John Filo’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling over the dead body of Jeffrey Miller
On this day in 1970, the Kent State shootings, also known as the May 4 massacre or the Kent State massacre, of unarmed college students by members of the Ohio National Guard at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, during a mass protest against the bombing of Cambodia by United States military forces. Twenty-eight guardsmen fired approximately 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis. Those killed were: Jeffrey Glenn Miller, age 20; Allison B. Krause, age 19; William Knox Schroeder, age 19; Sandra Lee Scheuer, age 20.
Some of the students who were shot had been protesting against the Cambodian Campaign, which President Richard Nixon announced during a television address on April 30 of that year. Other students who were shot had been walking nearby or observing the protest from a distance.
There was a significant national response to the shootings: hundreds of universities, colleges, and high schools closed throughout the United States due to a student strike of 4 million students, and the event further affected public opinion, at an already socially contentious time, over the role of the United States in the Vietnam War.
The Final Footprint
Each May 4 from 1971 to 1975, the Kent State University administration sponsored an official commemoration of the shootings. Upon the university’s announcement in 1976 that it would no longer sponsor such commemorations, the May 4 Task Force, a group made up of students and community members, was formed for this purpose. The group has organized a commemoration on the university’s campus each year since 1976; events generally include a silent march around the campus, a candlelight vigil, a ringing of the Victory Bell in memory of those killed and injured, speakers (always including eyewitnesses and family members), and music.
On May 12, 1977, a tent city was erected and maintained for a period of more than 60 days by a group of several dozen protesters on the Kent State campus. The protesters, led by the May 4 Task Force but also including community members and local clergy, were attempting to prevent the university from erecting a gymnasium annex on part of the site where the shootings had occurred seven years earlier, which they believed would obscure the historical event. Law enforcement finally brought the tent city to an end on July 12, 1977, after the forced removal and arrest of 193 people. The event gained national press coverage and the issue was taken to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 1990, twenty years after the shootings, a memorial commemorating the events of May 4 was dedicated on the campus on a 2.5-acre (1.0 ha) site overlooking the University’s Commons where the student protest took place. Even the construction of the monument became controversial and, in the end, only 7% of the design was constructed. The memorial does not contain the names of those killed or wounded in the shooting; under pressure, the university agreed to install a plaque near it with the names.
In 1999, at the urging of relatives of the four students killed in 1970, the university constructed an individual memorial for each of the students in the parking lot between Taylor and Prentice halls. Each of the four memorials is located on the exact spot where the student fell, mortally wounded. They are surrounded by a raised rectangle of granite featuring six lightposts approximately four feet high, with each student’s name engraved on a triangular marble plaque in one corner.
On this day in 1975, actor and comedian and Stooge, Moe Howard died of lung cancer in Los Angeles, California just shy of his 78th birthday. Born Moses Harry Horwitz on 19 June 1897 in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn. The leader of The Three Stooges, the classic comedy team who stared in motion pictures and television for four decades. The original line up included Moe and his brother Shemp and Larry Fine. When Shemp left in 1932 he was replaced by another brother, Jerome who took the stage name, Curly. Shemp returned when Curly suffered a stroke in 1946. On 22 November 1955, Shemp died of a heart attack and was replaced by Joe Besser. Besser was eventually replaced by Joe DeRita who took the name Curly-Joe. Moe was married to Helen Schonberger (1925-1975 his death). He apparently was very romantic and wrote his wife hundreds of love poems. My kinda guy! The Three Stooges humour spans generations. One of my sons is a fan.
The Final Footprint – Howard is entombed in the Garden of Memories, Alcove of Love mausoleum at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City, California. His wife Helen was entombed next to him when she passed away in later that year. Other notable Final Footprints at Hillside Memorial include; Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Neil Bogart, Cyd Charisse, Percy Faith, Lorne Greene, Al Jolson, Michael Landon, Leonard Nimoy, Suzanne Pleshette, Dinah Shore, Lupita Tovar, and Shelley Winters.
| Diana Dors | |
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 in I Married a Woman trailer, 1958 |
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On this day in 1984, actress and singer Diana Dors died from ovarian cancer in Windsor, Berkshire, England at the age of 52. Born Diana Mary Fluck on 23 October 1931 in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. She first came to public notice as a blonde bombshell in the style of American Marilyn Monroe, as promoted by her first husband, Dennis Hamilton, mostly via sex film-comedies and risqué modelling. After it turned out that Hamilton had been defrauding her, she continued to play up to her established image, and she made tabloid headlines with the parties reportedly held at her house. Later, she showed a genuine talent for TV, recordings, and cabaret, and gained new popularity as a regular chat-show guest.
