On this day in 1872, French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, art critic and literary critic Théophile Gautier died at the age of 61 in Paris due to a long-standing cardiac disease. Born Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier on 30 August 1811 in Tarbes, capital of Hautes-Pyrénées département in southwestern France. He was made a Chevalier de la Legion d’honneur in 1842 and promoted to an Officier de la Legion d’honneur in 1858. Gautier was an ardent defender of Romanticism, yet his work is difficult to classify and remains a point of reference for many subsequent literary traditions such as Parnassianism, Symbolism, Decadence and Modernism.
The Final Footprint – Gautier is interred at the Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris. Two poems from “Émaux et camées”—”Sur les lagunes” and the second of two titled “Études de Mains”—are featured in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Dorian reads them out of the book shortly after Basil Hallward’s murder. Other notable final footprints at Montmartre include; Hector Berlioz, Dalida, Edgar Degas, Alexandre Dumas, fils, Marie Duplessis, France Gall, Gustave Moreau, Jeanne Moreau, Jacques Offenbach, François Truffaut, and Alfred de Vigny.
On this day in 1939, author Zane Grey died of heart failure at the age of 67, at his home in Altadena, California. Born Pearl Zane Gray on 31 January 1872, in Zanesville, Ohio. Perhaps best known for his popular adventure novels and stories that presented an idealized image of the American frontier. Riders of the Purple Sage (1912) was his best-selling book. In addition to the success of his printed works, they later had second lives and continuing influence when adapted as films and television productions. As of 2012, 112 films, two television episodes, and a television series, Dick Powell’s Zane Grey Theater, had been made that were based loosely on his novels and short stories. Grey married Lin “Dolly” Roth (1905 – 1939 his death). During his courtship of Dolly, Grey still saw previous girlfriends and warned her, “But I love to be free. I cannot change my spots. The ordinary man is satisfied with a moderate income, a home, wife, children, and all that….But I am a million miles from being that kind of man and no amount of trying will ever do any good”. He added, “I shall never lose the spirit of my interest in women.”
The Final Footprint – Grey was interred at the Union Cemetery in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania.
#RIP #OTD in 1978 singer, musician Mother Maybelle, Maybelle Carter died in Hendersonville, Tennessee aged 69. Hendersonville Memory Gardens in Hendersonville
On this day in 2004, operatic baritone and Metropolitan Opera star, Robert Merrill died at his home in New Rochelle, New York at the age of 87 while watching Game 1 of the 2004 World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals.
Born Moishe Miller the son of Polish immigrants in Brooklyn on 4 June 1917. Merrill made his operatic debut in Verdi’s Aida in Newark, New Jersey and his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1945, as Germont in Verdi’s La Traviata. In 1969, he sang the Star Spangled Banner on Opening Day at Yankee Stadium and it became a tradition to have him sing on Opening Day and on special occasions. A recorded version is sometimes still played today.
The Final Footprint – Merrill is interred in Sharon Gardens Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. His Grave is marked by a large upright granite marker featuring an opera curtain that has been drawn open. In keeping with Jewish tradition, loose rocks rest on top of the marker. A foot marker is engraved with the following: Like a bursting celestial star, he showered his family and the world with love, joy, and beauty. Encore please.
#RIP #OTD in 2020 singer/songwriter (Mr. Bojangles, Gettin’ By, Sangria Wine, Takin’ It as it Comes, Pickup Truck Song, Got Lucky Last Night, Hill Country Rain) Jerry Jeff Walker died from throat cancer in Austin aged 78. Texas State Cemetery, Austin. Encore please
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On this day in 1906 Post-Impressionist French artist Paul Cézanne died of pneumonia at his home in Aix-en-Provence, France at the age of 67. Born 19 January 1839 in Aix-en-Provence, France.
The Final Footprint – Cézanne is entombed in a single crypt private mausoleum in Cimetiere de Saint Pierre in Aix-en-Provence, France.
On this day in 1992 actor Cleavon Little died from colorectal cancer in Sherman Oaks, California at the age of 53. Born Cleavon Jake Little in Chickasha, Oklahoma on 1 June 1939.
