, a Barbara Jordan statue was unveiled at the University of Texas at Austin.  Other notable final footprints at Texas State Cemetery include; Stephen F. Austin, John B. Connally, Nellie Connally, J. Frank Dobie, Tom Landry (cenotaph), James A. Michener (cenotaph), Ann Richards, Edwin “Bud” Shrake, Big Foot Wallace, and Walter Prescott Webb.

#RIP #OTD in 2001, beat poet (Marriage, Bomb), Gregory Corso died from prostate cancer in Robbinsdale, Minnesota aged 70. Cremated remains Campo Cestio, Rome at the foot of Shelley’s grave and not from Keat’s grave

#RIP #OTD in 2005, actress (The Best Years of Our Lives, White Heat), Virginia Mayo died of pneumonia and complications of congestive heart failure at a nursing home in Thousand Oaks, California aged 84. next to her husband Michael O’Shea in Pierce Brothers Valley Oaks Park in Westlake Village, California

#RIP #OTD in 2010 author (Love Story, Oliver’s Story), screenwriter, educator, and classicist Erich Segal, who had Parkinson’s disease, died of a heart attack in London, aged 72. Hoop Lane Jewish Cemetery, Golders Green, London.

Have you planned yours yet?

Posted in Day in History, Political Footprints | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Day in History 16 January – Carole Lombard – Ted Cassidy – Andrew Wyeth – Gina Lollobrigida – David Lynch – Bob Uecker

Posted on 29 JanamFri, 16 Jan 2026 00:18:00 -06002026-01-16T00:18:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

On this day in 1942, Academy Award nominated actress, Carole Lombard, died on Mount Potosi near Las Vegas, Nevada at the age of 33.  Born Jane Alice Peters on 6 October 1908 in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  She is particularly noted for her roles in the screwball comedies of the 1930s.  Lombard is listed as one of the American Film Institute’s greatest stars of all time and was the highest-paid star in Hollywood in the late 1930s.  Graham Greene praised the “heartbreaking and nostalgic melodies” of her faster-than-thought delivery: “Platinum blonde, with a heart-shaped face, delicate, impish features and a figure made to be swathed in silver lamé, Lombard wriggled expressively through such classics of hysteria as Twentieth Century and My Man Godfrey.”  Lombard was married twice; William Powell (1931 – 1933 divorce) and Clark Gable (1939 – 1942 her death).  Lombard and Gable eloped in Kingman, Arizona on the 29 March 1939.  The couple, both lovers of the outdoors, bought a 20-acre ranch in Encino, California, where they kept barnyard animals and enjoyed hunting trips.  Lombard and 21 others, including her mother, were killed when TWA Flight 3 crashed on returning to California from a war bond rally in Indiana. 

The Final Footprint – Gable was flown to Las Vegas after learning of the tragedy to claim the bodies of his wife, mother-in-law, and Otto Winkler, who aside from being his press agent had been a close friend.  Lombard’s funeral was held on 21 January at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.  Lombard is entombed in the Great Mausoleum Sanctuary of Trust, Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale.  Her crypt is memorialized with a bronze plaque with the name, CAROLE LOMBARD GABLE and her birth and death dates.  Shortly after her death, Gable (who was inconsolable and devastated by his loss) joined the United States Army Air Forces, as Lombard had asked him to do numerous times after the United States had entered World War II.  After officer training, Gable headed a six-man motion picture unit attached to a B-17 bomb group in England to film aerial gunners in combat, flying five missions himself.  In December 1943, the United States Maritime Commission announced that a Liberty ship named after Lombard would be launched.  Gable attended the launch of the SS Carole Lombard on 15 January 1944, the two-year anniversary of Lombard’s record-breaking war bond drive.  The ship was involved in rescuing hundreds of survivors from sunken ships in the Pacific and returning them to safety.  Despite being married twice more, Gable chose to be entombed beside Lombard when he died in 1960.  Other notable Final Footprints at Forest Lawn Glendale include; L. Frank Baum, Humphrey Bogart, Lon Chaney, Dorothy Dandridge, Sammy Davis, Jr., Elizabeth Taylor, Jean Harlow, Nat King Cole, Sam Cooke, Walt Disney, Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, Michael Jackson, Tom Mix, Casey Stengel, Jimmy Stewart, and Spencer Tracy.