Dors claimed to have left a large fortune to her son in her will, via a secret code in the possession of her third husband, actor Alan Lake, but after Lake’s suicide, this code was never found, and no money has ever been traced.
Dors was married three times:
- Dennis Hamilton Gittins (3 July 1951 – 3 January 1959, his death): married five weeks after meeting, at Caxton Hall; no children; lived in London, Berkshire, and Hollywood
- Richard Dawson (12 April 1959 – 1966, divorced): married in New York; two sons, Mark Dawson and Gary Dawson; lived in London, New York, and Hollywood
- Alan Lake (23 November 1968 – her death): married at Caxton Hall; one son, Jason Lake; lived at Orchard Manor, Sunningdale, Berkshire
In 1949, while filming Diamond City, she had a relationship with businessman Michael Caborn-Waterfield, the son of the Count Del-Colnaghi, who later founded the Ann Summerschain, which he named after his cousin/secretary. During the short relationship, Dors became pregnant, but Caborn-Waterfield paid for a back-street abortion, which took place on a kitchen table in Battersea. The relationship continued for a time, before Dors met Dennis Hamilton Gittins on the set of Lady Godiva Rides Again, with whom she had a second abortion in 1951.
During her relationship with Hamilton and until a few months before her death, Dors regularly held adult parties at her home. There, a number of celebrities, amply supplied with alcohol and drugs, mixed with young starlets against a background of both softcore and hardcore porn films. Dors gave all her guests full access to the entire house; her son Jason Lake later alleged in various media interviews and publications that she had equipped it with 8 mm movie cameras. The young starlets were made aware of the arrangements and were allowed to attend for free in return for making sure that their celebrity partners performed in bed at the right camera angles.
Dors became an early subject of the “celebrity exposé” tabloids, appearing regularly in the News of the World. In need of cash after her separation from Hamilton in 1958, she gave an interview in which she described their lives and the adult group parties in full, frank detail. The interview was serialised in the tabloid for 12 weeks, followed by an extended six-week series of sensational stories, creating negative publicity. Subsequently, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher, denounced Dors as a “wayward hussy”.
Television news and film companies with more general interests, partly because of her popularity and partly because of who was attending the parties, were unwilling to repeat the stories until well after Dors’ death. Her former lover and party guest Bob Monkhouse later commented in an interview after Dors’ death, “The awkward part about an orgy, is that afterwards you’re not too sure who to thank.”
The Final Footprint
She had converted to Catholicism in early 1973; hence, her funeral service was held at the Sacred Heart Church in Sunningdale on 11 May 1984, conducted by Father Theodore Fontanari. She was buried in Sunningdale Catholic Cemetery.
#RIP #OTD in 2009 actor (Blazing Saddles, History of the World Part I, The Cannonball Run), comedian and author Dom DeLuise died from cancer at Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California, at age 75. Calvary Cemetery, Woodside, New York
#RIP #OTD in 2009, actress (Alice Moore in the 1942 horror film Cat People, and its sequel, The Curse of the Cat People; Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein), socialite, Jane Randolph died in Gstaad from complications of a broken hip, aged 94. Cimitero di Ronco sopra Ascona, Ronco sopra Ascona, Distretto di Locarno, Ticino, Switzerland
Have you planned yours yet?
