#RIP #OTD in 1962 political figure, diplomat, activist, first lady of the United States (1933 to 1945) Eleanor Roosevelt died of cardiac failure at her Manhattan home, 55 East 74th Street, aged 78. Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site, Hyde Park, New York
On this day in 1980, United States Marine Corp veteran, Academy Award-nominated actor, The King of Cool, Steve McQueen, died in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico at the age of 50 from complications related to pleural mesothelioma. Born Terence Steven McQueen on 24 March 1930 in Beech Grove, Indiana.
On November 2, 1956, he married Filipino actress and dancer Neile Adams. Mamie Van Doren claimed to have had an affair with McQueen and tried hallucinogens with him around 1959. Actress-model Lauren Hutton said that she also had an affair with McQueen in the early 1960s. In 1971–1972, while separated from Adams, McQueen had a relationship with Junior Bonner co-star Barbara Leigh.
In Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1973, McQueen married actress Ali MacGraw (his co-star in The Getaway), but their marriage ended in a divorce in 1978. Some claimed that MacGraw was the one true love of McQueen’s life: “He was madly in love with her until the day he died.” On January 16, 1980, less than a year before his death, McQueen married model Barbara Minty.
In 1973, McQueen was one of the pallbearers at Bruce Lee’s funeral, along with James Coburn, Bruce’s brother Robert Lee, Peter Chin, Dan Inosanto and Taky Kimura.
My favorite movies in which McQueen appears are; The Magnificent Seven (1960), Nevada Smith (1966), Bullit (1968), Junior Bonner (1972), The Getaway (1972), Papillon (1973), and Tom Horn (1980). I saw Papillon as a young teenager and enjoyed it so much I bought the book written by Henri Charrière. One of my favorite books. I still own that book.
The Final Footprint – McQueen was cremated and his cremated remains were scattered in the Pacific Ocean.
On this day in November 1993; jazz singer and entertainer Adelaide Hall died at London’s Charing Cross Hospital aged 92. Born Adelaide Louise Hall on 20 October 1901 in Brooklyn. Her long career spanned more than 70 years from 1921 until her death and she was a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance. Hall entered the Guinness Book of World Records in 2003 as the world’s most enduring recording artist, having released material over eight consecutive decades. She performed with major artists such as Art Tatum, Ethel Waters, Josephine Baker, Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, Cab Calloway, Fela Sowande, Rudy Vallee and Jools Holland, and recorded as a jazz singer with Duke Ellington (with whom she made her most famous recording, “Creole Love Call” in 1927) and with Fats Waller.
The Final Footprint – Honouring her wish, her funeral took place in New York at the Cathedral of the Incarnation (Garden City, New York) and she was laid to rest beside her mother at the Cemetery of the Evergreens in Brooklyn.
In London, a memorial service was held for her at St Paul’s, Covent Garden (known as the “actors’ church”), which was attended by many stars including Elaine Paige, Elisabeth Welch, Lon Satton and Elaine Delmar. One of the participants, TV presenter and broadcaster Michael Parkinson, remarked during his eulogy: “Adelaide lived to be ninety-two and never grew old.” Another notable final footprint at Evergreens; Bill “Bojangles” Robinson.
On this day in 2012, United States Army Air Corp veteran, football player at the University of Oklahoma, head coach of the Texas Longhorns (1957-1976), 3x National Champion, 11x Southwest Conference champion, Darrell Royal died due to complications of Alzheimer’s disease in Austin at the age of 88. Born Darrell K Royal on 6 July 1924 in Hollis, Oklahoma. Royal also served as the head coach at Mississippi State University (1954–1955), the University of Washington (1956), compiling a career college football record of 184–60–5. He won more games than any other coach in Texas Longhorns football history. Royal also coached the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League for one season in 1953. He never had a losing season as a head coach for his entire career. Royal was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 1983. Darrell K Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin, Texas, where the Longhorns play their home games, was renamed in his honor in 1996.
The Final Footprint – Royal is interred at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. Other notable final footprints at TSC include: Stephen F. Austin, John B. Connally, Nellie Connally, J. Frank Dobie, Barbara Jordan, Tom Landry (cenotaph), Ann Richards, Edwin “Bud” Shrake, William A. A. “Bigfoot” Wallace, and Walter Prescott Webb.