#RIP #OTD in 1979 actor (Star Trek, I Dream of Jeannie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Lurch on The Addams Family) Ted Cassidy died following heart surgery at St. Vincent Medical Center in Los Angeles, aged 46. Cremation

On this day in 2009, visual artist Andrew Wyeth died in his sleep in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, after a brief illness, at the age of 91. Born Andrew Newell Wyeth on July 12, 1917 in Chadds Ford.

In his art, Wyeth’s favorite subjects were the land and people around him, both in his hometown of Chadds Ford, and at his summer home in Cushing, Maine. Wyeth often noted: “I paint my life.” One of the best-known images in 20th-century American art is his painting Christina’s World, currently in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. This tempera was painted in 1948, when Wyeth was 31 years old.

N.C. Wyeth in his studio with a cowboy model

 

In 1940, Wyeth married Betsy James, whom he met in 1939 in Maine. Christina Olson, who would become the model for the iconic Christina’s World, met Wyeth through an introduction by Betsy. His wife, Betsy, had an influence on Andrew as strong as that of his father. She played an important role managing his career. She was once quoted as saying, “I am a director and I had the greatest actor in the world.”

Winter 1946, Painted in tempera, 1946.
Winter 1946, Painted in tempera, 1946.

 

Christina’s World (1948)

It was at the Olson farm in Cushing, Maine, that he painted Christina’s World (1948). Perhaps his most famous image, it depicts his neighbor, Christina Olson, sprawled on a dry field facing her house in the distance. Wyeth was inspired by Christina, who, crippled from (undiagnosed) Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease, a genetic polyneuropathy and unable to walk, spent most of her time at home.

 

Braids (1979), portrait of Helga Testorf

  The Final Footprint

Hathorn Cemetery, Cushing, Maine.

#RIP #OTD in 2023 actress (Pane, amore e fantasia; La donna più bella del mondo; Come September, Vénus impériale; Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell), model, photojournalist, Gina Lollobrigida died in Rome aged 95. Cimitero di Subiaco, Subiaco, Italy

#RIP #OTD in 2025, filmmaker (Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Dune, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, Wild at Heart, Lost Highway, The Straight Story, Inland Empire), actor, painter, musician, David Lynch died from cardiac arrest at his daughter Jennifer’s home in Los Angeles aged 78. Cremated remains interred at Hollywood Forever

#RIP #OTD in 2025, professional baseball catcher, sportscaster, play-by-play announcer for the Milwaukee Brewers, actor (Major League), Bob Uecker died at his Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin home aged 90. Wood National Cemetery, Milwaukee

Have you planned yours yet?

Follow TFF on twitter @RIPTFF

Posted in Day in History, Film Footprints | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

On this day 15 January – The Black Dahlia (Elizabeth Short) – Yves Tanguy – Meyer Lansky – Sammy Cahn – Harry Nilsson – Junior Wells – Dolores O’Riordan – Carol Channing

Posted on 29 JanamThu, 15 Jan 2026 00:24:00 -06002026-01-15T00:24:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

Black_DahliaOn this day in 1947, The Black Dahlia, Elizabeth Short‘s body was found in the Leimert Park district of Los Angeles, the victim of a gruesome and much-publicized murder, at the age of 22.  Born Elizabeth Short on 29 July 1924 in Boston, Massachusetts.  Short acquired the nickname posthumously by newspapers in the habit of nicknaming crimes they found particularly colorful.  Short’s unsolved murder has been the source of widespread speculation, leading to many suspects, along with several books and film adaptations of the story.    ElizabethShortGrave

The Final Footprint –  Short was buried at the Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California.  A 1975 TV movie, “Who Is the Black Dahlia?” featured Lucie Arnaz in the role of Elizabeth.  James Ellroy wrote The Black Dahlia in 1987.  It was a fictionalized account of Elizabeth, the events in her life eventually leading to her death, and two obsessed cops who attempt to find her killer.  A fictionalized account of Black Dahlia murder was featured in the program American Horror Story: Murder House in episode 9 Spooky Little Girl.  She was portrayed by actress Mena Suvari.  In the episode, Elizabeth was murdered by a young doctor who resided in the show’s haunted house.  Short is portrayed in the episode as a ghost who has lost her memory and is doomed to linger on the house’s premises.  True Confessions, a 1981 film starring Robert De Niro and Robert Duvall was loosely based on the murder case.  The film was adapted from a 1977 novel of the same name by John Gregory Dunne.  A movie titled The Black Dahlia,  based on Ellroy’s book, was released in September 2006 directed by Brian De Palma and starred Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Aaron Eckhart and Hilary Swank.  Mia Kirshner played Elizabeth.

