On this day in 1970, the man who unexpectedly filmed the assassination of JFK, Abraham Zapruder died of stomach cancer in Dallas at the age of 65. Born into a Russian-Jewish family in the city of Kovel in Ukraine on 15 May 1905. The Final Footprint – Zapruder is interred in Emanu-El Cemetery in Dallas. His wife was interred next to him after her death in 1993. Their graves are marked by a companion engraved flat granite marker.
On this day in 1979, actress Jean Seberg died at the age of 40 from an apparent intentional overdose of barbiturates in the back seat of her Renault, which was parked close to her Paris apartment in the 16th arrondissement. Born Jean Dorothy Seberg on 13 November 1938 in Marshalltown, Iowa. She starred in 37 films in Hollywood and in Europe, including Bonjour Tristesse (1958), À bout de soufflé (Breathless) (1960), the musical Paint Your Wagon (1969), and the disaster film Airport (1970). Seberg is also one of the best-known targets of the FBI COINTELPRO project. Her victimization was rendered as a well-documented retaliation for her support of civil rights and activist groups in the 1960s. Seberg married François Moreuil (1958 – 1960 divorce), Romain Gary (1963 – 1970 divorce) and Dennis Berry (1972 – 1979 separated, her death).
The Final Footprint – Seberg was interred in the Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris. Montparnasse Cemetery is the eternal home of many of France’s intellectual and artistic elite as well as publishers and others who promoted the works of authors and artists. There are also monuments to police and firefighters killed in the line of duty in the city of Paris. There are also many graves of foreigners who have made France their home. The cemetery is divided by Rue Émile Richard. The small section is usually referred to as the small cemetery (petit cimetière) and the large section as the big cemetery (grand cimetière). Other notable Final Footprints at Montparnasse include; Charles Baudelaire, Simone de Beauvoir, Samuel Beckett, Emmanuel Chabrier, Alfred Dreyfus, Marguerite Duras, Henri Fantin-Latour, César Franck, André Lhote, Guy de Maupassant, Adah Isaacs Menken, Man Ray, Camille Saint-Saëns, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Susan Sontag.
#RIP #OTD in 1981 dancer, actress (On the Town, White Christmas) Vera-Ellen died at the Los Angeles County General Hospital of ovarian cancer aged 60. Glen Haven Memorial Park, Sylmar, California
On this day in 2003 actor Charles Bronson died of pneumonia at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles at the age of 81. Born Charles Dennis Buchinski 3 November 1921 in Ehrenfeld, Pennsylvania. My favorite Bronson movies inlcude: John Sturges’ The Magnificent Seven (1960) with Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Robert Vaughn and Eli Wallach and filmscore by Elmer Bernstein; The Dirty Dozen (1967) with Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Telly Savalas, and Jim Brown; Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) with Claudia Cardinale, Henry Fonda and Jason Robards; as Wild Bill Hickok in The White Buffalo (1977) with Kim Novak, Jack Warden, Slim Pickens and Will Sampson; as Albert Johnson in Death Hunt (1981) with Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson and Carl Weathers. Bronson was married three times; Harriet Tendler (1949-1967 divorce), actress Jill Ireland (1968-1990 her death) and Kim Weeks (1998-2003 his death).
The Final Footprint – Bronson is buried in Brownsville Cemetery in West Windsor, Vermont. His grave is marked with a full ledger engraved granite marker. It is engraved with the term of endearment, Cherished Husband and Father and with the following popular bereavement poem by Mary Elizabeth Frye:
O
n this day in 2006 actor (Gilda, The Big Heat, Blackboard Jungle, 3:10 to Yuma, Superman) Glenn Ford died in his Beverly Hills home at the age of 90. He often portrayed ordinary men in unusual circumstances. Ford was most prominent during Hollywood’s Golden Age as one of the biggest box-office draws of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, who had a career that lasted more than 50 years. Although he played in many genres of movies, some of his most significant roles were in the film noirs Gilda (1946) and The Big Heat (1953), and the high school angst film Blackboard Jungle (1955). However, it was for comedies or westerns which he received acting laurels, including three Golden Globe Nominations for Best Actor in a Comedy movie, winning for Pocketful of Miracles (1961). He also played a supporting role as Clark Kent’s adoptive father, Jonathan Kent, in Superman (1978). Five of his films have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant: Gilda (1946), The Big Heat (1953), Blackboard Jungle (1955), 3:10 to Yuma (1957) and Superman (1978).
Ford did not remain on good terms with his ex-wives. He was a notorious womanizer who had affairs with many of his leading ladies, including Rita Hayworth, Maria Schell, Geraldine Brooks, Stella Stevens, Gloria Grahame, Gene Tierney, Eva Gabor, and Barbara Stanwyck. He had a one-night stand with Marilyn Monroe in 1962 and a fling with Joan Crawford in the early 1940s.