On this day in 2016, singer, songwriter, musician, poet, novelist, and painter Leonard Cohen died at the age of 82 at his home in Los Angeles. Reportedly, his death was the result of a fall at his home on the night of November 7, and he subsequently died in his sleep. Cancer was a contributing cause. Born Leonard Norman Cohen on September 21, 1934 in Montreal.
His work explored religion, politics, isolation, sexuality, and personal relationships. Cohen was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation’s highest civilian honour. In 2011, Cohen received one of the Prince of Asturias Awards for literature and the ninth Glenn Gould Prize.
Cohen pursued a career as a poet and novelist during the 1950s and early 1960s. He did not launch a music career until 1967, at the age of 33. His first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967), was followed by three more albums of folk music: Songs from a Room (1969), Songs of Love and Hate (1971) and New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974). His 1977 record Death of a Ladies’ Man was co-written and produced by Phil Spector, which was a move away from Cohen’s previous minimalist sound. In 1979, Cohen returned with the more traditional Recent Songs, which blended his acoustic style with jazz and Oriental and Mediterranean influences. Perhaps Cohen’s most famous song, “Hallelujah” was first released on his studio album Various Positions in 1984. I’m Your Man in 1988 marked Cohen’s turn to synthesized productions and remains his most popular album. In 1992, Cohen released its follow-up, The Future, which had dark lyrics and references to political and social unrest.
Cohen returned to music in 2001 with the release of Ten New Songs, which was a major hit in Canada and Europe. His eleventh album, Dear Heather, followed in 2004. After a successful string of tours between 2008 and 2010, Cohen released three albums in the final four years of his life: Old Ideas (2012), Popular Problems(2014) and You Want It Darker (2016), the last of which was released three weeks before his death.
Cohen’s writing process, as he told an interviewer in 1998, was “like a bear stumbling into a beehive or a honey cache: I’m stumbling right into it and getting stuck, and it’s delicious and it’s horrible and I’m in it and it’s not very graceful and it’s very awkward and it’s very painful and yet there’s something inevitable about it.”
in 1988
2008
In 1960, Cohen lived in rural Hydra, Greece with Marianne Ihlen, with whom he was in a relationship for most of the 1960s. The song “So Long, Marianne” was written to and about her. Ihlen died of leukemia three months before Cohen. His farewell letter to her was read at her funeral, stating that “… our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine.”
In the 1970s, Cohen was in a relationship with artist Suzanne Elrod. She took the cover photograph for Live Songs and is pictured on the cover of the Death of a Ladies’ Man. She also inspired the “Dark Lady” of Cohen’s book Death of a Lady’s Man (1978), but is not the subject of one of his best-known songs, “Suzanne”, which refers to Suzanne Verdal, the former wife of a friend, the Québécois sculptor Armand Vaillancourt. Cohen and Elrod separated in 1979, with him later stating that “cowardice” and “fear” prevented him from marrying her.
Cohen was in a relationship with French photographer Dominique Issermann in the 1980s. They worked together on several occasions: she shot his first two music videos for the songs “Dance Me to the End of Love” and “First We Take Manhattan” and her photographs were used for the covers of his 1993 book Stranger Music and his album More Best of Leonard Cohen and for the inside booklet of I’m Your Man(1988), which he also dedicated to her. In 2010, she was also the official photographer of his world tour.
In the 1990s, Cohen was romantically linked to actress Rebecca De Mornay. De Mornay co-produced Cohen’s 1992 album The Future, which is also dedicated to her with an inscription that quotes Rebecca’s coming to the well from the Book of Genesis chapter 24 and giving drink to Eliezer’s camels, after he prayed for the help; Eliezer (“God is my help” in Hebrew) is part of Cohen’s Hebrew name (Eliezer ben Nisan ha’Cohen), and Cohen sometimes referred to himself as “Eliezer Cohen” or even “Jikan Eliezer”.
The Final Footprint –
His funeral was held on November 10, 2016, in Montreal, at a cemetery on Mount Royal. As was his wish, Cohen was laid to rest with a Jewish rite, in a simple pine casket, in a family plot in Shaar Hashomayim Cemetery in Montreal . The city of Montreal held a tribute concert to Cohen in December 2016, entitled “God is Alive, Magic Is Afoot” after a prose poem in his novel Beautiful Losers. It featured a number of musical performances and readings of Cohen’s poetry.
