On this day 14 March – Karl Marx – Susan Hayward – Fannie Lou Hamer – Doc Pomus – Peter Graves – Stephen Hawking

Posted on 29 MaramThu, 14 Mar 2024 00:36:00 -05002024-03-14T00:36:00-05:0012 2011 by MacGregor

#RIP #OTD in 1883 philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, socialist revolutionary, author (The Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital), Karl Marx died from bronchitis & pleurisy in London, aged 64. Highgate Cemetery (East), London

#RIP #OTD in 1975 model, actress (Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman, My Foolish Heart, With a Song in My Heart, I’ll Cry Tomorrow, I Want to Live!) Susan Hayward died from brain cancer in Beverly Hills, aged 57. Our Lady of Perpetual Help Roman Catholic Church in Carrollton, Georgia

#RIP #OTD in 1977 voting and women’s rights activist, community organizer,leader in the civil rights movement Fannie Lou Hamer died of complications from hypertension and breast cancer, aged 59, at Taborian Hospital, Mound Bayou, Mississippi. Fannie Lou Hamer Memorial Garden, Ruleville, Mississippi

On this day in 1991, lyricist and blues singer, Doc Pomus, died from cancer in Manhattan at the age of 65.  Born Jerome Solon Felder on 27 June 1925 in Brooklyn, New York.  Best known for the many rock and roll songs he co-wrote, with Mort Shuman including; “A Teenager in Love”; “Save The Last Dance For Me”; “Hushabye”; “This Magic Moment”; “Turn Me Loose”; “Sweets For My Sweet”; “Go Jimmy Go”, “Can’t Get Used to Losing You”; “Little Sister”; “Suspicion”; “Surrender”; “Viva Las Vegas”; “(Marie’s the Name) His Latest Flame”; and with Mike Stoller and Jerry Leiber: “Young Blood” and “She’s Not You”.

The Final Footprint – Pomus is interred in Beth David Cemetery, Elmont, New York.  His grave is marked with an individual granite marker engraved with; “TURNING CORNERS IS ONLY A STATE OF MIND KEEPING YOUR EYES CLOSED IS WORSE THAN BEING BLIND.”  THERE IS ALWAYS ONE MORE TIME – D. P.  / SAVE THE LAST DANCE FOR ME

#RIP #OTD in 2010 actor (Jim Phelps in the television series Mission: Impossible; Airplane!), younger brother of James Arness, Peter Graves died from a heart attack at his home in Los Angeles aged 83. Cremation

On this day in 2018 theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author Stephen Hawking died at his home in Cambridge, England from ALS at the age of 76. Born Stephen William Hawking on 8 January 1942 in Oxford, England. Hawking was born on the 300th anniversary of Galileo’s death. He was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge at the time of his death. He was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge between 1979 and 2009.

His scientific works included a collaboration with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularity theorems in the framework of general relativity and the theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation. Hawking was the first to set out a theory of cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. He was a vigorous supporter of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Hawking achieved commercial success with several works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general. His book A Brief History of Time appeared on the British Sunday Times best-seller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks. Hawking was a Fellow of the Royal Society(FRS), a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. 

In 1963, Hawking was diagnosed with an early-onset slow-progressing form of motor neurone disease (MND; also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis”ALS” or Lou Gehrig’s disease) that gradually paralysed him over the decades. Even after the loss of his speech, he was still able to communicate through a speech-generating device, initially through use of a hand-held switch, and eventually by using a single cheek muscle. He died on 14 March 2018 at the age of 76, after living with the disease for more than 50 years.

Hawking and Jane Wilde were married on 14 July 1965. After his divorce from Jane in 1995, Hawking married Elaine Mason in September of 1995. In 2006, Hawking and Mason divorced.

The Final Footprint

His family stated that he “died peacefully”. He was eulogised by figures in science, entertainment, politics, and other areas. The Gonville and Caius College flag flew at half-mast and a book of condolences was signed by students and visitors. A tribute was made to Hawking in the closing speech by IPC President Andrew Parsons at the closing ceremony of the 2018 Paralympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Hawking died on the 139th anniversary of Einstein’s birth. His private funeral took place at 2 pm on the afternoon of 31 March 2018, at Great St Mary’s Church, Cambridge. Guests at the funeral included The Theory of Everything actors Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones, Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Brian May, and model Lily Cole. In addition, actor Benedict Cumberbatch, who played Hawking in Hawking, astronaut Tim Peake, Astronomer Royal Martin Rees and physicist Kip Thorne provided readings at the service. Following cremation, a service of thanksgiving was held at Westminster Abbey on 15 June 2018, after which his ashes were scattered in the Abbey’s nave, alongside the grave of Sir Isaac Newton and close to that of Charles Darwin.

Inscribed on his memorial stone are the words “Here lies what was mortal of Stephen Hawking 1942 – 2018” and his most famed equation. He directed, at least fifteen years before his death, that the Bekenstein–Hawking entropy equation be his epitaph. In June 2018, it was announced that Hawking’s words, set to music by Greek composer Vangelis, are to be beamed into space from a European space agency satellite dish in Spain with the aim of reaching the nearest black hole, 1A 0620-00.

Other notable Final Footprints at Westminster include; Robert Browning, Lord Byron, Charles II, Geoffrey Chaucer, Oliver Cromwell, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Edward III, Edward VI, Edward The Confessor, Elizabeth I, George II, George Friederic Handel, Henry III, Henry V, Henry VII, James I (James VI of Scotland), Samuel Johnson, Ben Jonson, Rudyard Kipling, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Mary I, Mary II, Mary Queen of Scots, John Milton, Isaac Newton, Laurence Olivier, Henry Purcell, Thomas Shadwell, Edmund Spenser, Lord Alfred Tennyson, Dylan Thomas, and William III.

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On this day 13 March – Susan B. Anthony – Stephen Vincent Benét – John Cazale – Odette Hallowes – William Hurt

Posted on 29 MaramWed, 13 Mar 2024 00:18:00 -05002024-03-13T00:18:00-05:0012 2011 by MacGregor

On this day in 1906, social reformer and women’s rights activist Susan B. Anthony died at the age of 86 of heart failure and pneumonia in her home in Rochester, New York. Born on February 15, 1820 in Adams, Massachusetts. She played a pivotal role in the women’s suffrage movement. Born into a Quaker family committed to social equality, she collected anti-slavery petitions at the age of 17. In 1856, she became the New York state agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society.

In 1851, she met Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who became her lifelong friend and co-worker in social reform activities, primarily in the field of women’s rights. In 1852, they founded the New York Women’s State Temperance Society after Anthony was prevented from speaking at a temperance conference because she was female. In 1863, they founded the Women’s Loyal National League, which conducted the largest petition drive in United States history up to that time, collecting nearly 400,000 signatures in support of the abolition of slavery. In 1866, they initiated the American Equal Rights Association, which campaigned for equal rights for both women and African Americans. In 1868, they began publishing a women’s rights newspaper called The Revolution. In 1869, they founded the National Woman Suffrage Association as part of a split in the women’s movement. In 1890, the split was formally healed when their organization merged with the rival American Woman Suffrage Association to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association, with Anthony as its key force. In 1876, Anthony and Stanton began working with Matilda Joslyn Gage on what eventually grew into the six-volume History of Woman Suffrage.

In 1872, Anthony was arrested for voting in her hometown of Rochester, New York, and convicted in a widely publicized trial. Although she refused to pay the fine, the authorities declined to take further action. In 1878, Anthony and Stanton arranged for Congress to be presented with an amendment giving women the right to vote. Introduced by Sen. Aaron A. Sargent (R-CA), it later became known colloquially as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. It was ratified as the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.

Anthony traveled extensively in support of women’s suffrage, giving as many as 75 to 100 speeches per year and working on many state campaigns. She worked internationally for women’s rights, playing a key role in creating the International Council of Women, which is still active. She also helped to bring about the World’s Congress of Representative Women at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.

When she first began campaigning for women’s rights, Anthony was harshly ridiculed and accused of trying to destroy the institution of marriage. Her 80th birthday was celebrated in the White House at the invitation of President William McKinley. She became the first actual woman to be depicted on U.S. coinage when her portrait appeared on the 1979 dollar coin.

At her 86th birthday celebration in Washington D.C., Anthony had spoken of those who had worked with her for women’s rights: “There have been others also just as true and devoted to the cause — I wish I could name every one — but with such women consecrating their lives, failure is impossible!” “Failure is impossible” quickly became a watchword for the women’s movement.

As a teen, Anthony went to parties, and she had offers of marriage when she was older, but there is no record of her ever having a serious romance.

The Final Footprint

She was buried at Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester.

Anthony did not live to see the achievement of women’s suffrage at the national level, but she still expressed pride in the progress the women’s movement had made. At the time of her death, women had achieved suffrage in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and Idaho, and several larger states followed soon after. Legal rights for married women had been established in most states, and most professions had at least a few women members. 36,000 women were attending colleges and universities, up from zero a few decades earlier.”

Anthony’s death was widely mourned. Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, said just before Anthony’s death, “A few days ago someone said to me that every woman should stand with bared head before Susan B. Anthony. ‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘and every man as well.’ … For ages he has been trying to carry the burden of life’s responsibilities alone… Just now it is new and strange and men cannot comprehend what it would mean but the change is not far away.”

The Nineteenth Amendment, which guaranteed the right of American women to vote, was colloquially known as the Susan B. Anthony Amendment. After it was ratified in 1920, the National American Woman Suffrage Association, whose character and policies were strongly influenced by Anthony, was transformed into the League of Women Voters, which is still an active force in U.S. politics.

Anthony’s papers are held in library collections of Harvard University, Radcliffe Institute, Rutgers University, the Library of Congress, and Smith College.

Another notable final footprint at Mount Hope is Frederick Douglass.

On this day in 1943, author, poet, short story writer novelist, Pulitzer Prize winner, Stephen Vincent Benét, died of a heart attack in New York City at the age of 44.  Born on 22 July 1898 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.  Benét is best known for his book-length narrative poem of the American Civil War, John Brown’s Body (1928), for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1929, and for two short stories, “The Devil and Daniel Webster” and “By the Waters of Babylon.”  He graduated from Yale.


The Final Footprint – Benét is interred in Evergreen Cemetery, Stonington, Connecticut.  His wife, Rosemary Carr was interred next to him in 1962.  Their graves are marked by an upright marble marker.

On this day in 1978, actor John Cazale died in New York City from lung cancer with girlfriend Meryl Streep by his side, at the age of 42.  Born John Holland Cazale on 12 August 1935 in Revere, Massachusetts.  Perhaps best known for his role as Michael Corleone’s big brother Fredo in Francis Ford Coppola‘s Godfather films.  During his six-year film career he appeared in five films, each nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture: The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon and The Deer Hunter.  He appeared in archival footage in The Godfather III, which was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.  He is the only actor to have this multi-film distinction.

The Final Footprint – Cazale was interred at Holy Cross Cemetery in Malden, Massachusetts. Al Pacino said: “I’ve hardly ever seen a person so devoted to someone who is falling away like John was. To see her (Streep) in that act of love for this man was overwhelming.”

His friend and frequent collaborator, Israel Horovitz, wrote a eulogy, published in the Village Voice on March 27, 1978. In it, he said:

John Cazale happens once in a lifetime. He was an invention, a small perfection. It is no wonder his friends feel such anger upon waking from their sleep to discover that Cazale sleeps on with kings and counselors, with Booth and Kean, with Jimmy Dean, with Bernhardt, Guitry, and Duse, with Stanislavsky, with Groucho, Benny, and Allen. He will make fast friends in his new place. He is easy to love.

His life and career are profiled in the documentary film, I Knew It Was You, directed by Richard Shepard, which premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

#RIP #OTD 1995 agent for the UK’s Special Operations Executive (SOE) in France during the Second World War, the first woman to be awarded the George Cross by the UK, awarded the Légion d’honneur by France, Odette Hallowes died in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England, aged 82. Burvale Cemetery, Hersham, England

#RIP #OTD 2022 actor (Body Heat, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Children of a Lesser God, Broadcast News, The Big Chill, A History of Violence, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, The Village, Syriana, The Good Shepherd, Mr. Brooks) William Hurt died from prostate cancer at home in Portland, Oregon, aged 71. Cremation

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On this day 12 March – Asa Candler – Anne Frank – Charlie Parker – Beatrice Wood – Robert Ludlum

Posted on 29 MaramTue, 12 Mar 2024 00:15:00 -05002024-03-12T00:15:00-05:0012 2011 by MacGregor

#RIP #OTD in 1929 founder of The Coca-Cola Company, 41st mayor of Atlanta, Asa Candler died at Wesley Memorial Hospital in Atlanta aged 77. Westview Cemetery, Atlanta

On this approximate day in 1945, victim of the Holocaust and diarist, Anne Frank, died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Lower Saxony, Nazi Germany at the age of 15.  Born Annelies Marie Frank on 12 June 1929 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.  The Frank family moved from Germany to Amsterdam in 1933, the year the Nazis gained control over Germany.  By the beginning of 1940, they were trapped in Amsterdam by the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.  As persecutions of the Jewish population increased in July 1942, the family went into hiding in the hidden rooms of Anne’s father, Otto Frank’s, office building.  After two years, the group was betrayed and transported to concentration camps.  Anne and her sister, Margot, were eventually transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they both died of typhus in March 1945.  Otto, the only survivor of the family, returned to Amsterdam after the war to find that Anne’s diary had been saved, and his efforts led to its publication in 1947.  It was translated from its original Dutch and first published in English in 1952 as The Diary of a Young Girl. The diary, which was given to Anne on her 13th birthday, chronicles her life from 12 June 1942 until 1 August 1944.

The Final Footprint – Anne and her sister Margot were buried in a mass grave at Bergen-Belsen, the exact whereabouts are not known.  A memorial to the sisters has been erected there.  A bronze statue of Anne was erected outside the Westerkerk in Amsterdam.  A bronze plaque in Anne’s memory was placed at Beth Olam Cemetery in Los Angeles.  The plaque has the term of endearment; A Star shines in the dark.  The plaque also has a picture of Anne cast into the bronze and the following inscription from her diary; “This is a photo as I wish I still was.  If so, I would still have a chance to come to Hollywood.”

Charlie Parker

Portrait of Charlie Parker in 1947.jpg

Parker at Three Deuces, New York in 1947

On this day in 1955, jazz saxophonist and composer, Yardbird or Bird, Charlie Parker died at the age of 34 in the suite of his friend and patroness Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter at the Stanhope Hotel in Manhattan, while watching The Dorsey Brothers’ Stage Show on television. Born Charles Parker Jr. on August 29, 1920 in Kansas City, Missouri.

Parker was a highly influential jazz soloist and a leading figure in the development of bebop, a form of jazz characterized by fast tempos, virtuosic technique and advanced harmonies. Parker was a fast virtuoso, and he introduced revolutionary harmonic ideas including rapid passing chords, new variants of altered chords, and chord substitutions. His tone ranged from clean and penetrating to sweet and somber. Parker acquired the nickname “Yardbird” early in his career. This, and the shortened form “Bird”, continued to be used for the rest of his life, inspiring the titles of a number of Parker compositions, such as “Yardbird Suite”, “Ornithology”, “Bird Gets the Worm”, and “Bird of Paradise”. Parker was an icon for the hipster subculture and later the Beat Generation, personifying the jazz musician as an uncompromising artist and intellectual rather than just an entertainer.

Parker with (from left to right) Tommy Potter, Max Roach, Miles Davis, and Duke Jordan, at the Three Deuces, New York, circa 1945

Parker suffered from depression and heroin addiction. After Parker’s 2 year old daughter passed away from pneumonia. He attempted suicide twice in 1954, which landed him in a mental hospital. 

When Parker received his discharge from the hospital, he was clean and healthy. Before leaving California, he recorded “Relaxin’ at Camarillo” in reference to his hospital stay. He returned to New York, resumed his addiction to heroin and recorded dozens of sides for the Savoy and Dial labels, which remain some of the high points of his recorded output. Many of these were with his so-called “classic quintet” including Davis and Roach

The Final footprint 

 The official causes of death were lobar pneumonia and a bleeding ulcer, but Parker also had an advanced case of cirrhosis and had suffered a heart attack. The coroner who performed his autopsy mistakenly estimated Parker’s 34-year-old body to be between 50 and 60 years of age. His wish was to be quietly interred in New York City.

Dizzy Gillespie paid for the funeral arrangements and organized a lying-in-state, a Harlem procession as well as a memorial concert. Parker’s body was flown back to Missouri, in accordance with his mother’s wishes. Berg criticized Parker’s family for giving him a Christian funeral, even though they knew he was a confirmed atheist. Parker was buried at Lincoln Cemetery in Missouri, in a hamlet known as Blue Summit, located close to I-435 and East Truman Road.

Miles Davis once said, “You can tell the history of jazz in four words: Louis Armstrong. Charlie Parker.”

Bird is a 1988 American biographical film, produced and directed by Clint Eastwood of a screenplay written by Joel Oliansky. It is constructed as a montage of scenes from Parker’s life, from his childhood in Kansas City, through his death. Forest Whitaker portrays Parker in the film.

“Bird Lives” sculpture by Robert Graham in Kansas City, Missouri

Beatrice Wood

Beatrice Wood 1908-photo 2.jpg

Beatrice Wood, 1908

Untitled (Two Women) earthenware with glazes by Beatrice Wood, 1990

On this day in 1998, artist Beatrice Wood died in Ojai, California at the age of 105. Born Beatrice Wood on March 3, 1893 in San Francisco. Wood was involved in the Avant Garde movement in the United States. She founded The Blind Man magazine in New York City with French artist Marcel Duchamp and writer Henri-Pierre Roché in 1917. She had earlier studied art and theater in Paris, and was working in New York as an actress. She later worked at sculpture and pottery. Wood was characterized as the “Mama of Dada.”

She partially inspired the character of Rose DeWitt Bukater in James Cameron‘s 1997 film, Titanic after the director read Wood’s autobiography while developing the film.

Despite her parents’ strong opposition, Wood insisted on pursuing a career in the arts. Eventually her parents agreed to let her study painting. Because she was fluent in French, they sent her to Paris, where she studied acting at the Comédie-Française and art at the prestigious Académie Julian.

Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia and Beatrice Wood, 1917

The Blind Man magazine was one of the earliest manifestations of the Dada art movement in the United States. The publication was intended to defend the submission of a urinal by R. Mutt to the First Exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists in April 1917. Wood wrote the oft-quoted statement that appeared in the publication as an unsigned editorial: “As for plumbing, that is absurd. The only works of art America has given are her plumbing and her bridges.”

Though she was most involved with Roché, the two often spent time with Duchamp, creating a kind of love triangle. Since the late 20th century, biographies of Wood have associated Roché’s 1956 novel Jules et Jim (and the 1962 film adaptation), with the relationship among Duchamp, Wood, and Roché. Other sources link their triangle to Roché’s unfinished novel, Victor.

Beatrice Wood commented on this topic in her 1985 autobiography, I Shock Myself:

Roché lived in Paris with his wife Denise, and had by now written Jules et Jim … Because the story concerns two young men who are close friends and a woman who loves them both, people have wondered how much was based on Roché, Marcel, and me. I cannot say what memories or episodes inspired Roché, but the characters bear only passing resemblance to those of us in real life!

Jules et Jim is properly associated with the triangle among Roché, German writer Franz Hessel, and Helen Grund, who married Hessel. 

At the age of 90, Wood became a writer, having been encouraged to write by her friend, Anais Nin, a French writer. Her best-known book is her autobiography, I Shock Myself (1985). When asked the secret to her longevity, she would respond, “I owe it all to chocolate and young men.” Beatrice Wood kept daily journals for 85 years.

The Final Footprint

Woods was cremated and her cremains were scattered in Ojai.

#RIP #OTD in 2001 author (The Osterman Weekend, The Holcroft Covenant, The Apocalypse Watch, The Bourne Trilogy) Robert Ludlum died of a heart attack at his home in Naples, Florida, aged 73. Cremation

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Day in History 11 March – Dora Carrington- Geraldine Farrar – Richard Brooks

Posted on 29 MaramMon, 11 Mar 2024 00:03:00 -05002024-03-11T00:03:00-05:0012 2011 by MacGregor

#RIP #OTD in 1932 painter and decorative artist, remembered in part for her association with members of the Bloomsbury Group, Dora Carrington died from a gunshot wound in Newbury, Berkshire, England, aged 38. Cremated remains interred under the laurels in the garden of the Ham Spray House, Wiltshire, England

On this day in 1967, soprano opera singer and actress Geraldine Farrar died in Ridgefield, Connecticut of a heart attack at the age of 85.  Born in Melrose, Massachusetts on 28 February 1882.  Farrar was noted for her beauty, acting ability, and “the intimate timbre of her voice.”  She had a large following among young women, who were nicknamed “Gerry-flappers”.  Farrar studied voice with the American soprano Emma Thursby and the Italian baritone Francesco Graziani.  Farrar created a sensation at the Berlin Hofoper with her debut as Marguerite in Charles Gounod’s Faust in 1901 and remained with the company for three years, during which time she continued her studies with famed German soprano Lilli Lehmann.  She appeared in the title rôles of Ambroise Thomas’ Mignon and Jules Massenet’s Manon, as well as Juliette in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette.  Her admirers in Berlin included Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany, with whom she is believed to have had a relationship beginning in 1903.  After three years with the Monte Carlo Opera, she made her debut at the New York Metropolitan Opera in Romeo et Juliette on 26 November 1906.  Farrar appeared in the first Met performance of Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly in 1907 and remained a member of the company until her retirement in 1922, singing 29 roles there in nearly 500 performances.  In 1960 Farrar was awarded two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in the music and film categories (at 1620 & 1709 Vine Street).

Farrar had a seven-year love affair with the Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini.  Farrar was close friends with the star tenor Enrico Caruso and there has been speculation that they too had a love affair, but no substantial evidence of this has surfaced.  It is said that Caruso coined her motto: Farrar fara (“Farrar will do it”).  Her marriage to cinema actor Lou Tellegen on 8 February 1916 was the source of considerable scandal, terminating, as a result of her husband’s numerous affairs, in a very public divorce in 1923.  The circumstances of the divorce were brought again to public recollection by Tellegen’s 1934 suicide in Hollywood.

Geraldine_Farrar_Headstone_December_2011The Final Footprint – Farrar was buried in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. Other notable final footprints at Kensico include; Anne Bancroft, Tommy Dorsey, Lou Gehrig, Danny Kaye, Robert Merrill, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and Ayn Rand.

#RIP #OTD in 1992 screenwriter, director, (Blackboard Jungle, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Elmer Gantry, In Cold Blood, Looking for Mr. Goodbar) novelist, Richard Brooks died; congestive heart failure at home in Coldwater Canyon, Studio City, California. Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City CA

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Day in History 10 March – Harriet Tubman – Zelda Fitzgerald – Ray Milland – Andy Gibb – LaVern Baker

Posted on 29 MaramSun, 10 Mar 2024 00:36:00 -06002024-03-10T00:36:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

On this day in 1913, abolitionist and political activist Harriet Tubman died in Auburn, New York surrounded by friends and family members of pneumonia, aged 90-91. Born Araminta Ross, c.  January 29, 1822 in Dorchester County, Maryland. Born a slave, Tubman was beaten and whipped by her various masters as a child. Early in life, she suffered a traumatic head wound when an irate slave owner threw a heavy metal weight intending to hit another slave but hit her instead. The injury caused dizziness, pain, and spells of hypersomnia, which occurred throughout her life. She was a devout Christian and experienced strange visions and vivid dreams, which she ascribed to premonitions from God.

In 1849, Tubman escaped to Philadelphia, then immediately returned to Maryland to rescue her family. Slowly, one group at a time, she brought relatives with her out of the state, and eventually guided dozens of other slaves to freedom. Traveling by night and in extreme secrecy, Tubman (or “Moses”, as she was called) “never lost a passenger”. After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed, she helped guide fugitives farther north into British North America, and helped newly freed slaves find work. Tubman met the abolitionist John Brown in 1858, and helped him plan and recruit supporters for the raid on Harpers Ferry.

When the Civil War began, Tubman worked for the Union Army, first as a cook and nurse, and then as an armed scout and spy. The first woman to lead an armed expedition in the war, she guided the raid at Combahee Ferry, which liberated more than 700 slaves. After the war, she retired to the family home on property she had purchased in 1859 in Auburn, New York, where she cared for her aging parents. She was active in the women’s suffrage movement until illness overtook her and she had to be admitted to a home for elderly African Americans that she had helped to establish years earlier. After she died in 1913, she became an icon of courage and freedom.

Tubman, 1911


The Final Footprint

Just before she died, she told those in the room: “I go to prepare a place for you.” Tubman was buried with semi-military honors at Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn.

On this day in 1948, novelist and wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda Fitzgerald, died in a fire at the Highland Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina at the age of 47.  Born Zelda Sayre on 24 July 1900 in Montgomery, Alabama.  The Fitzgeralds were icons of the 1920s; she was dubbed by her husband “the first American Flapper”.  After the success of his first novel, This Side of Paradise (1920), the Fitzgeralds became celebrities and were seen as embodiments of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties: young, seemingly wealthy, beautiful, and energetic.  The couple has been the subject of popular books, movies and scholarly attention.  They were married 3 April 1920 in St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  They had one daughter Frances Scott “Scottie” Fitzgerald (26 October 1921 – 16 June 1986).  Zelda wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, Save Me the Waltz (1932) and worked on another novel, Caesar’s Things, which she never finished.

The Final Footprint

Zelda was interred next to Scott, who died 21 December 1940, in Rockville, Maryland—originally in the Rockville Union Cemetery, away from his family plot.  In 1975, however, Scottie successfully campaigned for them to be buried with the other Fitzgeralds at Saint Mary’s Catholic Cemetery in Rockville.  Engraved on their tombstone is the final sentence of The Great Gatsby: “SO WE BEAT ON, BOATS AGAINST THE CURRENT, BORNE BACK CEASELESSLY INTO THE PAST”.

#RIP #OTD in 1986 actor (The Lost Weekend, Reap the Wild Wind, Dial M for Murder, Love Story), film director Ray Milland died of lung cancer; Torrance Memorial Medical Center, Torrance, California, aged 79. Cremated remains scattered in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Redondo Beach CA 

On this day in 1988, singer, songwriter Andy Gibb died from myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle caused by a viral infection in John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, at the age of 30. Born Andrew Roy Gibb on 5 March 1958 in Manchester, England. He was the younger brother of the Bee Gees: Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb.

Gibb came to international prominence in the late 1970s with six singles that reached the Top 10 in the United States, starting with “I Just Want to Be Your Everything” (1977), followed by three other top 20 singles. 

The Final Footprint

Gibb’s body was returned to the United States, where he was entombed at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles. The crypt plate reads Andy Gibb / March 5, 1958 – March 10, 1988 / “An Everlasting Love”. Other notable final footprints at Hollywood Hills include; Gene Autry, David Carradine, Scatman Crothers, Bette Davis, Sandra Dee, Ronnie James Dio, Michael Clarke Duncan, Carrie Fisher, Bobby Fuller, Michael Hutchence, Jill Ireland, Al Jarreau, Lemmy Kilmister, Jack LaLanne, Nicolette Larsen, Liberace, Strother Martin, Ricky Nelson, Bill Paxton, Brock Peters, Freddie Prinze, Lou Rawls, John Ritter, Debbie Reynolds, Telly Savalas, Lee Van Cleef, Paul Walker, and Jack Webb.

 

On this day in 1997, rhythm-and-blues singer LaVern Baker died of cardiovascular disease, at the age of 67. Born Delores Evans on November 11, 1929 in Chicago. She had several hit records on the pop chart in the 1950s and early 1960s. Her most successful records were “Tweedle Dee” (1955), “Jim Dandy” (1956), and “I Cried a Tear” (1958). In 1990 Baker was among the first eight recipients of the Pioneer Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. In 1991, she became the second female solo artist inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, following Aretha Franklin in 1987. “Jim Dandy” was named one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.

The Final Footprint

She was interred in an unmarked plot in Maple Grove Cemetery, in Kew Gardens, New York. Local historians raised funds for a headstone, which was installed on May 4, 2008. Maple Grove is a historic cemetery at 127-15 Kew Gardens Road in Briarwood/Kew Gardens, Queens, New York City, New York. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.

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Day in History 9 March – Louise Colet – Robert Mapplethorpe – Charles Bukowski – George Burns – Jean-Dominique Bauby – The Notorious B.I.G. – Chris LeDoux – Anna Moffo – Brad Delp – Topol

Posted on 29 MaramSat, 09 Mar 2024 00:51:00 -06002024-03-09T00:51:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

#RIP #OTD in 1876 French poet, writer, lover (Gustave Flaubert, Alfred de Musset), La muse, Louise Colet died in Paris, aged 65. Municipal Cemetery Verneuil-sur-Seine.

#RIP #OTD in 1989 photographer, known for his controversial exhibit, The Perfect Moment, Robert Mapplethorpe died due to complications from HIV/AIDS in Boston, aged 42. Cremated remains interred at St. John’s Cemetery, Queens, at his parents’s grave-site

On this day in 1994, poet, novelist, and short story writer Charles Bukowski died of leukemia in San Pedro, Los Angeles, aged 73, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp.  Born Heinrich Karl Bukowski in Andernach, Germany on 16 August 1920.  His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles.  His work addresses the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work.  Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels, eventually publishing over sixty books.  The FBI kept a file on him as a result of his column, Notes of a Dirty Old Man, in the LA underground newspaper Open City.   In 1986 Time called Bukowski a “laureate of American lowlife“.  Regarding Bukowski’s enduring popular appeal, Adam Kirsch of The New Yorker wrote, “the secret of Bukowski’s appeal. . . [is that] he combines the confessional poet’s promise of intimacy with the larger-than-life aplomb of a pulp-fiction hero.”  In 1976, Bukowski met Linda Lee Beighle, a health food restaurant owner, aspiring actress and devotee of Meher Baba.  Two years later Bukowski moved from the East Hollywood area, where he had lived for most of his life, to the harborside community of San Pedro, the southernmost district of the City of Los Angeles.  Beighle followed him and they lived together intermittently over the next two years.  They were eventually married by Manly Palmer Hall, a Canadian-born author and mystic, in 1985.  Beighle is referred to as “Sarah” in Bukowski’s novels Women and Hollywood.

charlesbukowskigraveThe Final Footprint – Bukowski is interred in Green Hills Memorial Park, Rancho Palos Verdes, California.  The funeral rites, orchestrated by his widow, were conducted by Buddhist monks.  An account of the proceedings can be found in Gerald Locklin’s book Charles Bukowski: A Sure Bet.  His gravestone reads: “Don’t Try”, a phrase which Bukowski uses in one of his poems, advising aspiring writers and poets about inspiration and creativity.  Bukowski explained the phrase in a 1963 letter to John William Corrington: “Somebody at one of these places […] asked me: ‘What do you do? How do you write, create?’ You don’t, I told them. You don’t try. That’s very important: not to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more. It’s like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out and kill it. Or if you like its looks you make a pet out of it.“

#RIP #OTD in 1996 comedian, actor (Burns and Allen; The Sunshine Boys; Oh, God), singer, writer, George Burns died of cardiac arrest at his home in Beverly Hills, aged 100. Entombed; Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Glendale next to Gracie, Together Again. Say goodnight Gracie

On this day in 1997, French journalist, author and editor of the French fashion magazine ELLE, Jean-Dominique Bauby, died in Paris at the age of 44.  Born 23 April 1952 in Paris.  On 8 December 1995 at the age of 43, Bauby suffered a massive stroke.  Waking up twenty days later, he found he was entirely paralyzed; he could only blink his left eyelid, a condition referred to as locked-in syndrome.  He learned to communicate by blinking and in this manner dictated his memoir, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Le scaphandre et le papillon) (1997).  In 2007 the book was adapted into a feature film of the same name, directed by Julian Schnabel.  The film was nominated for four Academy Awards in 2008 for directing, cinematography, editing and writing.

The Final Footprint – Bauby is entombed in the Bauby family crypt in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, the largest cemetery in Paris and one of the most visited cemeteries in the world.  Other notable Final Footprints at Père Lachaise include; Guillaume Apollinaire, Honoré de Balzac, Georges Bizet, Maria Callas, Chopin, Colette, Auguste Comte, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Max Ernst, Molière, Jim Morrison, Édith Piaf, Camille Pissarro, Marcel Proust, Sully Prudhomme, Gioachino Rossini, Georges-Pierre Seurat, Simone Signoret, Gertrude Stein, Dorothea Tanning, Alice B. Toklas, Oscar Wilde, and Richard Wright.

#RIP #OTD in 1997 rapper and songwriter rooted in the New York rap scene and gangsta rap traditions, the Notorious B.I.G., Biggie Smalls, Biggie, Christopher Wallace was murdered in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles, aged 24. Cremation

On this day in 2005, rodeo champion, country music singer and songwriter, bronze sculptor, Grammy Award nominee, Chris LeDoux, died in Casper, Wyoming from cancer at the age of 56.  Born Chris Lee LeDoux 2 October 1948 in Biloxi, Mississippi.  In 1976, LeDoux won the world bareback riding championship at the National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City.  During his music career LeDoux recorded 36 albums, many self-released.  His album, Whatcha Gonna Do with a Cowboy, was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.

The Final Footprint – LeDoux was cremated.  Shortly after his death, he was named as one of six former rodeo cowboys to be inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs in 2005.  He was the first person to ever be inducted in two categories, for his bareback riding and in the “notables” category for his contributions to the sport through music.  Shortly thereafter, the Academy of Country Music awarded LeDoux their Pioneer Award during ceremonies in 2005.  LeDoux’s friend Garth Brooks accepted the award on behalf of LeDoux’s family.  In late 2005, Brooks briefly emerged from retirement to record “Good Ride Cowboy” as a tribute to LeDoux.  Brooks remarked:

“I knew if I ever recorded any kind of tribute to Chris, it would have to be up-tempo, happy … a song like him … not some slow, mournful song. He wasn’t like that. Chris was exactly as our heroes are supposed to be. He was a man’s man. A good friend.”

Brooks performed the song on “The 39th Annual CMA Awards” on 15 November 2005 live from Times Square in New York City.  Later that evening, LeDoux was honored with the CMA Chairman’s Award of Merit, presented by Kix Brooks of Brooks & Dunn, to LeDoux’s family.  Friends have also collaborated to produce an annual rodeo, art show, and concert in Casper to honor LeDoux’s memory.  The art show features sculpture and sketches that LeDoux completed for friends; none of his works were ever exhibited before his death.  To mark the second anniversary of LeDoux’s death, in April 2007 Capitol Records released a six-CD boxed set featuring remastered versions of 12 of the albums he recorded between 1974 and 1993.  On 26 October 2006 LeDoux was inducted into the Rodeo Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.  Son Beau LeDoux, himself a rodeo competitor, on 24 July 2007, spread his father’s ashes over Frontier Park Arena, the same arena where Lane Frost died when he was gored by a bull, during the annual Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo:

“It was something my family and I thought would be right to do because this was such a special rodeo to him. … This has always been a special rodeo in my family. My dad rode here and came close to winning here a couple of times.”

Additionally the city in which LeDoux attended college; Casper, Wyoming, celebrates his life and legacy each November with the Chris LeDoux Memorial Rodeo.  A weekend event which includes an art show featuring a number of LeDoux’s works, a PRCA rodeo and a country music concert.  A larger-than-life bronze statue of LeDoux was dedicated to him in Kaycee, Wyoming.  The bronze statue titled “Good Ride Cowboy” was created by local artist D. Michael Thomas.

#OTD #RIP in 2006 lyric-coloratura soprano, television personality, and actress (Menage all’italiana, Una storia d’amore), “La Bellissima”, Anna Moffo died from a stroke in New York City at the age of 73. Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, New York.

On this day in 2007, singer and songwriter Brad Delp died by carbon monoxide poisoning at his home in Atkinson, New Hampshire, at the age of 55. Born Bradley Edward Delp on June 12, 1951 in Peabody, Massachusetts. Perhaps best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band Boston (“More Than a Feeling”, “Peace of Mind”, “Foreplay/Long Time”, “Rock and Roll Band”, “Smokin'”, “Don’t Look Back”).

The Final Footprint

The Atkinson police discovered his body on the floor of his master bathroom after his fiancée Pamela Sullivan saw a dryer vent tube connected to the exhaust pipe of Delp’s car. Two charcoal grills were found to have been lit inside the bathtub causing the room to fill with smoke. A suicide note was paper-clipped to the neck of his T-shirt, which read: “Mr. Brad Delp. ‘J’ai une âme solitaire’. I am a lonely soul.” Delp left four sealed envelopes in his office addressed to his children, his former wife Micki Sullivan, and another unnamed couple. One of the notes read “I have had bouts of depression and thoughts of suicide since I was a teenager … [Pamela] was my ‘ray of sunshine’, but sometimes even a ray of sunshine is no substitute for a good psychiatrist.”

The following day, Boston’s website was temporarily shut down, the webmaster having replaced their home page with a simple black background and white text message: “We’ve just lost the nicest guy in rock and roll.”

Delp was cremated.

#RIP #OTD in 2023 actor (Fiddler on the Roof, Galileo, Flash Gordon, For Your Eyes Only), singer, and illustrator, Topol died in Tel Aviv aged 87. Gan Shlomo Cemetery, Rehovot, Israel

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Day in History 8 March – Hector Berlioz – George Stevens – Joe DiMaggio – Max von Sydow

Posted on 29 MaramFri, 08 Mar 2024 00:33:00 -06002024-03-08T00:33:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor
Berlioz by Pierre Petit

On this day in 1869, composer Hector Berlioz died at his Paris home, No.4 rue de Calais, at 30 minutes past midday, surrounded by friends at the age of 65. Born Louis-Hector Berlioz on 11 December 1803 at No. 83 rue nationale, the family home in the French commune of La Côte-Saint-André in the département of Isère, near Grenoble. Perhaps best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique, Grande messe des morts (Requiem), Les Troyens, and La damnation de Faust. Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He also composed around 50 compositions for voice, accompanied by piano or orchestra. His influence was important for the further development of Romanticism.

Drawing of Harriet Smithson as Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet

In March 1821, Berlioz left high school in Grenoble, and in late September, at age 18, he was sent to Paris to study medicine. He began to take advantage of the institutions to which he now had access in the city, including his first visit to the Paris Opéra, where he saw Iphigénie en Tauride by Christoph Willibald Gluck, a composer whom he came to admire above all, alongside Ludwig van Beethoven.

Despite his parents’ disapproval, in 1824 he formally abandoned his medical studies to pursue a career in music. He composed the Messe solennelle. This work was rehearsed and revised after the rehearsal but not performed until the following year. Later that year or in 1825, he began to compose the opera Les francs-juges, which was completed the following year but went unperformed. The work survives only in fragments, but the overture has been much recorded and is sometimes played in concert.

On 11 September 1827, he attended a production by a traveling English theatre company at the Odéon theatre with the Irish-born actress Harriet Smithson playing Ophelia and Juliet in the Shakespeare plays Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet. He immediately became infatuated with both actress and playwright. Prone to his impulses, Berlioz began flooding Smithson’s hotel room with love letters which both confused and terrified her. His advances led nowhere.

He began and finished composition of the Symphonie fantastique in 1830, a work which would bring Berlioz much fame and notoriety. He entered into a relationship with – and subsequently became engaged to – Marie Moke, despite the symphony being inspired by Berlioz’s obsession with Harriet Smithson.

Lithograph by August Prinzhofer, Vienna, 1845. Berlioz considered this to be a good likeness.

During his stay in Italy, he received a letter from the mother of his fiancée, Camille Moke, informing him that she had called off their engagement. Instead her daughter was to marry Camille Pleyel (son of Ignaz Pleyel), a rich piano manufacturer. Enraged, Berlioz decided to return to Paris and take revenge on Pleyel, his fiancée, and her mother by killing all three of them. He created an elaborate plan, going so far as to purchase a dress, wig and hat with a veil (with which he was to disguise himself as a woman in order to gain entry to their home). He even stole a pair of double-barrelled pistols from the Academy to kill them with, saving a single shot for himself. Planning out his action with great care, Berlioz purchased phials of strychnine and laudanum to use as poisons in the event of a pistol jamming.

Despite this careful planning, Berlioz failed to carry the plot through. By the time he had reached Genoa, he “left his disguise in the side pocket of the carriage”. After arriving in Nice (at that time, part of Italy), he reconsidered the entire plan, deciding it to be inappropriate and foolish.

Painting by Émile Signol, 1832.

On Berlioz’s return to Paris, he and Harriet were finally introduced and entered into a relationship. Despite Berlioz not understanding spoken English and Harriet not knowing any French, on 3 October 1833, they got married in a civil ceremony at the British Embassy with Liszt as one of the witnesses. The following year their only child, Louis Berlioz, was born – a source of initial disappointment, anxiety and eventual pride to his father. Unfortunately for Berlioz, he was soon to discover that living under the same roof as his beloved wife was far less appealing than worship from afar. Their marriage turned out a disaster as both were prone to violent personality clashes and outbursts of temper.

Painting by Gustave Courbet, 1850.

Harriet died in 1854. In October, Berlioz married Marie Recio. In a letter written to his son, he said that having lived with her for so long, it was his duty to do so. 

Photograph by Nadar, January 1857

Marie died unexpectedly of a stroke at the age of 48, on 13 June 1862. Berlioz soon met a young woman named Amélie at Montmartre Cemetery, and though she was only 24, they developed a close relationship despite a 35-year age difference. Amélie requested that they end their relationship, which Berlioz did, to his despair.

Last photograph of Berlioz, 1868

Berlioz met Estelle Fornier – the object of his childhood affections – in Lyon for the first time in 40 years, and began a regular correspondence with her. Berlioz soon realized that he still longed for her, and eventually she had to inform him that as a married woman there was no possibility that they could become closer than friends. 

Berlioz had a keen affection for literature, and many of his best compositions are inspired by literary works. For Symphonie fantastique, Berlioz was inspired in part by Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. For La damnation de Faust, Berlioz drew on Goethe’s Faust; for Harold en Italie, he drew on Byron’s Childe Harold; for Benvenuto Cellini, he drew on Cellini’s own autobiography. For Roméo et Juliette, Berlioz turned, of course, to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. For his magnum opus, the monumental opera Les Troyens, Berlioz turned to Virgil’s epic poem The Aeneid. In his last opera, the comic opera Béatrice et Bénédict, Berlioz prepared a libretto based loosely on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. His composition “Tristia” (for orchestra and chorus) drew its inspiration from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

The Final Footprint

His funeral was held at the recently completed Église de la Trinité on 11 March, and he was buried in Montmartre Cemetery with his two wives, who were exhumed and re-buried next to him. Other notable final footprints at Montmartre include; Dalida, Edgar Degas, Léo Delibes, Alexandre Dumas, fils, Marie Duplessis, Theophile Gautier, Gustave Moreau, Henri Murger, Jacques Offenbach, Francis Picabia, Stendhal, François Truffaut, and Horace Vernet.

There is some debate about Berlioz’s last words. His last words were reputed to be “Enfin, on va jouer ma musique” (“At last, they are going to play my music”), but three other possible alternatives and accounts include:

  • Bidding farewell to a nationalist Russian composer: “One thousand greetings to Balakirev.”
  • Speaking to his dead wife, “Oh, Mère Recio, it is finished.”
  • After quoting from Macbeth’s final soliloquy in Shakespeare’s play of the same name: “‘Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ That is my signal.”

Drawing by Gustave Doré, published in Journal pour rire, 27 June 1850

Pencil drawing by Alphonse Legros, c.1860

Commemorations of Berlioz include the 2000-seat Opera Berlioz at the Corum arts centre in Montpellier, Berlioz Point in Antarctica and asteroid 69288 Berlioz.

For the opening of Stanley Kubrick‘s film adaptation of The Shining (1980) by Stephen King, composer Wendy Carlos re-interpreted the “Dies Irae” section of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique using a Moog Synthesizer.

Berlioz

#RIP #OTD in 1975, film director (A Place in the Sun, Shane, Giant, The Diary of Anne Frank), producer, screenwriter and cinematographer George Stevens died from a heart attack on his ranch in Lancaster, California. Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles

On this day in 1999, baseball Hall of Fame player, 3-time MVP, 13-time All Star, 9-time World Series champion, “Joltin’ Joe”, “The Yankee Clipper”, Joe DiMaggio, died at his home in Hollywood, Florida at the age of 84 from lung cancer.  Born Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio on 25 November 1914 in Martinez, California.  Perhaps best known for his 56-game hitting streak (15 May – 16 July 1941), a record that still stands.  I believe he is the only player to be named an all-star in every season he played.  The Yankees retired his number 5 in 1952.

DiMaggio was married twice; Dorothy Arnold (1939 – 1944) and Marilyn Monroe (1954 – 1954). They eloped at San Francisco City Hall on January 14, 1954. The relationship was reportedly tumultuous and Monroe filed for divorce on grounds of mental cruelty nine months after the wedding. After the failure of their marriage, DiMaggio underwent therapy, stopped drinking alcohol, and expanded his interests beyond baseball; he and Monroe read poetry together in their later years.

Monroe went on to marry Arthur Miller.  Reportedly, as that marriage was ending, Monroe and DiMaggio became friends and re-marriage rumours swirled.  Apparently devastated at the news of her death, DiMaggio claimed her body and arranged her funeral, barring Hollywood’s elite.  He had a half-dozen red roses delivered 3 times a week to her crypt for 20 years.  A true gentleman, he refused to talk about her publicly or otherwise exploit their relationship. DiMaggio never remarried.

On 17 September 1992, the Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Florida, opened.  DiMaggio’s popularity was such that he has been referenced in film, television, literature, art, and music both during his career and decades after he retired.

The Final Footprint – DiMaggio is entombed in a private single crypt mausoleum in Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery in Colma, California.  A raised granite cenotaph in front of the mausoleum was engraved with his name and birth and death dates and the term of endearment; GRACE, DIGNITY AND ELEGANCE PERSONIFIED.  His final words may or may not have been, “I’ll finally get to see Marilyn.” Another notable final footprint at Holy Cross; Vince Guaraldi.

Yankee Stadium’s fifth monument was dedicated to DiMaggio on 25 April 1999.  Monument Park is an open-air museum containing a collection of monuments, plaques, and retired numbers honoring distinguished members of the Yankees.  Other notable Yankees whose final footprints include memorialization in Monument Park; Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, George Steinbrenner, Roger Maris, Thurman Munson, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Phil Rizzuto, Billy Martin, Mel Allen, Bob Sheppard, and Casey Stengel.

#RIP #OTD 2020 actor (The Seventh Seal, Through a Glass Darkly, The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Exorcist, Three Days of the Condor, Dune, Minority Report, Shutter Island, Robin Hood, Star Wars) Max von Sydow died at his home in Provence, France at age 90. Cremation

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On this day 7 March – Harriet Jacobs – Alice B. Toklas – Stanley Kubrick – Paul Winfield

Posted on 29 MaramThu, 07 Mar 2024 00:12:00 -06002024-03-07T00:12:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

#RIP #OTD 1897 African-American abolitionist, writer (Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl), Harriet Jacobs died in Washington, D.C. aged 82. Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts

On this day in 1967, member of the Parisian avant-garde of the early 20th century, Alice B. Toklas died in Paris at the age of 89.  Born Alice Babette Toklas in San Francisco on 30 April 1877.  Toklas was the life partner of American writer Gertrude Stein.  Toklas met Stein in Paris on September 8, 1907, the day she arrived there from San Francisco after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.  Together they hosted a salon in the home they shared that attracted expatriate American writers and avant-garde painters.  Acting as Stein’s confidante, lover, cook, secretary, muse, editor, critic, and general organizer, Toklas remained a background figure, chiefly living in the shadow of Stein, until the publication by Stein of Toklas’ “memoirs” in 1933 under the title The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.  It became Stein’s bestselling book.  Toklas and Stein remained a couple until Stein’s death in 1946.  Although Stein willed much of her estate to Toklas, including their shared art collection (some of them by Picasso) housed in their apartment at 5, rue Christine, the couple’s relationship had no legal recognition.  As many of the paintings appreciated greatly in value, Stein’s relatives took action to claim them, eventually removing them from Toklas’s residence while she was away on vacation and placing them in a bank vault.  Toklas then relied on contributions from friends as well as her writing to make a living.

The Final Footprint – Toklas is interred next to Stein in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris.  Her name is engraved on the back of Stein’s headstone.  Other notable Final Footprints at Père Lachaise include; Guillaume Apollinaire, Honoré de Balzac, Georges Bizet, Jean-Dominique Bauby, Maria Callas, Chopin, Colette, Auguste Comte, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Max Ernst, Amedeo Modigliani, Molière, Jim Morrison, Édith Piaf, Camille Pissarro, Marcel Proust, Sully Prudhomme, Gioachino Rossini, Georges-Pierre Seurat, Simone Signoret, Gertrude Stein, Dorothea Tanning, Oscar Wilde, and Richard Wright.

On this day in 1999, film director, writer, producer, and photographer, Stanley Kubrick, died in his sleep at his home in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, England at the age of 70.  Born on 26 July 1928, at the Lying-In Hospital in Manhattan, New York.  Best known for his films, Spartacus (1960), Lolita (1962), Dr. Strangelove (1964), 2001: A Space Oddysey (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971), The Shining (1980), Full Metal Jacket (1987) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999).

Kubrick was married three times; Toba Metz (1948 – 1951 divorce), Ruth Sobotka (1954 – 1957 divorce) and Christiane Harlan (1958 – 1999 his death).

The Final Footprint – Kubrick is interred next to his favorite tree at his home in Childwickbury Manor, Hertfordshire, England, U.K.  His grave is marked with an engraved stone with the term of endearment; “Here lies our love Stanley”.

On this day in 1967, member of the Parisian avant-garde of the early 20th century, Alice B. Toklas died in Paris at the age of 89.  Born Alice Babette Toklas in San Francisco on 30 April 1877.  Toklas was the life partner of American writer Gertrude Stein.  Toklas met Stein in Paris on September 8, 1907, the day she arrived there from San Francisco after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.  Together they hosted a salon in the home they shared that attracted expatriate American writers and avant-garde painters.  Acting as Stein’s confidante, lover, cook, secretary, muse, editor, critic, and general organizer, Toklas remained a background figure, chiefly living in the shadow of Stein, until the publication by Stein of Toklas’ “memoirs” in 1933 under the title The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.  It became Stein’s bestselling book.  Toklas and Stein remained a couple until Stein’s death in 1946.  Although Stein willed much of her estate to Toklas, including their shared art collection (some of them by Picasso) housed in their apartment at 5, rue Christine, the couple’s relationship had no legal recognition.  As many of the paintings appreciated greatly in value, Stein’s relatives took action to claim them, eventually removing them from Toklas’s residence while she was away on vacation and placing them in a bank vault.  Toklas then relied on contributions from friends as well as her writing to make a living.