On this day in 1995, novelist, poet, critic, and teacher Sir Kingsley Amis died at St. Pancras Hospital in London at the age of 73. Born Kingsley William Amis on 16 April 1922 in Clapham, South London.
The Final Footprint – Amis was cremated and his cremains are at Golders Green Crematorium. Golders was the first crematorium to be opened in London, and one of the oldest crematoria in Britain. The crematorium, the Philipson Family mausoleum (designed by Edwin Lutyens), the wall, along with memorials and gates, the Martin Smith Mausoleum, and Into The Silent Land statue are all Grade II listed buildings. The gardens are included in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. Golders is in Hoop Lane, off Finchley Road, Golders Green, London NW11, ten minutes’ walk from Golders Green tube station. It is directly opposite the Golders Green Jewish Cemetery. The crematorium is secular, accepts all faiths and non-believers; clients may arrange their own type of service or remembrance event and choose whatever music they wish. Other notable cremations at Golders include; Neville Chamberlain, T. S. Eliot, Sigmund Freud, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, Vivien Leigh, Keith Moon, Peter Sellers, Bram Stoker, H. G. Wells and Amy Winehouse.
On this day in 1969, novelist and poet Jack Kerouac died at St. Anthony’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida at the age of 47, from an internal hemorrhage caused by cirrhosis, the result of a lifetime of heavy drinking. Born Jean-Louis Kérouac on 12 March 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts. He is considered a literary iconoclast and, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Kerouac is recognized for his spontaneous method of writing, covering topics such as Catholic spirituality, jazz, promiscuity, Buddhism, drugs, poverty, and travel. He became an underground celebrity and, with other beats, a progenitor of the hippie movement, although he remained antagonistic toward some of its politically radical elements. Since his death Kerouac’s literary prestige has grown and several previously unseen works have been published. His books include: On the Road, Doctor Sax, The Dharma Bums, Mexico City Blues, The Subterraneans, Desolation Angels, Visions of Cody, The Sea is My Brother, and Big Sur.
On this day in 1984, film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film critic, François Truffaut died from a brain tumor at the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, at the age of 52. Born François Roland Truffaut 
On this day in 1992, District Attorney of Orleans Parrish, Louisiana from 1961 to 1973, Jim Garrison died of cancer at the age of 70 in New Orleans. Born Earling Carothers Garrison in Denison, Iowa on 20 November 1921. Known for his investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. A controversial figure, opinions vary as to whether he uncovered a conspiracy but was blocked from discovering what actually happened, or whether he bungled a chance to uncover a conspiracy, or whether the whole thing was a complete waste of time and resources. His book, On the Trail of the Assassins (1988), served as the basis for Oliver Stone‘s movie JFK, starring Kevin Costner as Garrison. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald was the only shooter that day, and I believe the conspiracy lies behind his motive.
The Final Footprint – Garrison is buried in Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans. His grave is marked by an upright companion granite marker inscribed with the following; “LET JUSTICE BE DONE, THOUGH THE HEAVENS FALL”. Other notable final footprints at Metairie include; Pete Fountain, Al Hirt, Louis Prima, and Stan Rice.
On this day in 2003 singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Elliott Smith died from two stab wounds to the chest in Los Angeles, age 34. Born Steven Paul Smith on August 6th, 1969 at the Methodist Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska.
And on this day in 2006 musician, singer, songwriter, drummer, one of the founding members of the Runaways, Sandy West died at the age of 47 from lung cancer in San Dimas, California. Born Sandy Pesavento in Long Beach, California on 10 July 1959. she was the drummer in the Prisk Elementary School orchestra.
The Final Footprint – Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Cypress, Orange County, California.
The Final Footprint– Van Zant was originally entombed in a private mausoleum in Jacksonville Memorial Gardens in Orange Park, Florida.
On this day in 1983 singer, songwriter, innovative guitarist, Merle Travis died of a heart attack at his Tahlequah, Oklahoma home, aged 65.
The Final Footprint – Cremated remains scattered Ebenezer Cemetery, Ebenezer, Kentucky.