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On this day in 1893, composer of the romantic period, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky died in Saint Petersburg at the age of 53. Born on 7 May 1840 [O.S. 25 April] in Votkinsk, a small town in Vyatka Governorate (present-day Udmurtia) in the Russian Empire. His works are among the most popular music in the classical repertoire. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally, bolstered by his appearances as a guest conductor in Europe and the United States.
The Final Footprint
On this day in 1991, Academy Award-nominated actress, Gene Tierney, died of emphysema in Houston, Texas at the age of 70. Born Gene Eliza Tierney on 19 November 1920 in Brooklyn, New York. “Undeniably the most beautiful woman in movie history” – Darryl F. Zanuck, former chief of production and founder of 20th Century Fox. She met Howard Hughes, who reportedly tried to seduce her but she was not impressed by his wealth. They did become lifelong friends, and ironically, are interred in the same cemetery (see below). She married twice; fashion designer Oleg Cassini (1941 – 1952 divorce) and Texas oil baron W. Howard Lee (1960 – 1981 his death). During her separation from Cassini, Tierney allegedly had an affair with John F. Kennedy.
The Final Footprint – Tierney is interred in the Lee Family Private Estate in Glenwood Cemetery in Houston. One of the offices I worked in when I worked in Houston had a great view of Glenwood Cemetery. Other notable Final Footprints at Glenwood include; Maria Franklin Prentiss Langham Gable, Oveta Culp Hobby, William P. Hobby, Howard Hughes, Anson Jones, and Glenn McCarthy.
And on this day in 2007, singer songwriter Hank Thompson died from lung cancer in Keller, Texas at the age of 82. Born Henry William Thompson on 3 September 1925 in Waco, Texas. Perhaps his best known hit was his version of the Arlie Carter and William Warren song “The Wild Side of Life”. The 1987 novel Crazy Heart by Thomas Cobb was apparently inspired by Thompson’s life. In 2009 Cobb’s novel was turned into a successful film directed by Scott Cooper and starring Academy Award winner Jeff Bridges.
The Final Footprint – Thompson requested that no funeral be held. On November 14, a “celebration of life,” open to both fans and friends, took place at Billy Bob’s Texas, a Fort Worth, Texas nightclub that bills itself as The World’s Largest Honky Tonk. Thompson is interred in Waco Memorial Park in Waco.
On this day in 1660, English courtier known for her beauty and wit and for her involvement in many political intrigues during the English Civil War, Lucy Hay died of apoplexy probably in London, age 60 or 61. Born Lucy Percy possibly in 1599. She became the second wife of James Hay, 1st Earl of Carlisle. Her charms were celebrated in verse by contemporary poets, including Thomas Carew, William Cartwright, Robert Herrick and John Suckling, and by Sir Toby Matthew in prose. She was a conspicuous figure at the court of King Charles I. Alexandre Dumas probably based Milady in his The Three Musketeers on Hay. She was the subject of a risqué poem by Suckling; “Upon My Lady Carlisle’s Walking in Hampton Court Garden.”
The Final Footprint – She died suddenly after ‘dining well’ at lunchtime she fell suddenly sick around 2pm whilst ‘cutting a piece of ribbon’. She was dead by 5 or 6pm that same day. Lucy is entombed in the Percy Family Vault, St. Mary the Virgin Chuchyard, Petworth, Chichester District, West Sussex, England.
On this day in 1933 actress, producer and speakeasy club manager Texas Guinan died in Vancouver, aged 49. Born Mary Louise Cecilia Guinan in Waco, Texas on January 12, 1884.
The Final Footprint – While on the road with Too Hot for Paris, she contracted amoebic dysentery in Chicago, Illinois, during the epidemic outbreak at the Congress Hotel during the run of the Chicago World’s Fair. The epidemic was traced to tainted water. She fell ill in Vancouver, British Columbia, and died, exactly one month before Prohibition was repealed; 7,500 people attended her funeral. Bandleader Paul Whiteman was a pallbearer along with two of her former lawyers and writer Heywood Broun.
On this day in 1960 singer, songwriter Johnny Horton died from injuries in a car crash in Milano, Texas, age 35. Born John LaGale Horton in Los Angeles on 30 April 1925.
The Final Footprint – On the night of November 4–5, 1960, Horton and two other band members, Tommy Tomlinson and Tillman Franks, were traveling from the Skyline Club in Austin, Texas, to Shreveport when they collided with an oncoming truck on a bridge near Milano in Milam County, Texas. Horton died en route to the hospital, and Tomlinson (1930–1982) was seriously injured; his leg later had to be amputated. Franks (1920–2006) suffered head injuries, and James Davis, the driver of the truck, had a broken ankle and other minor injuries.