#RIP #OTD in 1955 surrealist painter, husband of Kay Sage, Yves Tanguy died from astroke at Woodbury, Connecticut, aged 55. His cremated remains were kept until Sage’s death in 1963. Their remains were scattered by his friend Pierre Matisse on the beach at Douarnenez in Brittany

Meyer_Lansky_NYWTS_1_retouchedOn this day in 1983, major organized crime figure, the “Mob’s Accountant”, Meyer Lansky died of lung cancer at the age of 80 in Miami Beach.  Born Meyer Suchowlansky in Grodno (then in Russian Empire, now in Belarus) on 4 July 1902.  Along with his associate Charles “Lucky” Luciano, Lansky was instrumental in the development of the “National Crime Syndicate” in the United States.  For decades he was thought to be one of the most powerful individuals in the country.  Lansky developed a gambling empire which stretched across the seas.  He was said to own points in casinos in Las Vegas, Cuba, The Bahamas and London.  Although a member of the Jewish Mob, Lansky undoubtedly had strong influence with the Italian Mafia and played a large role in the consolidation of the criminal underworld (although the full extent of this role has been the subject of some debate, as he himself denied many of the accusations against him).  Despite all the reports, the U.S. Justice Department never found Lansky guilty of anything more serious than illegal gambling. 

The Final Footprint – Lansky is interred in Mount Nebo Miami Memorial Gardens in West Miami.  The character Hyman Roth, portrayed by Lee Strasberg, and certain aspects of the main character Michael Corleone from Francis Ford Coppola‘s film The Godfather Part II (1974), appear to be based on Lansky.  Shortly after the premiere in 1974, Lansky phoned Strasberg and congratulated him on a good performance (Strasberg was nominated for an Oscar for his role), but added “You could’ve made me more sympathetic.”  Roth’s statement to Michael Corleone that “We’re bigger than U.S. Steel” was actually a direct quote from Lansky, who said the same thing to his wife while watching a news story on the Cosa Nostra.  The Godfather character Johnny Ola is similar to Lansky’s associate Vincent Alo.  Additionally, the character Moe Greene, who was a friend of Roth’s, appears to be modeled upon Bugsy Siegel.  The film reflects real life in that Lansky was denied the Right of Return to Israel and returned to the U.S. to face criminal charges, but fabricated details regarding Roth’s attempts to bribe Latin American dictators for entry to their countries, as well as Roth’s ultimate fate.  Maximilian “Max” Bercovicz, the gangster played by James Woods in Sergio Leone’s opus Once Upon A Time In America, appears to be inspired by Lansky.  Mark Rydell played Lansky in the 1990 Sydney Pollack film Havana, starring Robert Redford.  The film Bugsy (1991), a biography of Siegel, included Lansky as a major character, played by Ben Kingsley, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.  In the 1991 film Mobsters, he is played by Patrick Dempsey.  Lansky is portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in the 2005 film The Lost City, which presents a fictionalized account of Lansky’s involvement in Cuba.

On this day in 1993, lyricist, songwriter and musician, multiple Academy Award-winner, Sammy Cahn, died in Los Angeles, California at the age of 79 from heart failure.  Born Samuel Cohen on 18 June 1913 in The Lower East Side of Manhattan.  My favorite Cahn songs are; “(Love is) The Tender Trap”, “Come Fly with Me” and “My Kind of Town”.  Cahn and composer Jimmy Van Heusen wrote many songs for Frank Sinatra.  Cahn was married twice; Gloria Delson and Virginia “Tita” Curtis. 