On this day in 1994, actor Burt Lancaster died in his Century City apartment in Los Angeles from a third heart attack at the age of 80. Born Burton Stephen Lancaster on November 2, 1913 in Manhattan at his parents’ home at 209 East 106th Street, between Second and Third Avenues, today the site of Benjamin Franklin Plaza.
And on this day in 2006 actress Jane Wyatt died at her home in Bel-Air, California, aged 96. She starred in a number of Hollywood films, such as Frank Capra’s Lost Horizon, but is perhaps best known for her role as the housewife and mother Margaret Anderson on the CBS and NBC television comedy series Father Knows Best, and as Amanda Grayson, the human mother of Spock on the science-fiction television series Star Trek. Wyatt was a three-time Emmy Award–winner.
The Final Footprint – San Fernando Mission Cemetery, Mission Hills, California.
On this day in 1943, French sculptor and graphic artist, elder sister of the poet and diplomat Paul Claudel, Camille Claudel died at the age of 78, after having lived 30 years in the asylum at Montfavet (known then as the Asile de Montdevergues, now the modern psychiatric hospital Centre hospitalier de Montfavet). Born in Fère-en-Tardenois, Aisne, in northern France on 8 December 1864. Around 1884, Claudel started working in Auguste Rodin’s workshop and became his muse, his model, his confidante and lover. After 1905 Claudel apparently began exhibiting signs of paranoia and was diagnosed as having schizophrenia. She destroyed many of her statues and disappeared for long periods of time. She accused Rodin of stealing her ideas and of leading a conspiracy to kill her. On 10 March 1913 at the initiative of her brother, she was admitted to the psychiatric hospital of Ville-Évrard in Neuilly-sur-Marne. In 1914, to be safe from advancing German troops, the patients at Ville-Évrard were at first relocated to Enghien. On 7 September 1914 Camille was transferred with a number of other women, to the Montdevergues Asylum, at Montfavet, six kilometres from Avignon.
The Final Footprint – Her body was interred in the cemetery of Monfavet, in a communal grave. The film, Camille Claudel (1988), directed by Bruno Nuytten, co-produced by Isabelle Adjani, starring herself as Claudel and Gérard Depardieu as Rodin, was nominated for two Academy Awards in 1989. Another film, Camille Claudel 1915, directed by Bruno Dumont, premiered at the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival in 2013. The actress Juliette Binoche played Claudel.
On this day in 1950, lyrical poet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay died at her home, Steepletop near Austerlitz, New York, at the age of 58. She had fallen down stairs and was found approximately eight hours after her death. Her physician reported that she had suffered a heart attack following a coronary occlusion. Born on 22 February 1892 in Rockland, Maine. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, and was also known for her feminist activism and her many love affairs. Millay married Eugen Jan Boissevain (1923 – 1949 his death). A self-proclaimed feminist, Boissevain supported her career and took primary care of domestic responsibilities. Both Millay and Boissevain had other lovers throughout their twenty-six-year marriage. For Millay, a significant such relationship was with the poet George Dillon, who was the inspiration for Millay’s epic 52-sonnet sequence Fatal Interview. They later collaborated on translations from Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal in 1936.
The Final Footprint – Millay is interred next to Boissevain in the Steepletop Cemetery. Millay’s sister Norma and her husband, the painter and actor Charles Frederick Ellis, moved to Steepletop after Millay’s death. In 1973, they established Millay Colony for the Arts on the seven acres around the house and barn. After the death of her husband in 1976, Norma continued to run the program until her death in 1986. At 17, the poet Mary Oliver visited Steepletop and became a close friend of Norma. Oliver eventually lived there for seven years and helped to organize Millay’s papers. Oliver herself went on to become a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, greatly inspired by Millay’s work. In 2006, the state of New York paid $1.69 million to acquire 230 acres of Steepletop, with the intention to add the land to a nearby state forest preserve. The proceeds of the sale were to be used by the Edna St. Vincent Millay Society to restore the farmhouse and grounds and turn it into a museum. The museum has been open to the public since summer 2010, and guided tours of Steepletop and Millay’s gardens are available from the end of May through the middle of October. Parts of the grounds of Steepletop, including the Millay Poetry Trail that leads to her grave, are now open to the public year-round.