On this day in 2005, United States Army veteran, 
On this day in 1847 Romantic composer, pianist, organist, conductor Felix Mendelssohn died in Leipzig after a series of strokes, age 38. Born on 3 February 1809, in Hamburg.
The Final Footprint – Mendelssohn suffered from poor health in the final years of his life, probably aggravated by nervous problems and overwork. A final tour of England left him exhausted and ill, and the death of his sister, Fanny, on 14 May 1847, caused him further distress. Less than six months later, on 4 November, aged 38, Mendelssohn died in Leipzig after a series of strokes. His grandfather Moses, Fanny, and both his parents had all died from similar apoplexies. Although he had been generally meticulous in the management of his affairs, he died intestate.
On this day in 1918, English poet and soldier Wilfred Owen was killed in World War I action, at the age of 25, during the crossing of the Sambre–Oise Canal, exactly one week (almost to the hour) before the signing of the Armistice. Born Wilfred Edward Salter Owen on 18 March 1893 at Plas Wilmot, a house in Weston Lane, near Oswestry in Shropshire. One of the leading poets of the First World War, his shocking, realistic war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was heavily influenced by his friend and mentor Siegfried Sassoon, and stood in stark contrast both to the public perception of war at the time and to the confidently patriotic verse written by earlier war poets such as Rupert Brooke. Among his best-known works – most of which were published posthumously – are “Dulce et Decorum est”, “Insensibility”, “Anthem for Doomed Youth”, “Futility” and “Strange Meeting”.
The Final Footprint – His mother received the telegram informing her of his death on Armistice Day, as the church bells were ringing out in celebration. He is interred at the Communal Cemetery in Ors, France.
On this day in 1924 composer, organist, pianist and teacher Gabriel Fauré died in Paris from pneumonia at the age of 79. Born Gabriel Urbain Fauré in Pamiers, Ariège, France on 12 May 1845. He was given a state funeral at the Église de la Madeleine and is buried in the Passy Cemetery in Paris. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers. Among his best-known works are his Pavane, Requiem, Sicilienne, nocturnes for piano and the songs “Après un rêve” and “Clair de lune”.
The Final Footprint – He was given a state funeral at the Église de la Madeleine and is buried in the Passy Cemetery in Paris.
On this day in 1955 baseball Hall of Famer, Cy Young, died on his farm near Newcomerstown, Ohio at the age of 88. Born Denton True Young on 29 March 1867 in Gilmore, Ohio. During his 22-year career he pitched for five different teams; Cleveland Spiders, St. Louis Perfectos, Boston Americans/Red Sox, Cleveland Naps and the Boston Rustlers. He pitched three no hitters and one perfect game, earned one world series ring and still holds five MLB records.
Their graves are marked by a large upright granite marker inscribed as follows: FROM 1890 TO 1911 “CY YOUNG” PITCHED 874 MAJOR LEAGUE BASE BALL GAMES. HE WON 511 GAMES, THREE NO HIT, AND ONE PERFECT GAME IN WHICH NO MAN REACHED FIRST BASE. One year after Young’s death, the Cy Young Award was created to honor the previous season’s best pitcher. The first award was given to Brooklyn’s Don Newcombe. Originally, it was a single award covering the whole of baseball. The honor was divided into two Cy Young Awards in 1967, one for each league. In 1957, Warren Spahn became the first left-handed pitcher to win the award. In 1963, Sandy Koufax became the first pitcher to win the award in a unanimous vote; two years later he became the first multiple winner. In 1974, Mike Marshall won the award, becoming the first relief pitcher to win the award. Roger Clemens currently holds the record for the most awards won, with seven won the most.
On this day in 2008, author, screenwriter, film director and producer Michael Crichton died from lymphoma in Los Angeles at the age of 66. Born John Michael Crichton October 23, 1942 in Chicago. Perhaps best known for his work in the science fiction, thriller, and medical fiction genres.