The Final Footprint – Cahn is interred at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary (a Dignity Memorial® provider) in Los Angeles.  His grave is marked by a full ledger granite marker inscribed with his name, birth and death years and; SLEEP WITH A SMILE.  Other notable final footprints at Westwood include; Ray Bradbury, Truman Capote, James Coburn, Rodney Dangerfield, Janet Leigh, Farrah Fawcett, Hugh Hefner, Brian Keith, Don Knotts, Burt Lancaster, Peter Lawford, Peggy Lee, Jack Lemmon, Karl Malden, Dean Martin, Walter Mathau, Marilyn Monroe, Carroll O’Connor, Roy Orbison, George C. Scott, Dorothy Stratten, Natalie Wood, and Frank Zappa.

#RIP #OTD in 1994 singer (“Everybody’s Talkin'”, “Without You”), songwriter (“One”) Harry Nilsson died of heart failure in his Agoura Hills, California, home at the age of 52. Pierce Brothers Valley Oaks Memorial Park, Westlake Village, California

#RIP #OTD in 1998 blues singer (“Messin’ with the Kid”, Hoodoo Man Blues), harmonica player, Junior Wells died in Chicago, aged 63. Oak Woods Cemetery, Chicago

On this day in 2018, musician, singer and songwriter Dolores O’Riordan died as a result of accidental drowning in a bathtub due to sedation by alcohol intoxication at the London Hilton on Park Lane hotel in Mayfair, London, at the age of 46. Born Dolores Mary Eileen O’Riordan on 6 September 1971 in  Ballybricken, County Limerick, Ireland. She was the vocalist for rock band The Cranberries from 1990 until their break-up in 2003, later reuniting with her band in 2009, which she led until her death in 2018.

O’Riordan’s first solo album, Are You Listening?, was released in May 2007 and was followed up by No Baggage in 2009. O’Riordan was known for her lilting mezzo-soprano voice, her emphasised use of keening, and her strong Limerick accent.

On 18 July 1994, O’Riordan married Don Burton, the former tour manager of Duran Duran, at Holy Cross Abbey in Co. Tipperary. The couple divorced in 2014.

The Final Footprint

Funeral plans included a service reserved for extended family and close friends. A three-day memorial in her hometown, with O’Riordan lying in repose, lasted from 20–22 January at St Joseph’s church. O’Riordan’s songs were played, while photographs of the singer performing and one of her with Pope John Paul II were placed along the walls.

She was buried on 23 January after a service at Saint Ailbe’s Roman Catholic Church, Ballybricken, County Limerick; it began with the studio recording of “Ave Maria” as sung by O’Riordan and Luciano Pavarotti. At the end of the service the Cranberries’ song “When You’re Gone” was played. O’Riordan was buried alongside her father at Caherelly Cemetery in Hebertstown, County Limerick.

On this day in 2019, actress, singer, dancer, and comedian Carol Channing died of natural causes at her home in Rancho Mirage, California, at the age of 97. Born Carol Elaine Channing on January 31, 1921 in . Perhaps best known for starring in Broadway and film musicals. Her characters usually had a fervent expressiveness and an easily identifiable voice, whether singing or for comedic effect.

Channing began as a Broadway musical actress starring in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in 1949 and Hello, Dolly! in 1964, and winning the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for the latter. She revived both roles several times throughout her career, playing Dolly on Broadway for the final time in 1995. She was nominated for her first Tony Award in 1956 for The Vamp, followed by a nomination in 1961 for Show Girl. She received her fourth Tony Award nomination for the musical Lorelei in 1974.

As a film actress, she won the Golden Globe Award and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Muzzy in Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). Her other film appearances include The First Traveling Saleslady (1956) and Skidoo (1968). On television, she appeared as an entertainer on variety shows, from The Ed Sullivan Show in the 1950s to Hollywood Squares. She performed The White Queen in the TV production of Alice in Wonderland (1985), and she had the first of many TV specials in 1966, entitled An Evening with Carol Channing.

Channing was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1981 and received a Lifetime Achievement Tony Award in 1995. She continued to perform and make appearances well into her 90s, singing songs from her repertoire and sharing stories with fans, cabaret-style. She released her autobiography Just Lucky I Guess in 2002, and Larger Than Life was released in 2012, a documentary film about her career.

