Day in History 4 March – Nikolai Gogol – Jesse Chisholm – William Carlos Williams – Elizabeth Smart – John Candy – Minnie Pearl – Horton Foote – Pat Conroy – Luke Perry

Posted on 29 MaramMon, 04 Mar 2024 00:30:00 -06002024-03-04T00:30:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

#RIP #OTD in 1852 novelist (Dead Souls), short story writer (“The Overcoat”, “Viy”, “The Nose”, “Diary of a Madman”, “The Portrait”, “The Carriage”), playwright (Marriage) Nikolai Gogol died in Moscow, aged 42. Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow

On this day in 1868, Native American Indian trader, guide, and interpreter, Jesse Chisholm, died at Left Hand Spring, near the site of present Geary, Oklahoma from food poisoning.  Born in the Hiwassee region of Tennessee, probably in 1805 or 1806.  His father, Ignatius, was Scottish and his mother was Cherokee.  Primarily known for being the namesake of the Chisholm Trail, which ranchers used to drive their cattle to eastern markets.  Chisholm had built a number of trading posts in what is now western Oklahoma.  The trail had several variations but seemed to start at the Rio Grande in Texas and ran though San Antonio and ended in Abilene, Kansas.

The Final Footprint – Chisholm is interred at the Jesse Chisholm Gravesite near Geary, Oklahoma.

#RIP #OTD in 1963 poet, writer, and physician William Carlos Williams died at his home in Rutherford, New Jersey, aged 79. Hillside Cemetery in Lyndhurst, New Jersey

#RIP #OTD in 1986 Canadian poet and novelist (By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept) Elizabeth Smart died in London of a heart attack, aged 72. St George’s churchyard, Saint Cross South Elmham, Suffolk

On this day in 1994, comedian and actor John Candy died of a heart attack in Durango, Mexico, aged 43. Born John Franklin Candy on October 31, 1950 in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada. Candy rose to fame as a member of the Toronto branch of the Second City and its related Second City Television series, and through his appearances in such comedy films as Stripes, Splash, Cool Runnings, Summer Rental, Home Alone, The Great Outdoors, Spaceballs, and Uncle Buck, as well as more dramatic roles in Only the Lonely and JFK. One of his most renowned onscreen performances was as Del Griffith, the talkative shower-curtain ring salesman in the John Hughes comedy Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

The Final Footprint

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

#RIP #OTD in 1996, comedienne who appeared at the Grand Ole Opry for more than 50 years (from 1940 to 1991) and on the television show Hee Haw from 1969 to 1991, Minnie Pearl died from a stroke in Nashville, aged 83. Mount Hope Cemetery in Franklin, Tennessee.

On this day in 2009 playwright and screenwriter Horton Foote died in Hartford, Connecticut at the age of 92. Born Albert Horton Foote Jr. on March 14, 1916 in Wharton, Texas. Perhaps best known for his screenplays for the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird and the 1983 film Tender Mercies, and his notable live television dramas during the Golden Age of Television. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1995 for his play The Young Man From Atlanta and two Academy Awards, one for an original screenplay, Tender Mercies, and one for adapted screenplay, To Kill a Mockingbird. In 1995, Foote was the inaugural recipient of the Austin Film Festival’s Distinguished Screenwriter Award. In 2000, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts.

Foote was married to Lillian Vallish Foote (1923–1992) from June 4, 1945 until her death in 1992.

The Final Footprint

Foote is interred in the Wharton City Cemetery. The Fine Arts Building at the college located in Wharton, Texas, Wharton County Junior College, is named the Horton Foote Theatre.

On this day in 2016, author Pat Conroy died in Beaufort, South Carolina from pancreatic cancer at the age of 70. Born Donald Patrick Conroy in Atlanta, Georgia on October 26, 1945. He wrote several acclaimed novels and memoirs. Two of his novels, The Prince of Tides (one of my personal favorites) and The Great Santini, were made into Oscar-nominated films. In my opinion, he is a leading figure of late-20th century Southern literature.

In 1976, Conroy published his first novel, The Great Santini. The main character of the novel is Marine fighter pilot Colonel “Bull” Meecham, who dominates and terrorizes his family. Bull Meecham also psychologically abuses his teenage son Ben. The character is based on Conroy’s father Donald.

In 1986, Conroy published The Prince of Tides about Tom Wingo, an unemployed South Carolina teacher who goes to New York City to help his sister, Savannah, a poet who has attempted suicide, to come to terms with their past.