Ford dated Christiane Schmidtmer, Linda Christian and Vikki Dougan during the mid-1960s, and he also had relationships with Judy Garland, Connie Stevens, Suzanne Pleshette, Rhonda Fleming, Roberta Collins, Susie Lund, Terry Moore, Angie Dickinson, Debbie Reynolds, Jill St. John, Brigitte Bardot, and Loretta Young. He subsequently married actress Kathryn Hays (1966–1969); marriages to Cynthia Hayward (1977–1984), and Jeanne Baus (1993–1994) would later follow. All four marriages would end in divorce. He also had a long-term relationship with actress Hope Lange in the early 1960s. According to his son Peter Ford’s book Glenn Ford: A Life (2011), Ford had affairs with 146 actresses, all of which were documented in his personal diaries, including a 40-year, on-and off-again affair with Hayworth that began during the filming of Gilda in 1945. Their affair resumed during the making of their 1948 film The Loves of Carmen; Ford impregnated Hayworth, and she later traveled to France to get an abortion.
In 1960, Ford would move next door to Hayworth in Beverly Hills, and they continued their relationship for many years until the early 1980s.
Ford’s affair with stripper and cult actress Liz Renay was chronicled by her in the 1991 book My First 2,000 Men. She ranked Ford as one of her top five best lovers.
The Final Footprint– Entombed in Woodlawn Memorial Cemetery, Santa Monica, California. Other notable Final Footprints at Woodlawn include; Barbara Billingsley, Harvey Korman, Doug McClure, Bess Myerson, Sally Ride, and Irene Ryan.
On this day in 2013, poet, playwright Seamus Heaney died in the Blackrock Clinic in Dublin, aged 74. Born Seamus Justin Heaney on 13 April 1939 in the townland of Tamniaran between Castledawson and Toomebridge, Northern Ireland. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Perhaps best known for his work Death of a Naturalist (1966), his first major published volume. Robert Lowell described him as “the most important Irish poet since Yeats”.
His family moved to Bellaghy when he was a boy. He became a lecturer at St. Joseph’s College in Belfast in the early 1960s, after attending Queen’s University and began to publish poetry. He lived in Sandymount, Dublin, from 1976 until his death. He lived part-time in the United States from 1981 to 2006.
Heaney was a professor at Harvard from 1981 to 1997, and its Poet in Residence from 1988 to 2006. From 1989 to 1994, he was also the Professor of Poetry at Oxford. In 1996, was made a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and in 1998 was bestowed the title Saoi of the Aosdána. Other awards that he received include the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize (1968), the E. M. Forster Award (1975), the PEN Translation Prize (1985), the Golden Wreath of Poetry (2001), the T. S. Eliot Prize (2006) and two Whitbread Prizes (1996 and 1999). In 2011, he was awarded the Griffin Poetry Prize and in 2012, a Lifetime Recognition Award from the Griffin Trust. His literary papers are held by the National Library of Ireland.
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His son Michael revealed at the funeral mass that his father texted his final words, “Noli timere” (Latin: “Do not be afraid”), to his wife, Marie, minutes before he died.
His funeral was broadcast live the following day on RTÉ television and radio and was streamed internationally at RTÉ’s website. RTÉ Radio 1 Extra transmitted a continuous broadcast, from 8 a.m. to 9:15 p.m. on the day of the funeral, of his Collected Poems album, recorded by Heaney in 2009. His poetry collections sold out rapidly in Irish bookshops immediately following his death.
He is buried at the Cemetery of St Mary’s Church, Bellaghy, Northern Ireland, in the same graveyard as his parents, young brother, and other family members. The headstone bears the epitaph “Walk on air against your better judgement”, from one of his poems, “The Gravel Walks”.
On this day in 2015 film director, writer, producer, actor, Master of Horror Wes Craven died of brain cancer at his Los Angeles home at the age of 76. Born Wesley Earl Craven on August 2, 1939 in Cleveland, Ohio. Perhaps best known for his pioneering work in the genre of horror films, particularly slasher films, where he mixed horror cliches with humor and satire. His impact on the genre was considered prolific and influential.
He is best known for creating A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and Scream (1996), featuring the characters of Freddy Krueger, Nancy Thompson, Ghostface, and Sidney Prescott. His other films include The Last House on the Left (1972), The Hills Have Eyes (1977), Swamp Thing (1982), The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988), The People Under the Stairs (1991), Vampire in Brooklyn (1995), Music of the Heart (1999), and Red Eye (2005).
Craven’s first marriage was to Bonnie Broecker. The marriage ended in 1970. In 1982, Craven married a woman who became known professionally as actress Mimi Craven. The two later divorced, with Wes Craven stating in interviews that the marriage dissolved after he discovered it “was no longer anything but a sham”. In 2004, Craven married Iya Labunka; she frequently worked as a producer on Craven’s films.
Craven was a birder; in 2010, he joined Audubon California’s Board of Directors. His favorite films included Night of the Living Dead (1968), The Virgin Spring (1960) and Red River (1948).
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Lambert’s Cove Cemetery, West Tisbury, Dukes County, Massachusetts.
#RIP #OTD in 2019 actress (The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rhoda, Freebie and the Bean, Chapter Two) Valerie Harper died from lung cancer in Los Angeles aged 80. Hollywood Forever Cemetery
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