Channing in 2009

Channing was married four times. Her first husband was Theodore Naidish, whom she married when she was 20 in 1941. He was a writer, who in 1944 wrote Watch Out for Willie Carter. Her second husband Alexander F. Carson, known as Axe, or “The Murderous Ax”, played center for the Ottawa Rough Riders Canadian football team and was also a private detective. They married in 1950 and divorced in September 1956.

In September 1956, following the entry of the divorce decree from Carson, Channing married her manager and publicist Charles Lowe. Channing filed for divorce from Lowe in 1998, but her estranged husband died before the divorce was finalized. After Lowe’s death and until shortly before her fourth marriage, the actress’s companion was Roger Denny, an interior decorator. In 2003, while recording the audiobook of her autobiography Just Lucky, I Guess, at VideoActive Productions, NYC, produced and directed by Steve Garrin, she rekindled her romance with her junior high school sweetheart, Harry Kullijian, and they married on May 10, 2003. They later performed at their old junior high school in a benefit for the school. They also promoted arts education in California schools through their Dr. Carol Channing and Harry Kullijian Foundation. The couple resided in both Modesto, California, and Rancho Mirage, California. Harry Kullijian died on December 26, 2011, the eve of his 92nd birthday.

The Final Footprint

On January 16, the lights on Broadway were dimmed in her honor. A crowd congregated outside the St. James Theater, as it had also been the anniversary of the opening of the original Broadway production of Hello, Dolly!. She was cremated and her cremated remains were scattered between the Curran theater and the Geary theater in San Francisco.

Have you planned yours yet?

Follow TFF on twitter @RIPTFF

Posted in Day in History, Infamous Footprints, Musical Footprints | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

On this day 14 January – Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres – Lewis Carroll – Humphrey Bogart – Jeanette MacDonald – Anaïs Nin – Peter Finch – Blossom Rock – Donna Reed – Shelley Winters – Ricardo Montalbán – Alan Rickman

Posted on 29 JanamWed, 14 Jan 2026 00:45:00 -06002026-01-14T00:45:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

#RIP #OTD in 1867 Neoclassical painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres died of pneumonia in his apartment on the Quai Voltaire in Paris, aged 86. Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris with a tomb sculpted by his student Jean-Marie Bonnassieux

#RIP #OTD in 1898 author (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass), poet (Jabberwocky, The Hunting of the Snark), mathematician, photographer, Lewis Carroll died of pneumonia following influenza at his sisters’ home, “The Chestnuts”, in Guildford, Surrey, England  He was two weeks away from turning 66 years old. His funeral was held at the nearby St Mary’s Church.  His body was interred at the Mount Cemetery in Guildford

On this day in 1957, U.S. Navy veteran, Academy Award-winning actor and American icon, Bogie, Humphrey Bogart, died from cancer at his home in Holmby Hills, California at the age of 57.  Born Humphrey DeForest Bogart on 25 December 1899 in New York City.  Bogart is a Dutch name meaning orchard.  His acting breakthrough came in 1941, with High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon. The next year, his performance in Casablanca raised him to the peak of his profession and cemented his trademark film persona;  the hard-boiled cynic who ultimately shows his noble side.  Bogart’s other notable movies included; To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947), Key Largo (1948), with his wife Lauren Bacall; The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948); The African Queen (1951), for which he won his only Academy Award; Sabrina (1954) and The Caine Mutiny (1954).  His last movie was The Harder They Fall (1956).  During a film career of almost thirty years, he appeared in 75 feature films.  Bogart was married four times; Helen Menken (1926 – 1927 divorce), Mary Phillips (1928 – 1937 divorce), Mayo Methot (1938 – 1945 divorce), Bacall (1945 – 1957 his death).

Bogart met Bacall while filming To Have and Have Not (1944), a loose adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway novel.  When they met, Bacall was nineteen and Bogart was forty-five.  He nicknamed her “Baby.”  Bogart was drawn to Bacall’s high cheekbones, green eyes, tawny blond hair, and lean body, as well as her poise and earthy, outspoken honesty.  Their physical and emotional rapport was very strong from the start and quite contrary to the Hollywood norm, it was his first affair with a leading lady.  Bogart was still miserably married and his early meetings with Bacall were discreet and brief, their separations bridged by ardent love letters.

