On this day in 1936, Native American author, Mourning Dove died at the state hospital in Medical Lake, Washington at the approximate age of 48. Perhaps best known for her novel Cogewea the Half-Blood: A Depiction of the Great Montana Cattle Range (1927). Born Hum-isha-ma “in the Moon of Leaves” (April) 1888 in a canoe on the Kootenai River near Bonners Ferry, Idaho , her name was later changed to Christal Quintasket.
Cogewea was one of the first novels to be written by a Native American woman and to feature a female protagonist. It explores the lives of Cogewea, a mixed-blood heroine whose ranching skills, riding prowess, and bravery are noted and greatly respected by the primarily mixed-racecowboys on the ranch on the Flathead Indian Reservation. The eponymous main character hires a greenhorn easterner, Alfred Densmore, who has designs on Cogewea’s land, which she had received as head of household in an allotment under the Dawes Act.
Coyote Stories (1933) is a collection of what Mourning Dove called Native American folklore.
Quintasket married Hector McLeod, a member of the Flathead people. While married to McLeod she attended Calgary College in Alberta where she studied business and composition. When McLeod proved to be an abusive husband; they separated. In 1919, she married again, to Fred Galler of the Wenatchi.
The Final Footprint – She is interred in Omak Memorial Cemetery in Omak, Washington.
On this day in 1965, writer, novelist, Shirley Jackson died of heart failure in her sleep at her home in North Bennington, Vermont at the age of 48. Born Shirley Hardie Jackson on 14 December 1916 in San Francisco. Perhaps best known for the short story “The Lottery” (1948), which suggests a secret, sinister underside to bucolic small-town America. She is also well known for the 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House.
The Final Footprint – Jackson was cremated.
#RIP #OTD in 1985 actress (Beggars of Life, Pandora’s Box, Diary of a Lost Girl, Miss Europe), dancer, Jazz Age and flapper icon, Louise Brooks died of a heart attack in her apartment in Rochester, New York, aged 78. Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, Rochester
On this day in 2004, actress Fay Wray died in her Manhattan apartment at the age of 96. Born Vina Fay Wray on 15 September 1907 on a ranch near Cardston, Alberta, Canada. Perhaps best remembered for her role as Ann Darrow in the film King Kong (1933). Wray married three times; John Monk Saunders (1928-1939 divorce), Robert Riskin (1942-1955 his death) and Sanford Rothenberg (1971-1991 his death).
The Final Footprint – Wray is interred in Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood. Her grave is marked by an individual engraved flat granite marker near a memorial bench. The marker is engraved with her name and her birth and death years. Two days after her death, the lights of the Empire State Building were extinguished for 15 minutes in her memory. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Wray was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6349 Hollywood Blvd. She received a star posthumously on Canada’s Walk of Fame in Toronto on June 5, 2005. A park near Lee’s Creek on Main Street in Cardston was named “Fay Wray Park” in her honor. The sign at the edge of the park on Main Street has a silhouette of King Kong on it. A large oil portrait of Wray by Alberta artist Neil Boyle is on display in the Empress Theatre in Fort Macleod, Alberta. Other notable Final Footprints at Hollywood Forever include; Mel Blanc, Lana Clarkson, Iron Eyes Cody, Chris Cornell, Cecil B. DeMille, Victor Fleming, Judy Garland, Joan Hackett, John Huston, Hattie McDaniel’s cenotaph, Jayne Mansfield’s cenotaph, Tyrone Power, Dee Dee Ramone, Johnny Ramone, Virginia Rappe, Nelson Riddle, Mickey Rooney, Ann Sheridan, Bugsy Siegel, Rudolph Valentino, and Anton Yelchin.
#RIP #OTD in 2005 stage and screen actress (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, I Remember Mama, Vertigo, Dallas), artist, children’s author, Barbara Bel Geddes died of lung cancer at her estate in Northeast Harbor, Maine, aged 82. Cremated remains scattered into the harbor bordering her home
#RIP #OTD in 2010 stage and screen actress (The Day the Earth Stood Still, A Face in the Crowd, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Hud) Patricia Neal died at her home in Edgartown, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, from lung cancer, aged 84. Abbey of Regina Laudis Cemetery, Bethlehem Conn.