In 1995, Conroy published Beach Music, a novel about an American ex-patriate living in Rome who returns to South Carolina upon news of his mother’s terminal illness. The story reveals his attempt to confront personal demons, including the suicide of his wife, the subsequent custody battle with his in-laws over their daughter, and the attempt by a film-making friend to rekindle old friendships which were compromised during the days of the Vietnam War.

In 2009, Conroy published South of Broad, which again uses the familiar backdrop of Charleston following the suicide of newspaperman Leo King’s brother, and alternates narratives of a diverse group of friends between 1969 and 1989.

Conroy was married three times. His first marriage was to Barbara (née Bolling) Jones on October 10, 1969, while he was teaching on Daufuskie Island. Jones, who had been Conroy’s next door neighbor in Beaufort, South Carolina, had been widowed when her first husband, Joseph Wester Jones III, a fighter pilot stationed in Vietnam, had been shot down and killed. They divorced in 1977.

Conroy then married Lenore (née Gurewitz) Fleischer in 1981. Conroy and Fleischer divorced on 26 October 1995, Conroy’s 50th birthday. Conroy married his third wife, writer Cassandra King, author of four novels, in May 1998.

Conroy lived in Beaufort with wife Cassandra until his death. In 2007, he commented that she was a much happier writer than he was: “I’ll hear her cackle with laughter at some funny line she’s written. I’ve never cackled with laughter at a single line I’ve ever written. None of it has given me pleasure. She writes with pleasure and joy, and I sit there in gloom and darkness.”

The Final Footprint 

On February 15, 2016, Conroy stated on his Facebook page that he was being treated for pancreatic cancer. Conroy’s funeral was held on March 8, 2016 at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Beaufort, South Carolina. Conroy was interred at St. Helena Memorial Garden on Ernest Road on St. Helena Island, South Carolina. His epitaph reads; MY WOUND IS GEOGRAPHY, IT IS ALSO MY ANCHORAGE, MY PORT OF CALL. 

#RIP #OTD on this day in 2019, actor (8 Seconds (1994), The Fifth Element (1997), Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)) Luke Perry died from a stroke in Burbank, California at the age of 52. His interment site is at the Perry Family Farm in Vanleer, Tennessee

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Day in History 3 March – Lou Costello – Danny Kaye – Marguerite Duras – Malcolm Kilduff, Jr. – Horst Buchholz – Tom Sizemore

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

#RIP #OTD in 1959 comedian, actor (Abbott & Costello, “Who’s on First?”) Lou Costello died at Doctors Hospital, Beverly Hills from a heart attack, aged 52. Calvary Cemetery, East Los Angeles.

#RIP #OTD in 1987 actor (The Kid from Brooklyn, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Hans Christian Andersen, White Christmas, The Court Jester), singer, dancer, philanthropist, cook, Danny Kaye died of heart failure in Los Angeles, aged 76. Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, New York.

#RIP #OTD in 1996, novelist (L’Amant), playwright, screenwriter (Hiroshima mon amour), essayist, and experimental filmmaker Marguerite Duras died in Paris at the age of 81. Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris

On this day in 2003, U. S. Navy veteran, journalist, Assistant White House Press Secretary, Malcolm MacGregor “Mac” Kilduff, Jr. died in a nursing home in Beattyville, Kentucky at the age of 75.  Born on 26 September 1927 in New Jersey.  As the ranking press secretary accompanying JFK on his trip to Dallas, Texas in November 1963,  Kilduff announced to the assembled press in the nurse’s room at Parkland Hospital in Dallas, “President John F. Kennedy died at approximately 1:00 CST today here in Dallas. He died of a gunshot wound to the brain. I have no other details regarding the assassination of the president.”  Shortly before his announcement to the press, Kilduff told the news to LBJ by simply walking up to Johnson and calling him, Mr. President.  Johnson’s wife, Lady Bird, let out a short scream, realizing what that meant.  Kilduff maintained that Oswald was the lone gunman that day, but he believed that Governor John B. Connally was the intended target and not JFK.  According to Kilduff’s biographical sketch on Arlington National Cemetery’s website, Oswald had appealed his dishonorable discharge from the Marine Corps to Connally, who served as secretary of the Navy before being elected governor in 1962.

The Final Footprint – Kilduff is interred in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.  His grave is marked by an upright marble VA marker.  Other notable Final Footprints at Arlington include; Space Shuttle Challenger, Space Shuttle Columbia, Medgar Evers, JFK, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, RFK, Edward Kennedy, Lee Marvin, and Audie Murphy.

Also on this day in 2003 actor Horst Buchholz died unexpectedly at the age of sixty-nine in the Berlin Charité from pneumonia that developed after an operation for a hip fracture. Born Horst Werner Buchholz on 4 December 1933 . He appeared in more than sixty feature films from 1951 to 2002. During his youth he was sometimes called “the German James Dean.” He is perhaps best known in English-speaking countries for his role as Chico in The Magnificent Seven (1960), as a communist in Billy Wilder’s One, Two, Three (1961) and as Dr. Lessing in Life Is Beautiful (1997).

Buchholz was married to Myriam Bru from 1958 until his death in 2003.

The Final Footprint

Berlin was the city to which his loyalty was constant, and he was buried there in the Friedhof Heerstraße. The word below his name on his marker means “actor”. Below his birth and death dates it says in German, “Love the world and the world will love you”.

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Day in History 2 March – Berthe Morisot – D. H. Lawrence – Philip K. Dick – Randolph Scott – Serge Gainsbourg – Sandy Dennis – Dusty Springfield – Anita Morris – Mercedes McCambridge

Posted on 29 MaramSat, 02 Mar 2024 00:12:00 -06002024-03-02T00:12:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

Berthe_Morisot,_1875On this day in 1895, painter Berthe Morisot died in Paris, of pneumonia at the age of 54.  Born Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot on 14 January 1841 in Bourges, Cher, France.  She was a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists.  She was described by Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of “les trois grandes dames” of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Mary Cassatt.  In 1864, she exhibited for the first time in the esteemed Salon de Paris.  Sponsored by the government, and judged by Academicians, the Salon was the official, annual exhibition of the Académie des beaux-arts in Paris.  Her work was selected for exhibition in six subsequent Salons until 1874 when she joined the “rejected” Impressionists in the first of their own exhibitions.  She was married to Eugène Manet, the brother of her friend and colleague Édouard Manet.

The Final Footprint – Morisot is interred in the Cimetière de Passy.  Other notable final footprints as Passy include; Claude Debussy, Gabriel Faure, Hubert de Givenchy, Édouard Manet, and Octave Mirbeau.

Gallery

The Cradle, 1872, Musée d’Orsay

Grain field, c.1875, Musée d’Orsay 
 

 Édouard Manet, Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets (in mourning for her father), 1872, Musée d’Orsay 
 

 Bergère nue couchée (Shepherdess – reclining nude)
 

The Artist’s Daughter Julie with her Nanny, c. 1884. Minneapolis Institute of Art
 

 La Coiffure 

    • The Harbor at Lorient, 1869, National Gallery of Art

    • On the Balcony, 1872, New York

    • Reading, 1873, Cleveland Museum of Art

    • Hanging the Laundry out to Dry, 1875, National Gallery of Art

    • Lady at her Toilette, 1875 The Art Institute of Chicago

    • Eugène Manet on the Isle of Wight, 1875, Musée Marmottan Monet

    • The Dining Room, c. 1875 National Gallery of Art

    • Summer Day, 1879, National Gallery, London

    • Winter aka Woman with a Muff, 1880, Dallas Museum of Arts

    • Child among the Hollyhocks, 1881, Wallraf-Richartz Museum

    • The Artists’ Daughter Julie With Her Nanny, c.1884, Minneapolis Institute of Art

    • The Bath (Girl Arranging Her Hair), 1885–86, Clark Art Institute

  • Julie Manet et son Lévrier Laerte, 1893, Musée Marmottan Monet

Portraits of Morisot

    • Detail from The balcony by Édouard Manet, with the portrait of Berthe in the foreground. 1868.

    • Berthe Morisot posing for The Rest. 1870. By Édouard Manet.

    • Berthe Morisot on a divan couch, 1872, by Édouard Manet.

    • Portrait of Berthe Morisot with a Fan, 1874 by Édouard Manet.

    • Portrait of Berthe Morisot, 1876, by Marcellin Desboutin.

    • Portrait of Berthe Morisot. 1882. By Édouard Manet.

    • Berthe Morisot au soulier rose. 1872. By Édouard Manet. Hiroshima Museum of Art.

    • Berthe Morisot and her daughter Julie Manet, 1894, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

  • Berthe Morisot, 1892, by Renoir.