Bogart was a founding member of the Rat Pack.  In the spring of 1955, after a long party in Las Vegas with Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, her husband, Sid Luft, Mike Romanoff and wife Gloria, David Niven, Angie Dickinson and others, Bacall surveyed the wreckage of the party and declared, “You look like a goddamn rat pack.”  Romanoff’s home in Beverly Hills was where the Rat Pack became official.  Sinatra was named Pack Leader, Bacall was named Den Mother, Bogart was Director of Public Relations, and Luft was Acting Cage Manager.  When asked by columnist Earl Wilson what the purpose of the group was, Bacall responded “to drink a lot of bourbon and stay up late.”

Bogart is credited with five of the most quotable quotes in American cinema:  “Here’s looking at you, kid” – Casablanca, “The stuff that dreams are made of.” – The Maltese Falcon, “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” – Casablanca, “We’ll always have Paris.” – Casablanca, “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” – Casablanca.  Bogart is also credited with one of the top movie misquotations.  In Casablanca, neither he, nor anyone else, ever said, “Play it again, Sam“.  When Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), his former love, first enters the Café Americain, she spots Sam, the piano player (Dooley Wilson) and asks him to “Play it once, Sam, for old times’ sake.”  When he feigns ignorance, she responds, “Play it, Sam. Play “As Time Goes By.“”  Later that night, alone with Sam, Rick says, “You played it for her and you can play it for me” and “If she can stand it, I can! Play it!”  The slang term “bogarting” refers to taking an unfairly long time with a cigarette, drink, et cetera, that is supposed to be shared (e.g., “Don’t bogart the microphone!“).  It derives from Bogart’s style of cigarette smoking, with which he left his cigarette dangling from his mouth rather than withdrawing it between puffs.  No one was Bogart cool, before or since.  Indeed, here is lookin’ at you.  

The Final Footprint – Bogart was cremated and his cremains are inurned in the Garden of Memory Columbarium of Eternal Light, Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California.  Inurned with his cremains is a small gold whistle, which he had given to Bacall, before they married, in reference to their first movie.  His star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is located at 6322 Hollywood Boulevard.  The latest in a long line of Bogart biographies is Stefan Kanfer‘s  “Tough Without a Gun: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart.”  Other notable Final Footprints at Forest Lawn Glendale include; L. Frank Baum, Lon Chaney, Dorothy Dandridge, Sammy Davis, Jr., Elizabeth Taylor, Jean Harlow, Nat King Cole, Sam Cooke, Walt Disney, Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, Michael Jackson, Carole Lombard, Tom Mix, Casey Stengel, Jimmy Stewart, and Spencer Tracy.

#RIP #OTD in 1965 soprano, sister of Blossom Rock (see below) actress (The Love Parade, Love Me Tonight, The Merry Widow, One Hour With You, Naughty Marietta, San Franciso) Jeanette MacDonald died; Houston Methodist Hospital, heart failure, aged 61. Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale

220px-Anais_NinOn this day in 1977, author Anaïs Nin died in Los Angeles, California after a three year battle with cancer, at the age of 73.  Born Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell on 21 February 1903 in Neuilly, France to a Cuban father and a French/Danish mother.  Nin wrote journals (which span more than 60 years, beginning when she was 11 years old and ending shortly before her death), novels, critical studies, essays, short stories, and erotica; including Delta of Venus (1977), Little Birds (1979) and Henry and June (1986).  On 3 March 1923, in Havana, Cuba, Nin married her first husband, Hugh Parker Guiler (1898–1985), a banker and artist, later known as “Ian Hugo” when he became a maker of experimental films in the late 1940s.  According to her diaries, Vol.1, 1931–1934, Nin shared a bohemian lifestyle with writer Henry Miller during her time in Paris.  The diaries tell that her union with Miller was very passionate and physical, and that she believed that it was a pregnancy by him that she aborted in 1934.  In 1947, at the age of 44, she met former actor Rupert Pole in a Manhattan elevator on her way to a party.  The two ended up dating and traveled to California together; Pole was sixteen years her junior.  On 17 March 1955, she married him at Quartzsite, Arizona, returning with Pole to live in California.  Guiler remained in New York City and was unaware of Nin’s second marriage until after her death in 1977, or chose not to know.  Nin referred to her simultaneous marriages as her “bicoastal trapeze”.  In 1966, Nin had her marriage with Pole annulled, due to the legal issues arising from both Guiler and Pole having to claim her as a dependent on their federal tax returns.  Though the marriage was annulled, Nin and Pole continued to live together as if they were married, up until her death in 1977.  Nin often cited authors Djuna Barnes and D. H. Lawrence as inspirations. 