On this day in 1793, playwright, abolitionist, and feminist Olympe de Gouges mounted a Paris scaffold to the guillotine, at the age of 45. Born Marie Gouze on 7 May 1748 in Montauban, Quercy (in the present-day department of Tarn-et-Garonne), in southwestern France. She began her career as a playwright in the early 1780s. As political tension rose in France, de Gouges began writing political pamphlets. She became an outspoken advocate for improving the condition of slaves in the colonies of 1788. Perhaps best known as an early feminist who demanded that French women be given the same rights as French men. In her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen (1791), she challenged the practice of male authority and the notion of male–female inequality. She wrote; “
The Final Footprint – De Gouges was interred in a communal grave in the Madeleine Cemetery, a former cemetery in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, one of the four cemeteries (the others being Errancis Cemetery, Picpus Cemetery and the Cemetery of Saint Margaret) used to dispose of the corpses of guillotine victims during the French Revolution. In 1844, the cemetery was cleared and the skeletal remains were transferred to the l’Ossuaire de l’Ouest (West Ossuary). When the ossuary was closed, the contents were transferred to the Paris catacombs (Catacombes de Paris), an underground ossuary in Paris which hold the remains of more than six million people located in a part of a tunnel network built to consolidate Paris’ ancient stone mines. Extending south from the Barrière d’Enfer (“Gate of Hell”) former city gate, this ossuary was created as part of the effort to eliminate the city’s overflowing cemeteries. Preparation work began not long after a series of basement wall collapses at Saint Innocents cemetery. Beginning in 1786, nightly processions of covered wagons transferred remains from most of Paris’ cemeteries to a mine shaft opened near the Rue de la Tombe-Issoire.
On this day in 1926 sharpshooter who starred in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show Annie Oakley died of pernicious anemia in Greenville, Ohio, at the age of 66. Born Phoebe Ann (Annie) Mosey on August 13, 1860, in a log cabin less than two miles (3.2 km) northwest of Woodland, now Willowdell, in Darke County, Ohio.
The Final Footprint – Cremated remains interred at Brock Cemetery, near Greenville. A collection of Oakley’s personal possessions, performance memorabilia, and firearms are on permanent exhibit in the Garst Museum and the National Annie Oakley Center in Greenville, Ohio. She has been inducted into the Trapshooting Hall of Fame, the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas, the National Women’s Hall of Fame, the Ohio Women’s Hall of Fame, and the New Jersey Hall of Fame. Her story has been adapted for stage musicals and films, including Annie Get Your Gun, musical with lyrics and music by Irving Berlin and a book by Dorothy Fields and her brother Herbert Fields.
On this day in 1954, artist, painter, sculptor Henri Matisse died in Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France at the age of 84. Born Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse on 13 December 1869 in Le Cateau-Cambrésis, Nord, France. In my opinion, along with with Picasso and Marcel Duchamp, Matisse is one of the leading figures of modern art.
The Final Footprint – Matisse is interred with his wife Noellie Matisse-Parayre in the cemetery of the Monastère Notre Dame de Cimiez, near Nice. Their graves are marked by a large marble upright monument.
On this day in 1990, actress and singer, Mary Martin died of cancer four weeks before her 77th birthday at her home in Rancho Mirage, California. Born Mary Virginia Martin in Weatherford, Texas on 1 December 1913.
The Final Footprint – She is buried in City Greenwood Cemetery in Weatherford, Texas.
And on this day in 2018, actress and director, Sondra Locke died at her Los Angeles home from cardiac arrest related to breast and bone cancer at the age of 74. Born Sandra Louise Smith on May 28, 1944 in Shelbyville, Tennessee.
On this day in 1887 opera singer, the “Swedish Nightingale”, Jenny Lind died at Wynd’s Point, Herefordshire, on the Malvern Hills near the British Camp, at the age of 67. Born Johanna Maria Lind on 6 October 1820 in Klara in central Stockholm. One of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century, she performed in soprano roles in opera in Sweden and across Europe, and undertook an extraordinarily popular concert tour of America beginning in 1850. She was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music from 1840.
The Final Footprint
On this day in 1950, playwright, Nobel Prize winner and Academy Award winner, George Bernard Shaw died at his home, Shaw’s Corner, in Hertfordshire, England at the age of 94. Born 26 July 1856 in Dublin, Ireland. Shaw is the only person to have been awarded both a Nobel and an Oscar. His play Pygmalion was adapted by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe into the musical My Fair Lady. In 1898, Shaw married Charlotte Payne-Townshend, whom he survived. Reportedly, the marriage was never consummated, at Charlotte’s insistence. Shaw reportedly had a number of affairs with married women.