On this day in 2013 actress, screenwriter, singer, and songwriter Karen Black died from ampullary cancer in Los Angeles at the age of 74. Born Karen Blanche Ziegler on July 1, 1939 in Park Ridge, Illinois. Black studied acting in New York City and performed on Broadway before making her major film debut in Francis Ford Coppola’s You’re a Big Boy Now (1966).
She followed this with roles in Easy Rider (1969), Five Easy Pieces (1970), and The Great Gatsby (1974), for the latter two of which she won Golden Globe awards for Best Supporting Actress; her performance in Five Easy Pieces also garnered her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
In 1975, she appeared in Dan Curtis’s cult horror films Trilogy of Terror and Burnt Offerings; Robert Altman’s Nashville, and The Day of the Locust, which earned her a third Golden Globe nomination. Other roles include Airport 1975 (1974), Alfred Hitchcock‘s Family Plot (1976), Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982), and Tobe Hooper’s Invaders from Mars (1986).
In the 1990s, Black starred in a variety of arthouse and horror films, as well as writing her own screenplays before appearing in Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses (2003), which cemented her status as a cult horror icon.
Black continued to star in low-profile films throughout the early 2000s, as well as working as a playwright. Black’s career spanned over 50 years, and includes nearly 200 film credits.
Black married four times:
- Charles Black, married in 1960
- Robert Burton, an actor (who appeared alongside Black in Trilogy of Terror), married on April 18, 1973 and separated in October 1974
- L. M. Kit Carson, an actor/screenwriter, married on July 4, 1975 and separated in 1980.
- Stephen Eckelberry, from September 27, 1987.
The Final Footprint
Black is interred in Eternal Hills Memorial Park in Oceanside, California.
On this day in 2017 singer, guitarist, songwriter, and actor Glen Camplbell died from Alzheimer’s complications in Nashville at the age of 81. Born Glen Travis Campbell on April 22, 1936 in Billstown, Arkansas. Perhaps best known for a series of hit songs in the 1960s and 1970s, and for hosting a music and comedy variety show called The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour from January 1969 through June 1972. He released over 70 albums in a career that spanned five decades, accumulating over 45 million record sales worldwide, including 12 gold albums, four platinum albums, and one double-platinum album.
Campbell began his professional career as a studio musician in Los Angeles, spending several years playing with the group of instrumentalists later known as “the Wrecking Crew”. After becoming a solo artist, he placed a total of 80 different songs on either the Billboard Country Chart, Billboard Hot 100, or Adult Contemporary Chart, of which 29 made the top 10 and of which nine reached number one on at least one of those charts. Among Campbell’s hits are “Universal Soldier”, his first hit from 1965, along with “Gentle on My Mind” (1967), “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” (1967), “Wichita Lineman” (1968), “Dreams of the Everyday Housewife” (1968), “Galveston” (1969), “Rhinestone Cowboy” (1975) and “Southern Nights” (1977).
In 1967 Campbell won four Grammys in the country and pop categories. For “Gentle on My Mind”, he received two awards in country and western; “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” did the same in pop. Three of his early hits later won Grammy Hall of Fame Awards (2000, 2004, 2008), while Campbell himself won the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012. He owned trophies for Male Vocalist of the Year from both the Country Music Association (CMA) and the Academy of Country Music (ACM), and took the CMA’s top award as 1968 Entertainer of the Year. Campbell played a supporting role in the film True Grit (1969), which earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Most Promising Newcomer. He also sang the title song, which was nominated for an Academy Award.
Campbell was married four times. Campbell was first married from 1955–1959 to Diane Kirk. After divorcing Kirk, Campbell married Billie Jean Nunley, an Albuquerque beautician. Billie Campbell filed for divorce in 1975, and their divorce was final in 1976. He married singer Mac Davis’s second wife, Sarah Barg, in September 1976.
After his divorce from Barg, Campbell began a relationship with fellow country artist Tanya Tucker. The couple recorded a number of songs together, including the single “Dream Lover”.