D_H_Lawrence_passport_photographOn this day in 1930, novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter D. H. Lawrence died at the Villa Robermond in Vence, France, from complications of tuberculosis at the age of 44.  Born David Herbert Richards Lawrence 11 September 1885 in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, England.  Perhaps best known for his novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, first published in 1928.  The first edition was printed privately in Florence, Italy; an unexpurgated edition could not be published openly in the United Kingdom until 1960.  (A private edition was issued by Mandrake Press in 1929.)  The book soon became notorious for its story of the physical (and emotional) relationship between a working class man and an upper class woman, its explicit descriptions of sex, and its use of then-unprintable words.

Lawrence’s opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile which he called his “savage pilgrimage”.  At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents.  E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as, “The greatest imaginative novelist of our generation.”  Later, the influential Cambridge critic F. R. Leavis championed both his artistic integrity and his moral seriousness, placing much of Lawrence’s fiction within the canonical “great tradition” of the English novel.  In March 1912 Lawrence met Frieda Weekley (née von Richthofen), with whom he was to share the rest of his life.  Six years older than her new lover, she was married to Ernest Weekley, his former modern languages professor at University College, Nottingham, and had three young children.  She eloped with Lawrence to her parents’ home in Metz.

The Final Footprint – Frieda commissioned an elaborate headstone for his grave bearing a mosaic of his adopted emblem of the phoenix.  After Lawrence’s death, Frieda lived with Angelo Ravagli on a ranch in Taos, New Mexico and eventually married him in 1950.  In 1935 Ravagli arranged, on Frieda’s behalf, to have Lawrence’s body exhumed and cremated.  However, upon boarding the ship he learned he would have to pay taxes on the cremated remains, so he instead spread them in the Mediterranean, a more preferable resting place, in his opinion, than a concrete block in a chapel. Some dust and dirt was interred on the Taos ranch in a small chapelhis ashes brought back to the D. H. Lawrence Ranch, east of Taos, New Mexico, to be interred there in a small chapel.

#RIP #OTD in 1982 science fiction writer (The Man in the High Castle, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Minority Report) Philip K. Dick died from a stroke in Santa Ana, California, aged 53. Cremated remains Riverside Cemetery in Fort Morgan, Colorado.

#RIP #OTD in 1987 actor (Ride the High Country) Randolph Scott died of heart and lung ailments at the age of 89 in Beverly Hills. Elmwood Cemetery, Charlotte, North Carolina

#RIP #OTD in 1991 French singer-songwriter (“Je t’aime… moi non plus”, “Bonnie and Clyde”), actor, composer, director, Serge Gainsbourg died from a heart attack at his home in Paris aged 62. Jewish section of Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris

#RIP #OTD  in 1992 actress (Splendor in the Grass, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Out-of-Towners) Sandy Dennis died from ovarian cancer at her home in Westport, Connecticut, at age 54. Cremated remains Lincoln Memorial Park, Lincoln, Nebraska

On this day in 1999, British pop singer, “The White Queen of Soul”, Dusty Springfield, died in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England from cancer at the age of 59.  Born Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien on 16 April 1939 in West Hampstead, North London to an Irish Catholic family.  Her voice was distinctively sensual and soulful.  My favorite Springfield album is Dusty in Memphis and of course my favorite song from that album is “Son of a Preacher Man.”

The Final Footprint – Springfield was cremated.  Part of her cremains were interred at the parish church St. Mary the Virgin in Henley-on-Thames, South Oxfordshire, England.  A marker dedicated to her memory was placed there.

Cliffs of Moher

A part of her cremains were scattered at the Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland.

#RIP #OTD in 1994 actress on stage (Jesus Christ Superstar, Seesaw, Nine) and film (The Hotel New Hampshire, Absolute Beginners, Ruthless People), singer and dancer, Anita Morris died from ovarian cancer in Los Angeles, aged 50. Maplewood Cemetery in Durham, North Carolina.

#RIP #OTD in 2004 actress (All the King’s Men, Giant, The Exorcist) Mercedes McCambridge died in La Jolla in San Diego, aged 87. Cremated remains scattered at sea.