On this day in 1975 poet, filmmaker, writer, journalist, novelist, playwright, artist, actor Pier Paolo Pasolini was murdered, run over by his car, on the beach at Ostia, Italy. Born in Bologna on 5 March 1922.
And on this day in 1996 singer and guitarist Eva Cassidy died from melanoma at her family’s home in Bowie, Maryland, at the age of 33. Born Eva Marie Cassidy on February 2, 1963, at the Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C.
On this day in 1972, poet Ezra Pound died in the Civil Hospital of Venice at the age of 87 with his long-time mistress Olga Rudge at his side. Born Ezra Weston Loomis Pound on 30 October 1885 in Hailey, Idaho Territory. His contribution to poetry began with his promotion of Imagism, a movement that called for a return to more Classical values, stressing clarity, precision and economy of language. Perhaps his best-known works include Ripostes (1912), Hugh Selwyn Mauberley (1920) and his unfinished 120-section epic, The Cantos (1917–1969). Working in London and Paris in the early 20th century as foreign editor of several American literary magazines, Pound helped to discover and shape the work of contemporaries such as T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, Robert Frost and Ernest Hemingway. He was responsible for the publication in 1915 of Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and for the serialization from 1918 of Joyce’s Ulysses. Hemingway wrote of him in 1925: “He defends [his friends] when they are attacked, he gets them into magazines and out of jail. … He writes articles about them. He introduces them to wealthy women. He gets publishers to take their books. He sits up all night with them when they claim to be dying … he advances them hospital expenses and dissuades them from suicide”. Outraged by the loss of life during the First World War, he lost faith in England, blaming the war on usury and international capitalism. He moved to Italy in 1924, where throughout the 1930s and 1940s he wrote for publications owned by Oswald Mosley. The Italian government paid him to make hundreds of radio broadcasts criticizing the United States, as a result of which he was arrested for treason by American forces in Italy in 1945. He spent months in detention in a U.S. military camp in Pisa. Deemed unfit to stand trial, he was incarcerated in St. Elizabeths psychiatric hospital in Washington, D.C., for over 12 years. While in custody in Italy, he had begun work on sections of The Cantos that became known as The Pisan Cantos (1948), for which he was awarded the Bollingen Prize in 1949 by the Library of Congress, triggering enormous controversy. He was released from St. Elizabeths in 1958 and returned to live in Italy until his death. His political views ensure that his work remains controversial; in 1933 Time magazine called him “a cat that walks by himself, tenaciously unhousebroken and very unsafe for children.” Hemingway nevertheless wrote: “The best of Pound’s writing – and it is in the Cantos – will last as long as there is any literature.”
The Final Footprint – Four gondoliers dressed in black rowed Pound’s body to the island cemetery, Isola di San Michele, where he was buried near Sergei Diaghilev and Igor Stravinsky. Dorothy died in England the following year. Olga died in 1996 and was buried next to Pound.
On this day in 1918, painter Egon Schiele died from the Spanish Flu in Vienna, three days after his wife Edith, at the age of 28. Born on 12 June 1890 in Tulln, Lower Austria. A protégé of Gustav Klimt, Schiele was a major figurative painter of the early 20th century. His work is noted for its intensity and its raw sexuality, and the many self-portraits the artist produced, including naked self-portraits. The twisted body shapes and the expressive line that characterize Schiele’s paintings and drawings mark the artist as an early exponent of Expressionism.
The Final Footprint
On this day in 1926, magician and escapologist, Harry Houdini died at Grace Hospital in Detroit, Michigan at the age of 52. Born Erik Weisz on 24 March 1874 in Budapest, Austria-Hungary.
Every year on the anniversary of his death, Bess conducted a seance and tried to contact her husband’s spirit. After the tenth year she stopped, allegedly saying that ten years was long enough to wait for any man. Bess wished to be interred next to him but when she died her Catholic family refused to bury her in a Jewish cemetery.
On this day in 1993, film director and screenwriter, Federico Fellini died from complications of a stroke in Rome at the age of 73, a day after his fiftieth wedding anniversary. Born 20 January 1920 in 
The Final Footprint – A memorial service was held in Studio 5 at Cinecittà. At the request of Masina, trumpeter Mauro Maur played the “Improvviso dell’Angelo” by Nino Rota during the funeral ceremony. Five months later on 23 March 1994, Masina died of lung cancer. Fellini, Masina and their son Pierfederico are entombed in a bronze sepulchre sculpted by Arnaldo Pomodoro. Designed as a ship’s prow, the tomb is located at the main entrance to the Cemetery of Rimini. The Federico Fellini Airport in Rimini is named in his honour.