Campbell married Kimberly “Kim” Woollen in 1982. The couple met on a blind date in 1981 when Woollen was a Radio City Music Hall “Rockette”.
The Final Footprint
Campbell was buried in the Campbell family cemetery at Billstown, Arkansas.
#RIP #OTD in 2022 singer (“If You Love Me (Let Me Know)”, “Please Mr. Please”, “Have You Never Been Mellow”), actress (Grease) Olivia Newton-John died; breast cancer at her home in the Santa Ynez Valley of California, aged 73. Cremated remains scattered in Byron Bay, Australia/her Santa Ynez ranch
#RIP #OTD in 2023 musician, singer, songwriter, subject of the documentary film Searching for Sugar Man, Sixto Rodriguez died in Detroit from stroke complications aged 81. Holy Cross Cemetery, Detroit
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On this day in 1941, Bengali poet, novelist, musician, painter and playwright, Nobel Prize recipient, The Shakespeare of India, The Bard of Bengal, Rabindranath Tagore died in an upstairs room of the Jorasanko mansion in which he was raised in Calcutta, at the age of 80. Born on 7 May 1861. He wrote one of my favorite poems, Unending Love, which Gregory Peck read on camera after Audrey Hepburn’s death.
On this day in 1974, poet and author Rosario Castellanos died 
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On this day in 1660, artist Diego Velázquez died in Madrid at the age of 61. Baptized Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez on June 6, 1599 in Seville. He was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV, and in my opinion, one of the most important painters of the Spanish Golden Age. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period. In addition to numerous renditions of scenes of historical and cultural significance, he painted portraits of the Spanish royal family, other notable European figures, and commoners, culminating in the production of his masterpiece Las Meninas (1656)..jpg)
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On this day in 2004, singer, songwriter, musician and record producer, Rick James died at the age of 56 in his Los Angeles home at the Oakwood apartment complex on Barham Boulevard from pulmonary failure and cardiac failure. Born James Ambrose Johnson, Jr. on 19 February 1948 in Buffalo, New York. Perhaps best known for being a major popularizer of funk music in the late 1970s and early 1980s thanks to million-selling hits such as “You and I” (1978), “Give It to Me Baby” (1981) and “Super Freak” (1981), the latter song crossing him over to pop audiences and selling over three million copies. It later contributed to the success of rapper MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This” (1990), for which James sued him, in order to be credited. James won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Song with Hammer for the song, his only Grammy win.
The Final Footprint – James is interred in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo.
On this day in 2009, film director, producer and screenwriter, John Hughes died at the age of 59 of a heart attack while walking in Manhattan where he was visiting his family. Born John Wilden Hughes, Jr. on 18 February 1950 in Lansing, Michigan. He directed or scripted some of the most successful films of the 1980s and 1990s, including National Lampoon’s Vacation, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Weird Science, The Breakfast Club, Some Kind of Wonderful, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Uncle Buck, Home Alone, and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.
The Final Footprint – Hughes is interred in Lake Forest Cemetery in Lake Forest, Illinois.
On this day in 2012, composer, conductor, an EGOT (those who have been awarded an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony), Pulitzer Prize recipient, Marvin Hamlisch died in Los Angeles, California at age 68, following a short illness, primarily due to respiratory arrest caused by a combination of anoxic brain encephalopathy and hypertension. Born Marvin Frederick Hamlisch on 2 June 1944 in Manhattan. Hamlisch married Terre Blair (1989 – 2012 his death. His prior relationship with lyricist Carole Bayer Sager inspired the musical They’re Playing Our Song.
The Final Footprint – Hamlisch is interred in Mount Zion Cemetery, Maspeth, Queens, New York. At 8:00 p.m. EDT on August 8, the marquee lights of the 40 Broadway theaters were dimmed for one minute in tribute to Hamlisch, a posthumous honor traditionally accorded to those considered to have made significant contributions to the theater arts. Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin and Liza Minnelli took turns singing songs by Hamlisch during a memorial service for the composer on 18 September 2012. At the 2013 Academy Awards, Streisand sang “The Way We Were” in Hamlisch’s memory.
On this day in 2016, jazz clarinetist Pete Fountain died from heart failure in New Orleans at the age of 86. Born Pierre Dewey LaFontaine, Jr. on July 3, 1930 in New Orleans. He played in traditional and contemporary genres of jazz, such as Dixieland, pop jazz, honky-tonk jazz, as well as pop, and Creole music.
The Final Footprint
The Final Footprint – Burton is interred in Vieux Cemetery, Celigny, Switzerland, in a red suit, a tribute to his Welsh roots, and with a copy of Dylan Thomas’ poems. He and Taylor had discussed being buried together. His widow Sally purchased the plot next to Burton’s to ensure she would be buried next to him. 
On this day in 2019, 
On this day in 1924 novelist Joseph Conrad died of a heart attack in Bishopsbourne, England at the age of 66. Born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski on 3 December 1857 in Berdichev (Polish: Berdyczów), Kiev Governorate (now Berdychiv, Ukraine). In my opionion, one of the great novelists in English. His stories and novels feature predominantly nautical or seaboard settings and depict trials of the human spirit that plumb the depths of the human soul. I like that some of his works have a strain of romanticism. Perhaps his best known works are Lord Jim (1899-1900) and Heart of Darkness (1902). Conrad married Jessie George (1896-1924 his death).
The Final Footprint – Conrad is interred in Canterbury City Cemetery in Canterbury, Kent, England. Jessie was interred next to him after her death on 3 December 1936. Their graves are marked with a large upright companion granite marker with the epitaph by the English poet Edmund Spenser; SLEEP AFTER TOYLE, PORT AFTER STORMIE SEAS, EASE AFTER WARRE, DEATH AFTER LIFE, DOES GREATLY PLEASE. SPENSER
On this day in 1954, French novelist and performer, Colette died in Paris at the age of 81. Born Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette on 28 January 1873 in Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, Yonne, in the Burgundy Region of France. Perhpaps best known for her novel Gigi, upon which Lerner and Loewe based the stage and film musical comedies of the same title. Colette is directly credited with the discovery of a young, nascent Audrey Hepburn, who she chose on sight to play the eponymous Broadway lead in Gigi. She was the first woman given a state funeral in France, although she was refused Roman Catholic rites because of her divorces.
The Final Footprint – Colette is interred in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Other notable Final Footprints at Père Lachaise include; Guillaume Apollinaire, Georges Bizet, Honoré de Balzac, Jean-Dominique Bauby, Maria Callas, Frédéric Chopin, Auguste Comte, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Max Ernst, Molière, Jim Morrison, Édith Piaf, Camille Pissarro, Marcel Proust, Sully Prudhomme, Gioachino Rossini, Georges-Pierre Seurat, Gertrude Stein, Dorothea Tanning, Alice B. Toklas, Oscar Wilde, and Richard Wright.
On this day in 1964, writer and important voice in American literature, Flannery O’Connor died at the age of 39, of complications from lupus, at Baldwin County Hospital in Milledgeville, Georgia. Born Mary Flannery O’Connor on 25 March 1925 in Savannah, Georgia. Her two novels were Wise Blood (1952) and The Violent Bear It Away (1960). She also published two books of short stories: A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955) and Everything That Rises Must Converge (published posthumously in 1965). She was a Southern writer who often wrote in a Southern Gothic style and relied heavily on regional settings and grotesque characters. O’Connor’s writing also reflected her own Roman Catholic faith, and frequently examined questions of morality and ethics. One of my very favorite writers. Each year on her birthday I read one of her short stories.
The Final Footprint – O’Connor was interred in Milledgeville, at Memory Hill Cemetery.
On this day in 1886, 
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On this day in 1944 French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry disappeared on a reconnaissance flight over the Mediterranean off the coast of Marseille at the age of 44. Born Antoine Jean-Baptiste Marie Roger de Saint Exupéry on 29 June 1900 in Lyon, France. Perhaps best remembered for his novella The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince). He was a successful commercial pilot before World War II. He joined the Armée de l’Air (French Air Force) on the outbreak of war, flying reconnaissance missions until the armistice with Germany. Saint-Exupéry was married to Consuelo Suncín Sandoval Zeceña (1931-1944 his death).