The Final Footrpint – Her body was cremated, and her cremated remains were scattered over Santa Monica Bay in Mermaid Cove.  Philip Kaufman directed the 1990 film Henry & June based on Nin’s novel Henry and June: From the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin.  She was portrayed in the film by Maria de Medeiros.

#RIP #OTD in 1977, actor (Network; The Nun’s Story; Raid on Entebbe; Sunday Bloody Sunday), Peter Finch died from a heart attack in the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel aged 60. Hollywood Forever

#RIP #OTD in 1978 sister of Jeanette MacDonald (see above), actress (“Grandmama” on The Addams Family) Blossom Rock died in Los Angeles, California, aged 82. Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California

On this day in 1986, actress Donna Reed died of pancreatic cancer in Beverly Hills, at the age of 64. Born Donna Belle Mullenger on January 27, 1921 in Denison, Iowa. Her career spanned more than 40 years, with performances in more than 40 films. Perhaps best known for her role as Mary Hatch Bailey in Frank Capra’s 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life. In 1953, she received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Lorene Burke in the war drama From Here to Eternity.

Reed is known for her work in television, notably as Donna Stone, a middle-class American mother and housewife in the sitcom The Donna Reed Show (1958–1966), in which her character was more assertive than most other television mothers of the era. She received numerous Emmy Award nominations for this role and the Golden Globe Award for Best TV Star in 1963. Later in her career, Reed replaced Barbara Bel Geddes as Miss Ellie Ewing Farlow in the 1984–1985 season of the television melodrama Dallas.

From 1943 to 1945, Reed was married to make-up artist William Tuttle. After they divorced, in 1945 she married producer Tony Owen. After 26 years of marriage, Reed and Owen divorced in 1971. Three years later, Reed married Grover W. Asmus (1926–2003), a retired United States Army colonel. They remained married until her death.

The Final Footprint

Her remains are interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. Other notable final footprints at Westwood include; Ray Bradbury,  Sammy Cahn, Truman Capote, James Coburn, Rodney Dangerfield, Janet Leigh, Farrah Fawcett, Hugh Hefner, Brian Keith, Don Knotts, Burt Lancaster, Peter Lawford, Peggy Lee, Jack Lemmon, Karl Malden, Dean Martin, Walter Mathau, Marilyn Monroe, Carroll O’Connor, Roy Orbison, George C. Scott, Dorothy Stratten, Natalie Wood, and Frank Zappa.

On this day in 2006, actress Shelley Winters died from heart failure at the Rehabilitation Center of Beverly Hills, at the age of 85. Born Shirley Schrift on August 18, 1920 in St. Louis, Missouri. Her career spanned almost six decades.

She appeared in numerous films, and won Academy Awards for The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) and A Patch of Blue (1965), and received nominations for A Place in the Sun (1951) and The Poseidon Adventure (1972). Other roles Winters appeared in include A Double Life (1947), The Night of the Hunter (1955), Lolita (1962), Alfie (1966), and Pete’s Dragon (1977).

Winters was married four times. Her husbands were:

  • Captain Mack Paul Mayer, whom she married on December 29, 1942 in Brooklyn;[11] they divorced in October 1948. Mayer was unable to deal with Shelley’s “Hollywood lifestyle” and wanted a “traditional homemaker” for a wife. Winters wore his wedding ring up until her death, and kept their relationship very private.
  • Vittorio Gassman, whom she married on April 28, 1952 in Juarez, Mexico; they divorced on June 2, 1954.
  • Anthony Franciosa, whom she married on May 4, 1957; they divorced on November 18, 1960.
  • Gerry DeFord, whom she married on January 14, 2006.