The Final Footprint – Toklas is interred next to Stein in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris.  Her name is engraved on the back of Stein’s headstone.  Other notable Final Footprints at Père Lachaise include; Guillaume Apollinaire, Honoré de Balzac, Georges Bizet, Jean-Dominique Bauby, Maria Callas, Chopin, Colette, Auguste Comte, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Max Ernst, Amedeo Modigliani, Molière, Jim Morrison, Édith Piaf, Camille Pissarro, Marcel Proust, Sully Prudhomme, Gioachino Rossini, Georges-Pierre Seurat, Simone Signoret, Gertrude Stein, Dorothea Tanning, Oscar Wilde, and Richard Wright.

#RIP #OTD in 2004 actor (Sounder, King, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, The Terminator) Paul Winfield died of a heart attack at Queen of Angels – Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, Los Angeles, aged 64. Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Los Angeles with his partner Charles Gillan

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Day in History 6 March – The Alamo – Louisa May Alcott – Pearl S. Buck – Georgia O’Keeffe – Stompin’ Tom Connors – Robert Osborne

Posted on 29 MaramWed, 06 Mar 2024 00:12:00 -06002024-03-06T00:12:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

On this day in 1836, following a 13-day seige, Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna launched a final assault on the Alamo Mission near San Antonio de Béxar (modern-day San Antonio, Texas) killing all but two of the Texian defenders.  The Battle of the Alamo was a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution.  The Texians under General Sam Houston later defeated Santa Anna and the Mexican Army at the Battle of San Jacinto on 21 April 1836.  The Texians’ battle cry that day was “Remember the Alamo” and “Remember Goliad.”  The story has been made into two major motion pictures; The Alamo (1960) directed by John Wayne and The Alamo (2004) directed by John Lee Hancock.  Among those killed at the Alamo;

  • Portrait by John Gadsby Chapman

    Davy Crockett – folk hero, frontiersman, soldier, politician, “King of the Wild Frontier”.  Born David Crockett on 17 August 1786 in Greene County, Tennessee.  Crockett represented Tennessee in the U. S. House of Representatives.  When he was narrowly defeated for re-election he said; “I told the people of my district that I would serve them as faithfully as I had done; but if not … you may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas.”  Crockett married twice; Polly Finley (1806 – 1815 her death) and Elizabeth Patton (1815 – 1836 his death).  Crockett was 49 at the time of his death.  Crockett was portrayed in the Alamo films by Wayne and Billy Bob Thornton.

  • James “Jim” Bowie – pioneer, Texas Ranger and soldier.  Born on 10 April 1796 in Logan County, Kentucky.  He popularized the Bowie knife.  Bowie was 39 at the time of his death.  Bowie, Texas and Bowie County are named in his honor.  Bowie was portrayed in the Alamo movies by Richard Widmark and Jason Patric.

William Barret Travis – lawyer and soldier.  Born 9 August 1809 in Saluda County, South Carolina.  Travis married once, Rosanno Cato (1828 – 1836 divorce).  Travis was 26 years old when he died.  Travis was portayed in the Alamo movies by Laurence Harvey and Patrick Wilson.  On 24 February 1836, during the siege, Travis wrote the now famous letter addressed “To the People of Texas and All Americans in the World”:

Fellow citizens and compatriots;
I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna. I have sustained a continual Bombardment and cannonade for 24 hours and have not lost a man. The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken. I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch. The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily and will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country. Victory or Death.

William Barret Travis
Lt. Col. Comdt.
P.S. The Lord is on our side. When the enemy appeared in sight we had not three bushels of corn. We have since found in deserted houses 80 or 90 bushels and got into the walls 20 or 30 head of Beeves.Travis

The Final Footprint – the bodies of the Texians including Crockett, Bowie and Travis were stacked and burned.  Juan Seguín returned to Béxar in February 1837 to examine the remains and found ashes from the funeral pyres.  He had the ashes placed in a simple coffin inscribed with the names Crockett, Bowie and Travis.  According to a 28 March 1837 article in the Telegraph and Texas Register, Seguín buried the coffin under a peach tree grove.  The spot was not marked and cannot now be identified.  However, Seguín later claimed that he had placed the coffin in front of the altar at the San Fernando Cathedral in San Antonio.  Remember the Alamo!

#RIP #OTD in 1888 novelist, short story writer, poet perhaps best known as the author of the novel Little Women, Louisa May Alcott died of a stroke in Boston, aged 55. Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Mass. near Emerson, Hawthorne, & Thoreau, on a hillside now known as “Authors’ Ridge”

#RIP #OTD in 1973 writer and novelist (The Good Earth) Pearl S. Buck died of lung cancer in Danby, Vermont aged 80. Green Hills Farm in Perkasie, Pennsylvania

Georgia O’Keeffe, 1918, photograph by Alfred Stieglitz

On this day in 1986, artist Georgia O’Keeffe died in Santa Fe, New Mexico at the age of 98. Born Georgia Totto O’Keeffe on November 15, 1887 in Town of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. Perhaps best known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, New Mexico landscapes, and the stunning photographs taken of her by Alfred Stieglitz. In my opinion, O’Keeffe is the “Mother of American modernism”.

In 1905, O’Keeffe began her serious formal art training at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and then the Art Students League of New York, but she felt constrained by her lessons that focused on recreating or copying what was in nature. In 1908, unable to fund further education, she worked for two years as a commercial illustrator, and then spent seven years between 1911 and 1918 teaching in Virginia, Texas, and South Carolina. During that time, she studied art during the summers between 1912 and 1914 and was introduced to the principles and philosophies of Arthur Wesley Dow, who espoused created works of art based upon personal style, design, and interpretation of subjects, rather than trying to copy or represent them. This caused a major change in the way she felt about and approached art, as seen in the beginning stages of her watercolors from her studies at the University of Virginia and more dramatically in the charcoal drawings that she produced in 1915 that led to total abstraction. Alfred Stieglitz, an art dealer and photographer, held an exhibit of her works in 1916. Over the next couple of years, she taught and continued her studies at the Teachers College, Columbia University in 1914 and 1915.

She moved to New York in 1918 at Stieglitz’s request and began working seriously as an artist. They developed a professional relationship—he promoted and exhibited her works—and a personal relationship that led to their marriage in 1924. O’Keeffe created many forms of abstract art, including close-ups of flowers, such as the Red Canna paintings, that many found to represent women’s genitalia, although O’Keeffe consistently denied that intention. The reputation of the portrayal of women’s sexuality was also fueled by explicit and sensuous photographs that Stieglitz had taken and exhibited of O’Keeffe.

O’Keeffe and Stieglitz lived together in New York until 1929, when O’Keeffe began spending part of the year in the Southwest, which served as inspiration for her paintings of New Mexico landscapes and images of animal skulls, such as Cow’s Skull: Red, White, and Blue and Ram’s Head White Hollyhock and Little Hills. After Stieglitz’s death, she lived permanently in New Mexico at Georgia O’Keeffe Home and Studio in Abiquiú, until the last years of her life when she lived in Santa Fe.

In June 1918, O’Keeffe accepted Stieglitz’s invitation to move to New York and accept his financial support. Stieglitz, who was married, moved in with her in July.

In February 1921, Stieglitz’s photographs of O’Keeffe were included in a retrospective exhibition at the Anderson Galleries. Stieglitz started photographing O’Keeffe when she visited him in New York City to see her 1917 exhibition, and continued taking photographs, many of which were in the nude. It created a public sensation. When he retired from photography in 1937, he had made more than 350 portraits of her. In 1978, she wrote about how distant from them she had become, “When I look over the photographs Stieglitz took of me—some of them more than sixty years ago—I wonder who that person is. It is as if in my one life I have lived many lives.”

In 1924, Stieglitz was divorced from his wife Emmeline, and he married O’Keeffe. For the rest of their lives together, their relationship was, “a collusion… a system of deals and trade-offs, tacitly agreed to and carried out, for the most part, without the exchange of a word. Preferring avoidance to confrontation on most issues, O’Keeffe was the principal agent of collusion in their union,” according to biographer Benita Eisler.

They primarily lived in New York City, but spent their summers at his family home, Oaklawn, in Lake George in upstate New York.

In 1928, Stieglitz had an affair with Dorothy Norman. O’Keeffe began to spend the summers painting in New Mexico in 1929.