The Final Footprint – His funeral took place ten days later at the Church of the Madeleine, with Camille Saint-Saëns playing the organ and Gabriel Fauré conducting. Gounod is entombed in a private mausoleum in Cimetiere d’Auteuil in Paris.
On this day in 2000 actress, dancer, wife-dancer-collaborator-muse of Bob Fosse, 4x Tony winner, Gwen Verdon died from a heart attack at her daughter Nicole Fosse’s home in Woodstock, Vermont, age 75.
The Final Footprint – Kristel is buried in Utrecht Sint-Barbara Roman Catholic Cemetery, Utrecht, the Netherlands. Her epitaph…
On this day in 2007, U. S. Army veteran, actor, comedian, entertainer, member of the Rat Pack, Joey Bishop died at his home in Newport Beach, California, from heart failure at the age of 89.
He later became a member of the “Rat Pack” with Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Dean Martin. Bishop married Sylvia Ruzga, who died in 1999 from lung cancer.
On this day in 1793 Archduchess of Austria, Queen of France and Navarre, Marie Antoinette was executed by guillotine at the Place de la Revolution in Paris at the age of 37. Born Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna on 2 November 1755 in Hofburg Palace in Vienna, Austria. Her father was Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor. At the age of 14 she was married to the grandson of King Louis XV, Louis-Auguste, Dauphin of France. At the king’s death in 1774, the dauphin became King Louis XVI. In my opinion, she did not say “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” (“Let them eat cake”), as has been reported, in response to the wide spread famine in France. During the French Revolution, Louis was executed on 21 January 1793 and Marie was executed on this day in 1793. Her last words were reportedly an apology to the executioner for accidentally stepping on his foot.
The Final Footprint – Initially, Marie’s body, as well as Louis’, was thrown into an unmarked grave in Madeleine cemetery, rue d’Anjou. Their bodies were exhumed on 18 January 1815 and entombed in the necropolis of French kings in Saint Denis Basilique in Saint-Denis, France. There are funerary sculpture monuments inside the basilique of the former king and queen.
On this day in 1997, author and philanthropist James Michener died in Austin, Texas at the age of 90. Born James Albert Michener on February 3, 1907 in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Michener wrote more than 40 books, most of which were fictional, lengthy family sagas covering the lives of many generations in particular geographic locales and incorporating solid history. He was known for his meticulous research behind the books.
The Final Footprint
On this day 1838 poet and novelist, better known by her initials L.E.L., Letitia Elizabeth Landon died from an overdose of prussic acid in Cape Coast Castle on the Gold Coast of West Africa (now Ghana), aged 36. Born on 14 August 1802 in Chelsea, London.
The Final Footprint – Landon was found dead, a bottle of prussic acid in her hand. This was a prescription labelled ‘Acid Hydrocianicum Delatum, Pharm. London 1836. Medium Dose Five Minims, being about one third the strength of that in former use, prepared by Scheele’s proof’. That she was poisoned thereby was an assumption. There is evidence that she showed symptoms of Stokes–Adams syndrome (for one, Mrs Elwood writes that she was subject to spasms, hysterical affections, and deep and instantaneous fainting fits) for which the dilute acid was the standard remedy and, as she told her husband it was so necessary for the preservation of her life, it would appear she had been told that her life was in danger. William Cobbald, the surgeon who attended, reported that ‘she was insensible with the pupils of both eyes much dilated’, an almost certain indication that a seizure had occurred. No autopsy was carried out (there being no qualified pathologist available) but from the eye-witness accounts it has been argued that Landon suffered a fatal convulsion. On the evening of her death she was buried in the courtyard of Cape Coast Castle.
On this day in 1917, exotic dancer and courtesan Mata Hari died by firing squad after being convicted of being a spy for Germany in World War I, Vincennes, Paris, at the age of 41. Born Margaretha Geertruida Zelle on 7 August 1876 in Leeuwarden, Netherlands. 