The Final Footprint

Her body was interred at Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City. Her third former husband, Franciosa, had a stroke on the day she died and died five days later. Other notable Final Footprints at Hillside Memorial include; Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Cyd Charisse, Lorne Greene, Moe Howard, Al Jolson, Michael Landon, Jerry Leiber, Suzanne Pleshette, and Dinah Shore.

On this day in 2009, actor Ricardo Montalbán died from congestive heart failure at his home in Los Angeles at age 88. Born Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalbán y Merino on November 25, 1920 in Mexico City. His career spanned seven decades, during which he became known for many different performances in a variety of genres, from crime and drama to musicals and comedy.

Among his notable roles was Armando in the Planet of the Apes film series from the early 1970s, where he starred in Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) and Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972).

Montalbán played Mr. Roarke on the television series Fantasy Island (1977–1984), and Khan Noonien Singh in both the original Star Trek series (1967) and the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982). He won an Emmy Award for his role in the miniseries How the West Was Won (1978), and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild in 1993.

Montalbán was professionally active into his 80s, when he provided voices for animated films and commercials, and appeared as Grandfather Valentin in the Spy Kids franchise. During the 1970s and 80s he was a spokesman in automobile advertisements for Chrysler, including those in which he extolled the “rich Corinthian leather” used for the Cordoba’s interior.

Montalbán married actress and model Georgiana Young (born Georgiana Paula Belzer; September 30, 1923 – November 13, 2007) in 1944. Georgiana was the half-sister of actresses Sally Blane, Polly Ann Young and Loretta Young. They were married for 63 years. Her death preceded Montalbán’s by one year and two months.

The Final Footprint

He is buried in Culver City, California at the Holy Cross Cemetery. Other notable final footprints at Holy Cross include; John Candy, Bing Crosby, Jimmy Durante, John Ford, Rita Hayworth, Chick Hearn, Conrad Hilton, Jr., Bela Lugosi, Al Martino, Audrey Meadows, Chris Penn, Jo Stafford, and Sharon Tate.

On this day in 2016, actor and director Alan Rickman died in London of pancreatic cancer, at the age of 69. Born Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman on 21 February 1946 in . He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), performing in modern and classical theatre productions. His first big television role came in 1982, he played the Vicomte de Valmont in the RSC stage production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses in 1985, and after the production transferred to Broadway in 1987 he was nominated for a Tony Award.

Rickman’s first cinematic role was as the German terrorist leader Hans Gruber in Die Hard (1988). He also appeared as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), for which he received the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role; Elliott Marston in Quigley Down Under (1990); Jamie in Truly, Madly, Deeply (1990); P.L. O’Hara in An Awfully Big Adventure (1995); Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility (1995); Alexander Dane in Galaxy Quest (1999); Harry in Love Actually (2003); Marvin the Paranoid Android in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005); and Judge Turpin in the film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s musical of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007). Rickman gained further notice for his film performances as Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series.

Rickman made his television acting debut playing Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet (1978) as part of the BBC’s Shakespeare series. He later starred in television films, playing the title character in Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny (1996), which won him a Golden Globe Award, an Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and Dr. Alfred Blalock in the Emmy-winning Something the Lord Made (2004). His final film roles were as Lieutenant General Frank Benson in the thriller Eye in the Sky (2015), and the voice of Absolem, the caterpillar in Alice Through the Looking Glass.

In 1965, at age 19, Rickman met 18-year-old Rima Horton, who became his girlfriend and would later be a Labour Party councillor on the Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council (1986–2006) and an economics lecturer at the nearby Kingston University. In 2015, Rickman confirmed that they had married in a private ceremony in New York City in 2012. They lived together from 1977 until Rickman’s death. The two had no children.

The Final Footprint

His remains were cremated on 3 February 2016 in the West London Crematorium in Kensal Green. His ashes were given to his wife. His final two films, Eye in the Sky and Alice Through the Looking Glass, were dedicated to his memory.

Have you planned yours yet?

Follow TFF on twitter @RIPTFF



Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Posted in Day in History, Film Footprints, Literary Footprints | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment