On this day in 1903, American Old West scout, hired gunman, Pinkerton, range detective, cowboy, and soldier Tom Horn executed by hanging in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Born Thomas Horn, Jr. on the Horn family farm in rural northeastern Scotland County, Missouri. Believed to have committed 17 murders as a hired gunman in the West, in 1902 Horn was convicted of the murder of 14-year-old Willie Nickell near Iron Mountain, Wyoming. The boy was the son of sheep rancher Kels Nickell, who had been involved in a range feud with neighbor and cattle rancher Jim Miller.
The Final Footprint – Horn was buried in the Columbia Cemetery in Boulder, Colorado on 3 December 1903. Rancher Jim Coble paid for his coffin and a stone to mark his grave. While in jail he wrote his autobiography, Life of Tom Horn: Government Scout and Interpreter (1904), which was published posthumously. Numerous editions have been published of this book since the late 20th century, and debate continues as to whether he was guilty of Nickell’s murder. Horn was portrayed by Steve McQueen in movie Tom Horn (1980). While the film took liberties with facts, McQueen’s performance was highly praised, and the film was well received.
#RIP #OTD in 1907 German Expressionist painter, the first known woman painter to paint nude self-portraits, Paula Modersohn-Becker died from a postpartum pulmonary embolism in Worpswede, German Empire aged 31. Worpswede Cemetery
On this day in 1910, writer, Leo Tolstoy, died at the Astapovo railway station, Russia at the age of 82. Born Lyev Nikolayevich Tolstoy on 9 September 1828 in Yasnaya Polyana, the family estate in the Tula region of Russia. Perhaps best known for his masterpieces Anna Karenina (1877) and War and Peace (1869). Some condsider Tolstoy to be the worlds greatest novelist. Tolstoy is also known for his complicated and paradoxical persona and for his extreme moralistic and ascetic views, which he adopted after a moral crisis and spiritual awakening in the 1870s, after which he also became noted as a moral thinker and social reformer. His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him in later life to become a fervent Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on other thinkers and reformers. On 23 September 1862, Tolstoy married Sophia “Sonya” Andreevna Bers, who was 16 years his junior and the daughter of a court physician. Their relationship was apparently passionate and tumultuous and they had 13 children.
The Final Footprint
Just before his death, his health was a concern of his family, who cared for him daily. In his last days, he spoke and wrote about dying. Renouncing his aristocratic lifestyle, he left home one winter night. His secretive departure was an apparent attempt to escape from his wife’s tirades. She spoke out against many of his teachings, and in recent years had grown envious of his attention to Tolstoyan “disciples”.
Tolstoy died after a day’s train journey south. The station master took Tolstoy to his apartment, and his personal doctors arrived and gave him injections of morphine and camphor.
The police tried to limit access to his funeral procession, but thousands of peasants lined the streets. Still, some were heard to say that, other than knowing that “some nobleman had died”, they knew little else about Tolstoy.
According to some sources, Tolstoy spent the last hours of his life preaching love, non-violence, and Georgism to fellow passengers on the train
Tolstoy is interred in the “Place of the Green Wand” in the Forest of the Old Order at Yasnaya Polyana.
#RIP #OTD in 2005, musician, singer/songwriter (Big Sky Country, Living with the Law, Kick the Stones, Breaking Your Fall, Her Furious Angels ), Chris Whitley died from lung cancer in Houston aged 45.
On this day in 2006, film director, screenwriter, and producer, five-time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director, Robert Altman died from leukemia complications at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles at the age of 81. Born Robert Bernard Altman on February 20, 1925 in Kansas City, Missouri. An enduring figure from the New Hollywood era, Altman was considered a “maverick” in making films with a highly naturalistic but stylized and satirical aesthetic. In my opinion, he is one of the most influential filmmakers in American cinema.
His style of filmmaking was unique among directors, in that his subjects covered most genres, but with a “subversive” twist that typically relies on satire and humor to express his personal vision. Altman developed a reputation for being “anti-Hollywood” and non-conformist in both his themes and directing style. Actors especially enjoyed working under his direction because he encouraged them to improvise, thereby inspiring their own creativity.
He preferred large ensemble casts for his films, and developed a multitrack recording technique which produced overlapping dialogue from multiple actors. This produced a more natural, more dynamic, and more complex experience for the viewer. He also used highly mobile camera work and zoom lenses to enhance the activity taking place on the screen.
In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized Altman’s body of work with an Academy Honorary Award. His films MASH (1970), McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), and Nashville (1975) have been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Altman is one of the few filmmakers whose films have won the Golden Bear at Berlin, the Golden Lion at Venice, and the Golden Palm at Cannes.
Altman was married three times. His first wife was LaVonne Elmer. They were married from 1947 to 1949. His second wife was Lotus Corelli. They were married from 1950 to 1955. His third wife was Kathryn Reed. They were married from 1957 until his death in 2006.
The Final Footprint
Altman’s cremains were scattered at sea. The film director Paul Thomas Anderson dedicated his 2007 film There Will Be Blood to Altman.
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