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Day in History 1 March – Charles Lindbergh, Jr. – Gabriele D’Annunzio – Wilhelmina Cooper – Bonnie Franklin

Posted on 29 MaramFri, 01 Mar 2024 00:24:00 -06002024-03-01T00:24:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

On this day in 1932, the 20 month old son of Charles Lindbergh, Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., was kidnapped and murdered in Hopewell, New Jersey.  Born on 22 June 1930 in Englewood Bergen, New Jersey.  In what came to be referred to as “The Crime of the Century”, the boy was abducted from his family home in East Amwell, New Jersey, near the town of Hopewell, New Jersey, on the evening of 1 March 1932.  His body was discovered a short distance from the Lindberghs’ home on 12 May 1932.  A medical examination determined that the cause of death was a massive skull fracture.  After an investigation that lasted more than two years and was ostensibly run by New Jersey State Police superintendent Colonel Herbert Norman Swarzkopf, the father of the future General H. Norman Swarzkopf, Jr., Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested and charged with the crime.  Hauptmann was found guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced to death.  He was executed by electric chair at the New Jersey State Prison on 3 April 1936, at 8:44 in the evening.  Hauptmann proclaimed his innocence to the end.  Newspaper writer H. L. Mencken called the kidnapping and subsequent trial “the biggest story since the Resurrection”.  The crime spurred Congress to pass the Federal Kidnapping Act, commonly called the “Lindbergh Law”, which made transporting a kidnapping victim across state lines a federal crime.

The Final Footprint – Lindbergh was cremated and his cremains were scattered in the Atlantic Ocean. 

#RIP #OTD in 1938 Italian poet, playwright, orator, journalist, aristocrat, army officer during World War I, Il Vate, Il Profeta, Gabriele D’Annunzio died of a stroke, at his home in Gardone Riviera, aged 74. Il Vittoriale degli Italiani, Gardone Riviera

Wilhelmina Cooper

Wilhelmina Cooper in a photograph by Edgar de Evia.jpg

Wilhelmina photographed by Edgar de Evia

On this day in 1980 model and founder of Wilhelmina Models, Wilhelmina Cooper died at age 40 in Grennwich, Connecticut from lung cancer. Born Gertrude Behmenburg on 1 May 1939 in Culemborg, Netherlands. She began modeling with Ford Models and, at the peak of her success, founded Wilhelmina Models, in New York City in 1967. During her career as a model she was on the cover of 255 magazines.

According to her obituary in Time magazine:

During her cover-girl days, Wilhelmina boasted that she was “one of the few high-fashion models built like a woman.” And she was. With her 5 ft. 11 in., 38-24-36 frame, doe eyes, delicate cheekbones and mane of high-piled dark hair, she epitomized the classical, aristocratic look that she helped to make the style standard of the 1950s and ’60s…

In 1965 she married Bruce Cooper, former executive producer of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. In 1967 they founded Wilhelmina Models, which became the other leading model agency alongside Ford Models.

The Final Footprint

Cooper was cremated.

Cooper was portrayed by Faye Dunaway in the 1998 movie Gia, which tells the story of Gia Carangi, a model who was discovered by Cooper and later died of AIDS.

#RIP #OTD in 2013 actress (Ann Romano in One Day at a Time) Bonnie Franklin died from pancreatic cancer at her home in the Los Angeles Area, aged 69. Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles

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On this day February 29 – Pat Garrett – Ina Coolbrith – Davy Jones

Posted on 29 FebamThu, 29 Feb 2024 00:03:00 -06002024-02-29T00:03:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

220px-Pat_Garrett2On this day in 1908; American Old West lawman, bartender, sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico as well as Doña Ana County, New Mexico, rancher and customs agent, Pat Garrett was shot and killed near Las Cruces, New Mexico, at the age of 57.  His murder went unsolved.  Born Patrick Floyd Jarvis Garrett on June 5, 1850, in Chambers County, Alabama.  Perhaps best known as the man who shot and killed Billy the Kid.  He coauthored a book about Billy the Kid which, for a generation after the Kid’s death, was deemed authoritative; however, historians have since found many embellishments and inconsistencies with other accounts of the outlaw’s life.  Garrett also became one of President Theodore Roosevelt’s three “White House Gunfighters” (Bat Masterson and Ben Daniels were the others) when Roosevelt appointed him Collector of Customs in El Paso.  220px-Garrett_grave2

TheFinal Footprint – Garrett’s body was too tall (he was 6′ 5″) for any finished coffins available, so a special one had to be shipped in from El Paso.  His funeral service was held March 5, 1908, and he was laid to rest next to his daughter, Ida, who had died in 1896 at the age of fifteen, at the Masonic Cemetery in Las Cruces.

Memorial marking spot where Pat Garrett was killed

The site of Garrett’s death is now commemorated by a historical marker south of U.S. Route 70, between Las Cruces and the San Augustin Pass.  The actual spot where Garrett was shot was marked Pat’s son Jarvis Garrett in 1938-1940 with a monument consisting of concrete laid around a stone with a cross carved in it.  The cross is believed to be the work of Pat’s mother.  Scratched in the concrete is “P. Garrett” and the date of his killing.  Garrett has been portrayed in film many times including:

  • Thomas Mitchell in The Outlaw (United Artists, 1943)
  • Glenn Corbett in Chisum (Warner Bros., 1970)
  • James Coburn in Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (MGM, 1973)
  • Patrick Wayne in Young Guns (Fox, 1988)
  • William Petersen in Young Guns II (Fox, 1990)

#RIP #OTD in 1928 poet, writer, librarian, first poet laureate of California, Ina Coolbrith died in Berkeley aged 86. Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland

On this day in 2012, singer-songwriter, musician, actor, and teen idol, Davy Jones died from a heart attack after riding one of his favourite horses, at Martin Memorial South Hospital in Stuart, Florida, age 66. Born David Thomas Jones on 30 December 1945 in Openshaw, Manchester, England. Perhaps best known as a member of the band the Monkees, and for starring in the TV series of the same name. His acting credits include a Tony-nominated performance as the Artful Dodger in the original London and Broadway productions of Oliver! as well as a guest star role in a hallmark episode of The Brady Bunch television show and later reprised parody film; Love, American Style; and My Two Dads.

Jones with Maureen McCormick in the 1971 The Brady Bunch episode “Getting Davy Jones”, in which he was a guest star.

Jones was married three times. In December 1968, he married Dixie Linda Haines, with whom he had been living. Their relationship had been kept out of the public eye until after the birth of their first child in October 1968. It caused a considerable backlash for Jones from his fans when it was finally made public. Jones later stated in Tiger Beat magazine, “I kept my marriage a secret because I believe stars should be allowed a private life.”  The marriage ended in 1975.

Jones married his second wife, Anita Pollinger, on 24 January 1981. They divorced in 1996 during the Monkees’ 30th-anniversary reunion tour. Jones married for a third time in 2009 to Jessica Pacheco. On 28 July 2011, Pacheco filed to divorce Jones in Miami-Dade County, Florida, but dropped the suit in October. They were still married when he died. .

The Final Footprint

Jones was cremated. On Wednesday, 7 March 2012, a private funeral service was held at Holy Cross Catholic parish in Indiantown. To avoid drawing attention to the grieving family, the three surviving Monkees did not attend. Instead, the group attended memorial services in New York City and organized their own private memorial in Los Angeles along with Jones’s family and close friends. A public memorial service was held on 10 March 2012 in Beavertown, Pennsylvania, near a church Jones had purchased for future renovation.

On Monday, 12 March, a private memorial service was held in Jones’s home town of Openshaw, Manchester at Lees Street Congregational Church, where Jones performed as a child in church plays. Jones’s wife and daughters travelled to England to join his relatives based there for the service, and placed his ashes on his parents’ graves for a time.

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On this day 28 February – Paul Harvey – Jane Russell – George Kennedy

Posted on 29 FebamWed, 28 Feb 2024 00:15:00 -06002024-02-28T00:15:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

On this day in 2009, radio broadcaster, Paul Harvey, died in Phoenix, Arizona at the age of 90.  Born Paul Harvey Aurandt on 4 September 1918 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  He broadcast News and Comment on weekday mornings and mid-days, and at noon on Saturdays, as well as his famous The Rest of the Story segments.  His listening audience was estimated, at its peak, at 24 million people a week.  Paul Harvey News was carried on 1,200 radio stations, 400 Armed Forces Network stations and 300 newspapers.  Harvey was noted for his folksy delivery and his dramatic pauses and quirky intonations.  He explained his relationship with his sponsors, saying “I am fiercely loyal to those willing to put their money where my mouth is.”  Harvey was married to Lynne “Angel” Cooper (1940 – 2008 her death). 

The Final Footprint – Harvey is entombed with his wife Angel in the Harvey private mausoleum in Forest Home Cemetery, Forest Park, Illinois.

On this day in 2011 actress Jane Russell died at her home in Santa Maria of a respiratory-related illness at the age of 89. Born Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell on June 21, 1921 in Bemidji, Minnesota. She was one of Hollywood’s leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s.

Russell had her first film role in 1943 in The Outlaw. In 1947, Russell delved into music before returning to films. After starring in several films in the 1950s, including Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in 1953, Russell again returned to music while completing several other films in the 1960s. She starred in more than 20 films throughout her career.