On this day in 1993 actor, musician, activist River Phoenix died from a drug overdose on the sidewalk outside the West Hollywood nightclub The Viper Room at the age of 23. Born River Jude Phoenix (né Bottom) on August 23, 1970 in Madras, Oregon. He was the older brother of Rain Phoenix, Joaquin Phoenix, Liberty Phoenix, and Summer Phoenix.
And on this day in 2020 actor Sean Connery died in his sleep at his home in Lyford Cay, Nassau in The Bahamas. Born Thomas Connery at the Royal Maternity Hospital in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 25 August 1930.
On this day in 1919 author, poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox died of cancer in Short Beach CT, aged 68. Born Ella Wheeler on 5 November 1850 on a farm in Johnstown, Wisconsin.
The Final Footprint – Wilcox Estate Burial Site, Short Beach, Connecticut.
On this day in 1991, the last recorded position of the commercial fishing vessel Andrea Gail was reported. The Andrea Gail began her final voyage on 20 September 1991, departing from Gloucester, Massachusetts.
The Final Footprint –
On this day in 2007, singer and actor Robert Goulet died from pulmonary fibrosis at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles at the age of 73. Born Robert Gérard Goulet on November 26, 1933 in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Cast as Sir Lancelot and originating the role in the 1960 Broadway musical Camelot starring opposite stars Richard Burton and Julie Andrews, he achieved instant recognition with his performance and interpretation of the song “If Ever I Would Leave You”, which became his signature song. His debut in Camelot marked the beginning of a stage, screen, and recording career. A Grammy Award and Tony Award winner, his career spanned almost six decades.
On this day in 1618, aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer, Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded at Whitehall in London at the age of 66. Born about 1552 in Devon, England. He rose rapidly in Queen Elizabeth I‘s favour and was knighted in 1585. Colonizer of Roanoke Island, he is credited with introducing potatoes and tobacco to England. In 1591, he secretly married Elizabeth Throckmorton, one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting. When the Queen discovered the deception, she had him imprisoned in the Tower of London. He would be released and would eventually regain favour with the Queen. Elizabeth died in 1603 and Raleigh was arrested and again imprisoned in the Tower of London for allegedly plotting against King James. Raleigh was found guilty but James spared his life and he was kept in the tower, legally dead. In 1616, Raleigh was released to conduct a second exploration of Venezuela, where his men attacked a Spanish outpost. The outraged Spanish ambassador demanded that James reinstate the death sentence and it was carried out on this date.
The Final Footprint – Before his execution Raleigh reportedly told the crowd the ax “is sharp medicine, but it is a physician for all diseases”. As was the custom, Raleigh’s head was presented to his wife. She had it embalmed and kept it at home.
On this day in 1971, guitarist, co-founder of the The Allman Brothers Band, brother of Gregg Allman, Skydog, Duane Allman died from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident in Macon, Georgia at the age of 24. Born Howard Duane Allman on 20 November 1946 in Nashville, Tennessee.
The Final Footprint – Allman’s remains were laid to rest in Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon. Shortly after Duane’s death, Ronnie Van Zant of Lynyrd Skynyrd began dedicating the song “Free Bird”, to the memory of Duane Allman in concert. In the “Free Bird” performance at Skynyrd’s famed 1976 appearance at Knebworth, England, Van Zant says to pianist Billy Powell, “Play it for Duane Allman.” In 1973, fans carved the very large letters “REMEMBER DUANE ALLMAN” in a dirt embankment along Interstate Highway 20 near Vicksburg, Mississippi. A photograph was published in Rolling Stone magazine and in the Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll; the carving itself lasted for over ten years. In 1998 the Georgia State Legislature passed a resolution designating a stretch of State Highway 19, US 41, within Macon as the “Duane Allman Boulevard” in his honor. Travis Tritt, in the song “Put Some Drive In Your Country” on his debut album, sings “Now I still love old country/I ain’t tryin’ to put it down/But damn I miss Duane Allman/I wish he was still around.”
And on this day in 1995, novelist (Candy, The Magic Christian), screenwriter (Dr. Strangelove, The Loved One, The Cincinnati Kid, Easy Rider), Terry Southern died of respiratory failure at St. Luke’s Hospital, New York City, age 71.