The Final Footprint – An unidentifiable body wearing French colors was found several days after his disappearance east of the Frioul archipelago south of Marseille and buried in Carqueiranne, France. His memorial was established at Les Invalides in Paris. Les Invalides, or L’Hôtel national des Invalides (The National Residence of the Invalids), is a complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement of Paris containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as well as a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans, the building’s original purpose. The buildings house the Musée de l’Armée, the military museum of the Army of France, the Musée des Plans-Reliefs, and the Musée d’Histoire Contemporaine, as well as the burial site for some of France’s war heroes, notably Napoleon. A quote from The Little Prince is inscribed on the sculpture erected to honour James Dean in Cholame, California —”What is essential is invisible to the eye.”
On this day in 1964, singer-songwriter, Gentleman Jim, Jim Reeves died at the age of 40 in the crash of a private plane northeast of Brentwood, Tennessee approximately at the junction of Baxter Lane and Franklin Pike Circle, just east of Interstate 65, and southwest of Nashville International Airport. Born James Travis Reeves on 20 August 1923 in Galloway, Texas. With records charting from the 1950’s to the 1980’s, Reeves became well known as a practitioner of the Nashville sound (a mixture of older country-style music with elements of popular music). He is a member of both the Country Music and Texas Country Music Halls of Fame.
The Final Footprint – Thousands of people traveled to pay their last respects at his funeral two days later. The coffin, draped in flowers from fans, was driven through the streets of Nashville and then to Reeves’ final resting place near Carthage, Texas at what is now the Jim Reeves Memorial Park.
On this day in 2012, writer known for his essays, novels, screenplays, and Broadway plays, Gore Vidal died at his home in Hollywood Hills, California of complications from pneumonia at the age of 86. Born Eugene Louis Vidal in West Point, New York. As a well-known public intellectual, he was known for his patrician manner and witty aphorisms. Vidal was a lifelong Democrat; he ran for political office twice and was a longtime political commentator. As well known for his essays as his novels, Vidal wrote for The Nation, New Statesman, the New York Review of Books and Esquire. He was also known for his well-publicized spats with such figures as Norman Mailer, William F. Buckley, Jr., and Truman Capote. His most widely regarded social novel was Myra Breckinridge; his best known historical novels included Julian, Burr, and Lincoln. His third novel, The City and the Pillar (1948), outraged conservative critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality. Vidal always rejected the terms of “homosexual” and “heterosexual” as inherently false, claiming that the vast majority of individuals had the potential to be pansexual. His screenwriting credits included the epic historical drama Ben-Hur (1959), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. At the time of his death, he was the last of a generation of American writers who had served during World War II, including J. D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, Mailer, and Joseph Heller. Perhaps best remembered for his caustic wit, he has been described as the 20th century’s answer to Oscar Wilde. Vidal had affairs with both men and women. The novelist Anaïs Nin claimed an involvement with Vidal in her memoir The Diary of Anaïs Nin but Vidal denied it in his memoir Palimpsest. Vidal also discussed having dalliances with people such as actress Diana Lynn, and alluded to the possibility that he may have a daughter. He was briefly engaged to Joanne Woodward, before she married Paul Newman; after eloping, the couple shared a house with Vidal in Los Angeles for a short time. In 1950, he met his long-term partner Howard Austen. Vidal once reported that the secret to his lengthy relationship with Austen was that they did not have sex with each other: “It’s easy to sustain a relationship when sex plays no part and impossible, I have observed, when it does.” He also said; “
The Final Footprint – Vidal was interred next to Austen in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Other notable final footprints at Rock Creek include; Tim Russert and Upton Sinclair.
The Final Footprint
The Final Footprint – Phillips is entombed in the mausoleum Garden of Trees in Memorial Park Cemetery in Memphis. Another notable final footprints at Memorial Park include; Bobby Blue Bland, Isaac Hayes, Charlie Rich, and Bob Welch.