Russell married three times, adopted three children, and in 1955 founded Waif, the first international adoption program. She received several accolades for her achievements in films, including having her hand and footprints immortalized in the forecourt of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, and having a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Russell in The Outlaw (1943)

With Dorothy Lamour, Bing Crosby, and Bob Hope in Road to Bali (1952)

With Robert Mitchum in His Kind of Woman (1951)

As Dorothy Shaw in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

Marilyn Monroe and Russell putting signatures, hand, and footprints in wet concrete at Grauman’s Chinese Theater, 1953.

Russell was married three times, first to Bob Waterfield; they were married from 1943 until their divorce in July, 1968. He was a UCLA All-America, Cleveland Rams quarterback, Los Angeles Rams quarterback, Los Angeles Rams head coach, and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Two months after her divorce from Waterfield, Russell married actor Roger Barrett; the marriage ended when he died of a heart attack only two months later in November, 1968. She married real-estate broker John Calvin Peoples on January 31, 1974, living with him until his death from heart failure on April 9, 1999. Russell and Peoples lived in Sedona, Arizona, for a few years, but spent the majority of their married life residing in Montecito, California.

The Final Footprint

Her funeral was held on March 12, 2011, at Pacific Christian Church, Santa Maria. Her cremains were scattered at sea.

On this day in 2016, United States Army veteran, actor George Kennedy died of a heart ailment at an assisted living facility in Middleton, Idaho, ten days after his 91st birthday. Born George Harris Kennedy Jr. on February 18, 1925 in New York City. Kennedy appeared in more than 200 film and television productions. He played “Dragline” opposite Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke (1967), winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the role and being nominated for the corresponding Golden Globe. He received a second Golden Globe nomination for portraying Joe Patroni in Airport (1970).

Kennedy was the only actor to appear in all four films in the Airport series, having reprised the role of Joe Patroni three times. He also played Police Captain Ed Hocken in the Naked Gun series of comedy films, Lew Slade in the 1974 movie Earthquake and corrupt oil tycoon Carter McKay on the original Dallas television series.

Promotional photo of Kennedy for the TV series Sarge, 1971

Kennedy as Bumper Morgan in The Blue Knight, 1976

Kennedy wrote three books. In 1983, he wrote the murder mystery Murder On Location, set on a film shoot. A second novel, Murder on High, was released in 1984. In 2011, he wrote his autobiography, Trust Me.

Kennedy was married four times, to three women. In the 1940s, he married Dorothy Gillooly (1926-2012), who had served in the Women’s Army Corps. They divorced in the 1950s. In 1959, Kennedy married Norma Wurman, also known as Revel Wurman (1929-2007). Kennedy and Norma were divorced for the first time in 1971, got remarried in 1973, and were divorced for a second and final time in 1978. That same year (1978), Kennedy married Joan McCarthy (nee Castagna), daughter of John Castagna and former wife of William James McCarthy. They remained married until her death in September 2015.

The Final Footprint

Kennedy resided in Eagle, Idaho, at the time of his death. He had also been much affected by the death of Joan, his third wife, less than six months previously.

At the time of his death, Kennedy was the oldest living Oscar winner in the Best Supporting Actor category. Coincidentally, he died the day of the 88th Academy Awards ceremony. Kennedy was cremated

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Kensal Green Cemetery

Posted on 29 NovpmSun, 23 Nov 2014 16:48:03 -06002014-11-23T16:48:03-06:0004 2011 by MacGregor

Kensal_Green_Cemetery_view_December_2005Kensal Green Cemetery is a cemetery in Kensal Green, in the west of London, England, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.  Inspired by the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris and founded by the barrister George Frederick Carden, Kensal Green Cemetery was opened in 1833 and comprises 72 acres of grounds, including two conservation areas, adjoining a canal.  Kensal Green Cemetery is home to at least 33 species of bird and other wildlife.  This distinctive cemetery has a host of different memorials ranging from large mausoleums housing the rich and famous to many distinctive smaller graves and even includes special areas dedicated to the very young.  With three chapels catering for people of all faiths and social standing, the General Cemetery Company has provided a haven in the heart of London for over 180 years for its inhabitants to remember their loved one in a tranquil and dignified environment.

The area was immortalised in the lines of G. K. Chesterton‘s poem “The Rolling English Road” from his book The Flying Inn: “For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen; Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.”

Despite its Grecian-style buildings the cemetery is primarily Gothic in character, due to the high number of private Gothic monuments. Due to this atmosphere, the cemetery was the chosen location of several scenes in movies, notably in Theatre of Blood (1973).