In August 1934, she visited Ghost Ranch, north of Abiquiú, for the first time and decided to live there; in 1940, she moved into a house on the ranch property. The varicolored cliffs of Ghost Ranch inspired some of her most famous landscapes. In 1977, O’Keeffe wrote: “[the] cliffs over there are almost painted for you—you think—until you try to paint them.” Among guests to visit her at the ranch over the years were Charles and Anne Lindbergh, singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, poet Allen Ginsberg, and photographer Ansel Adams.

Stieglitz died on July 13, 1946. She buried his ashes at Lake George. She spent the next three years mostly in New York settling his estate, and moved permanently to New Mexico in 1949, spending time at both Ghost Ranch and the Abiquiú house that she made into her studio.

Gallery

Drawing XIII, 1915, Charcoal on paper, Metropolitan Museum of Art

O’Keeffe as a teaching assistant to Alon Bement at the University of Virginia in 1915

Ram’s Head White Hollyhock and Little Hills, 1935, The Brooklyn Museum

Pineapple Bud, 1939, oil on canvas

O’Keeffe’s “White Place,” the Plaza Blanca cliffs and badlands near Abiquiú

Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keeffe, platinum print, 1920

My Shanty, Lake George, oil on canvas, 20 × 27 1/8 in., The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

Cerro Pedernal, viewed from Ghost Ranch. This was a favorite subject for O’Keeffe, who once said, “It’s my private mountain. It belongs to me. God told me if I painted it enough, I could have it”

The Final Footprint

Her body was cremated and her cremains were scattered, as she wished, on the land around Ghost Ranch.

Georgia O'Keeffe.jpg

The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum opened in Santa Fe in 1997. The assets included a large body of her work, photographs, archival materials, and her Abiquiú house, library, and property. The Georgia O’Keeffe Home and Studio in Abiquiú was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1998 and is now owned by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum.

In 1991, the PBS aired the American Playhouse production A Marriage: Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz, starring Jane Alexander as O’Keeffe and Christopher Plummer as Alfred Stieglitz.

#RIP #OTD 2013 Canadian country and folk singer-songwriter (“Sudbury Saturday Night”, “Bud the Spud”, “The Hockey Song”) Stompin’ Tom Connors died of kidney failure at his home in Ballinafad, Ontario, aged 77. Erin Union Cemetery in Erin, Ontario

RIP #OTD in 2017 film historian, television presenter, author, actor, primary host for more than 20 years of Turner Classic Movies (TCM), Robert Osborne died at his Manhattan apartment, The Osborne, aged 84. Body donated to Borough of Manhattan Community College

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Day in History 5 March – Marie d’Agoult – Sergei Prokofiev – Patsy Cline – Anna Akhmatova – Jay Silverheels – Yip Harburg – John Belushi

Posted on 29 MaramTue, 05 Mar 2024 00:39:00 -06002024-03-05T00:39:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

#RIP #OTD in 1876 French romantic author (Nélida), historian, known also by her pen name, Daniel Stern, lover of Franz Liszt, Marie d’Agoult died in Paris, aged 70, and was buried in Division 54 of Père Lachaise Cemetery.

#RIP #OTD in 1953 composer (March from The Love for Three Oranges, the suite Lieutenant Kijé, the ballet Romeo and Juliet, Peter and the Wolf, the opera War and Peace), pianist, and conductor Sergei Prokofiev died in Moscow aged 61. Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery

On this day in 1963, country music singer, songwriter, one of the most influential, successful, and acclaimed female vocalists of the 20th century, Patsy Cline, died in a private plane crash near Camden, Tennessee at the age of 30.  Born Virginia Patterson Hensley on 8 September 1932 in Winchester, Virginia.  In my opinion, the best ever female country music singer and one of my all-time favorite singers.  Her contralto voice had such a rich tone and was so emotionally expressive.  Her life and career have been the subject of numerous books, movies, documentaries, articles and stage plays.  Her hits included “Walkin’ After Midnight”, “I Fall to Pieces”, “She’s Got You”, “Crazy”, and “Sweet Dreams”.  A biographical film Sweet Dreams was released in 1985 starring Jessica Lange and Ed Harris.  Lange would be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.  For all the musical scenes Lange lip-synched to Cline recordings.  Cline was married twice; Gerald Cline (1953 – 1957 divorce) and Charlie Dick (1957 – 1963 her death).

The Final Footprint – Cline is interred in Shenandoah Memorial Park, Winchester, Virginia.  Her grave is marked by a companion flat bronze on granite marker with the inscription; “Death Cannot Kill What Never Dies: Love.”  A bell tower in her memory at the cemetery, erected with the help of Loretta Lynn and Dottie West, plays hymns daily at 6:00 p.m., the hour of her death.  A memorial marks the place where the plane crashed in the still-remote forest outside of Camden, Tennessee.

#RIP #OTD in 1966 one of the most significant Russian poets of 20th century, Anna Akhmatova died of heart failure in Moscow at the age of 76. Komarovo Cemetery in St. Petersburg

#RIP #OTD in 1980 Indigenous Canadian actor (Tonto on The Lone Ranger) athlete, Jay Silverheels died from a stroke in Calabasas, California, aged 67. Cremated at Chapel of the Pines Crematory, Los Angeles; cremated remains scattered Six Nations Reserve in Ontario

#RIP #OTD in 1981 lyricist (“Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”, “April in Paris”, “It’s Only a Paper Moon”, “Over the Rainbow”), librettist, Yip Harburg died from a heart attack while driving on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, aged 84. Cremated remains scattered at sea

On this day in 1982, comedian, actor, and singer John Belushi died from combined drug intoxication caused by an injection of a heroin and cocaine mixture, known as a speedball at the age of 33 in Chateau Marmont Hotel in Hollywood. Born John Adam Belushi in Chicago on January 24, 1949. Perhaps best known for his intense energy and attitude which he displayed as one of the seven original cast members of the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live (SNL). Throughout his career, Belushi had a close personal and artistic partnership with his fellow SNL star Dan Aykroyd, whom he met while they were both working at Chicago’s The Second City comedy club. Belushi was offered a chance to perform with The Second City after being discovered by Bernard Sahlins. There, he met Brian Doyle-Murray and Harold Ramis.

In 1975, Belushi was recommended to SNL founder Lorne Michaels by Chevy Chase and Michael O’Donoghue. He developed a series of characters on the show that reached high success, including his notable performances such as the belligerent Samurai Futaba, Henry Kissinger, the Greek owner of the Olympia Café, Captain James T. Kirk, Ludwig van Beethoven, and a contributor of furious opinion pieces on Weekend Update, during which he coined his catchphrase, “But N-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O!”. Belushi later appeared in films such as Animal House, 1941, The Blues Brothers, and Neighbors. He formed the Blues Brothers with Aykroyd, Lou Marini, Tom Malone, Steve Cropper, Donald “Duck” Dunn, and Paul Shaffer. Belushi was Jake and Ackroyd was Elwood. In 1978 The Blues Brothers released their debut album, Briefcase Full of Blues, with Atlantic Records. The album reached #1 on the Billboard 200 and went double platinum. Two singles were released, “Rubber Biscuit”, which reached number 37 on the Billboard Hot 100 and “Soul Man”, which reached number 14.

The Final Footprint

In the early morning hours on the day of his death, he was visited separately by friends Robin Williams and Robert De Niro, as well as Catherine Evelyn Smith. His death was investigated by forensic pathologist Michael Baden, among others, and, while the findings were disputed, it was officially ruled a drug-related accident.

Two months later, Smith admitted in an interview with the National Enquirer that she had been with Belushi the night of his death and had given him the fatal speedball shot. After the appearance of the article “I Killed Belushi” in the Enquirer edition of June 29, 1982, the case was reopened. Smith was extradited from Ontario, Canada, arrested and charged with first-degree murder. A plea bargain reduced the charge to involuntary manslaughter, and she served 15 months in prison.

Belushi’s wife arranged for a traditional Orthodox Christian funeral which was conducted by an Albanian Orthodox priest. He has been interred twice at Abel’s Hill Cemetery in Chilmark, Massachusetts on Martha’s Vineyard. A tombstone marking the original burial location has a skull and crossbones with the inscription, “I may be gone but Rock and Roll lives on.” His name is included on the Belushi family stone marking his mother’s grave at Elmwood Cemetery in River Grove, Illinois. This stone reads, “He gave us laughter.”

Belushi’s life was detailed in the 1984 biography Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi by Bob Woodward and 1990’s Samurai Widow by his wife Judith. 

John Belushi’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

At the conclusion of the first live SNL episode (Robert Urich/Mink DeVille on March 20, 1982) two weeks after Belushi’s death, Brian Doyle-Murray gave a tribute to him.

Have you planned yours yet?

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