On this day in 1964 composer and songwriter Cole Porter died of kidney failure in Santa Monica, California at the age of 73. Born Cole Albert Porter on 9 June 1891 in Peru, Indiana. In my opinion, one of the greatest contributors to the Great American Songbook. He wrote both the lyrics and the music for his songs. My favorite Porter songs are: “Let’s do it, let’s Fall in Love”, “I Get a Kick out of You”, “You’re the Top”, “Don’t Fence Me In”, “It’s De-Lovely”, “I’ve got You under My Skin”, “You’d be so Nice to Come Home To”, “Too Darn Hot”. Porter met Linda Lee Thomas on 30 January 1918 at a wedding at the Hotel Ritz Paris. They were married on 18 December 1919 in Paris. They were married until her death in 1954.
On this day in 1976 mafioso, boss of the Gambino crime family, Don Carlo, Capo di tutti capi (Boss of Bosses), The Godfather, Carlo Gambino died of a heart attack at his home (watching the New York Yankees) in Massapequa, New York at the age of 74. Born 24 August 1902 in Caccamo, Palermo, Sicily, Italy. In 1931, Charles “Lucky” Luciano created The Commission to avoid mafia warfare. The Five Families were formed at this time with Luciano head of the Luciano family, Joseph Bonnano head of the Bonnano family, Joseph Profaci head of the Profaci family, Gaetano Gagliano head of the Gagliano family and Vincent Mangano head of the Mangano family. In the Mangano family, Albert Anastasia served as underboss and Gambino served as caporegime. On 19 April 1951 Mangano’s brother was found murdered and Mangano vanished and was never found. Anastasia became boss of the Mangano family with Gambino as his underboss. Anastasia was murdered on 25 October 1957 and Gambino became head of the Mangano family which was then renamed the Gambino family. He would later become head of the Commission and thus the Boss of Bosses.
The Final Footprint – Flynn is interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. His grave is marked by a single flat bronze marker. Other notable Final Footprints at Forest Lawn Glendale include; L. Frank Baum, Humphrey Bogart, Lon Chaney, Nat King Cole, Dorothy Dandridge, Sammy Davis, Jr., Jean Harlow, Sam Cooke, Walt Disney, Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, Michael Jackson, Carole Lombard, Tom Mix, Casey Stengel, Jimmy Stewart, Elizabeth Taylor, and Spencer Tracy.
On this day in 1977, singer and actor Bing Crosby died of a heart attack at the age of 74 on a golf course in La Moraleja, Spain, near Madrid. Born Harry Lillis Crosby, Jr. on 3 May 1903 in Tacoma, Washington. Crosby’s trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century. A multimedia star, from 1934 to 1954 in records, radio, and motion pictures. Yank magazine recognized Crosby as the person who had done the most for American G.I. morale during World War II. Along with Frank Sinatra, Crosby was one of the principal backers behind the famous United Western Recorders recording studio complex in Los Angeles. Crosby won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Father Chuck O’Malley in the 1944 motion picture Going My Way, and was nominated for his reprise of the role in The Bells of St. Mary’s opposite Ingrid Bergman the next year, becoming the first of four actors to be nominated twice for playing the same character. Crosby starred with Bob Hope and actress Dorothy Lamour in seven Road to musical comedies between 1940 and 1962, cementing the two entertainers as an on-and-off duo. In 1963, Crosby received the first Grammy Global Achievement Award. Crosby is one of the 22 people to have three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (a star for motion pictures, radio, and audio recording). Crosby was married twice; singer Dixie Lee (1930 – 1952 her death) and Kathryn Grant (1957 – 1977 his death).
The Final Footprint – Reportedly his last words were “That was a great game of golf, fellas.” Crosby is interred at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California. Note the incorrect birth year on the marker. Other notable final footprints at Holy Cross include; John Candy, Jimmy Durante, John Ford, Rita Hayworth, Chick Hearn, Conrad Hilton, Jr., Mario Lanza, Bela Lugosi, Al Martino, Audrey Meadows, Ricardo Montalbán, Chris Penn, Jo Stafford, and Sharon Tate.
On this day in 1990, composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist Leonard Bernstein died from a heart attack at his apartment The Dakota in Manhattan at the age of 72. Born Louis Bernstein on August 25, 1918 in 
On this day in 2006, singer, musician Freddy Fender died from 