Notable cremations at Kensal Green include; Ingrid Bergman and Freddie Mercury.

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Fictional Footprint – Gerald and Ellen O’Hara

Posted on 29 JanpmMon, 03 Jan 2011 21:52:43 -06002011-01-03T21:52:43-06:0009 2011 by MacGregor

In Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, Gerald O’Hara founded the plantation Tara, located near Jonesboro, Georgia, after he won 640 acres of land from its absentee owner during an all-night poker game.  O’Hara and his brothers emigrated from Ireland to Savannah, Georgia.  O’Hara relished the thought of becoming a planter and gave his mostly wilderness and uncultivated new lands the grandiose name of Tara after the hill of Tara, once the capital of the High King of ancient Ireland.  He borrowed money from his brothers and bankers to buy slaves and turned the farm into a very successful cotton plantation.  At the age of 43, O’Hara married the 15-year-old Ellen Robillard, an aristocratic, Savannah-born girl of French descent, receiving as dowry twenty slaves (including Mammy, Ellen’s nurse, who became nurse to Ellen’s daughters and grandchildren as well).  His young bride took a very real interest in the management of the plantation, being in some ways a more hands-on manager than her husband.  With the injection of her dowry money and the rise of cotton prices, Tara grew to a plantation of more than 1,000 acres and more than 100 slaves by the dawn of the Civil War.  Unlike the homes of most of the O’Haras’ neighbors, Tara is spared the torch during the Sherman’s Scorched Earth march.  Upon the army’s withdrawal, the family and their loyal remaining slaves are left with a looted and dilapidated house, a ruined farm with no stock, work animals, or farm equipment, no food and no means to produce food. They are indigent and soon starving.  Ellen O’Hara dies soon after the Union evacuation, and her widowed oldest daughter Scarlett returns a day later.  The loss of his wife, combined with hopelessness, poverty, age, and an increasing reliance on whiskey (when it is available) is destroying Gerald O’Hara’s sanity, leaving him a demented echo of his former self.  Peace returns after the war, but not prosperity.  Scarlett manages to save Tara from being seized and the family from dispossession only by deceitfully marrying her sister Suellen’s fiance, Frank Kennedy, and using his savings to pay the $300 in taxes levied on the place.  Though Scarlett returns to Atlanta where her fortunes rise as she takes over and expands her second husband Frank’s business interests, she shares her new wealth with Tara.  Tara never achieves anything like its antebellum grandeur, but it does become self supporting as a “two horse” farm.  While far from rich, the O’Haras are at least in better condition than most of their neighbors.  O’Hara dies when he falls off his horse while chasing a carpetbagger off the property.  In the movie version, O’Hara is portrayed by Thomas Mitchell.  The Final Footprint – Gerald and Ellen are buried in the O’Hara Family Cemetery at their beloved Tara.

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Veteran’s Day Observance – Sharon Memorial Park

Posted on 29 NovpmThu, 04 Nov 2010 14:06:59 -05002010-11-04T14:06:59-05:0002 2011 by Tamela

Veteran's Day ObservanceCome join us for a Veteran’s Day Observance on Tuesday 11 November 2010, 10:00 am.  The location will be at the Garden of Honor in Sharon Memorial Park.  The Garden of Honor is dedicated to those who have bravely served our country and features a granite monument and a flag pole from which flies the Killed in Action Memorial Flag and the POW/MIA flag.

The program will include bagpipe music courtesy of Dave McKenzie, the Pledge of Allegiance and the placing of a memorial wreath.  VFW Post 9458 will provide Color Guard and Honor Guard and a 21-Gun Salute and Taps.  The featured speaker will be Mr. John Hodge U.S. Army World War II veteran.  Contact us for a free comprehensive Veteran’s personal planning guide>>>>>>Click Here!

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Fictional Footprint

Posted on 29 SeppmTue, 21 Sep 2010 14:39:59 -05002010-09-21T14:39:59-05:0002 2011 by MacGregor

Today we pay tribute to a great romantic literary character, Francesca Johnson from the Robert James Waller novel, The Bridges of Madison County.  Francesca was born in 1920 near Naples, Italy .  Forever remembered as the woman who loved Robert Kincaid.  She died in January 1989 at home on her farm in Madison County, Iowa.  The Final Footprint – Francesca was cremated and her ashes were scattered from the Roseman Bridge in Madison County, Iowa.  She could not have Robert in life, so she gave herself to him in death.



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