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On this day in 1987, singer and actress Dalida, died by suicide by overdosing on barbiturates, in Paris, at the age of 54. She left behind a note which read, “La vie m’est insupportable… Pardonnez-moi.” (“Life has become unbearable for me… Forgive me.”) Born Iolanda Cristina Gigliotti on 17 January 1933 in Cairo, Egypt. Her family was from Serrastretta, Calabria, Italy, but lived in Egypt, where Dalida’s father, Pietro Gigliotti, was first violinist (primo violino) at the Cairo Opera House. Dalida performed and recorded in more than 10 languages including: French, Arabic, Italian, Greek, German, English, Japanese, Hebrew, Dutch and Spanish. She received 55 gold records and was the first singer to receive a diamond record. Renowned for the changes she brought to the French and global music industry with her powerful and colourful performances, she is today still remembered by fans throughout the world. A 30-year career (she debuted in 1956 and recorded her last album in 1986, a few months before her death) and her death led to an iconic image as a tragic diva. My favorite songs sung by Dalida include; “Bambino”, “Gondolier”, “Tu Me Donnes”, and “Parole Parole”.
On this day in 2003, model and actress Suzy Parker died at her home in Montecito, California from kidney failure at the age of 70. Born Cecilia Ann Renee Parker on 28 October 1932 in San Antonio, Texas. One of the most recognizable faces of the 1950’s, appearing on many magazine covers, advertisements, and in movies and television series. Parker became the so-called signature face of the Coco Chanel brand. Parker was married three times including; Pierre de la Salle (1958-1961 divorce) and actor Bradford Dillman (1963-2003 her death).
The Final Footprint – Parker is interred in Santa Barbara Cemetery, Santa Barbara, California. Her grave is marked by a flat granite marker. Other notable Final Footprints at Santa Barbara include; Laurence Harvey, Fess Parker (no relation) and Kenneth Rexroth.
On this day in 1519, Italian polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer; Renaissance Man, Leonardo da Vinci died at the manor house Clos Lucé in Amboise, Touraine (in present-day Indre-et-Loire, France), at the age of 67. Born Lionardo di ser Piero da Vincion on 15 April 1452, in the Tuscan hill town of Vinci, in the lower valley of the Arno River in the territory of Florence. One of the most diversely talented people ever to have lived. Perhaps he best known for his paintings, Mona Lisa or La Giocondo, The Last Supper and his drawing Vitruvian Man. Da Vinci apparently had no close relationships with any women and never married. Reportedly in his final days Da Vinci apologized to “God and man for leaving so much undone.” If we all accomplished a fraction of what Da Vinci did the world would be an immeasurable better place.
The Final Footprint – King Francis I of France had apparently become a close friend and fact or legend reports that he held Leonardo’s head in his arms as he died. This story is beloved by the French and was portrayed in romantic paintings by Ingres, Ménageot and other French artists, as well as by Angelica Kauffman. In accordance with his will, sixty beggars followed his casket. Da Vinci is entombed in the Chapel of Saint-Hubert in Château d’Amboise, France. The engraving on his crypt front reads; EN CE LIEV REPOSENT LES RESTES DE LEONARDO DE VINCI.
On this day in 1864, opera composer Giacomo Meyerbeer died in Paris at the age of 72. Born Jacob Liebmann Beer on 5 September 1791 in Tasdorf (now a part of Rüdersdorf), near Berlin, then the capital of Prussia. His father was the enormously wealthy financier Judah Herz Beer (1769–1825) and his mother, Amalia (Malka) Wulff (1767–1854) also came from the moneyed elite. Their other children included the astronomer Wilhelm Beer and the poet Michael Beer. Meyerbeer changed his surname upon the death of his grandfather Liebmann Meyer Wulff (1811) and adopted his first name Giacomo during his period of study in Italy. In my opinion, he is one of the most successful stage composers of the nineteenth century. With his 1831 opera Robert le diable and its successors he gave the genre of grand opera a distinct new character. Meyerbeer’s grand opera style was achieved by his merging of German orchestra style with Italian vocal tradition. These were employed in the context of sensational and melodramatic libretti created by Eugène Scribe, and were enhanced by the up-to-date theatre technology of the Paris Opéra. They set a standard which helped to maintain Paris as the opera capital of the nineteenth-century. His 1824 opera Il crociato in Egitto was the first to bring him Europe-wide reputation, but it was Robert le diable (1831) which raised his status to great celebrity. His public career from 1831 until his death, during which he remained throughout a dominating figure in the world of opera, was summarized by his contemporary Hector Berlioz, who claimed that he ‘has not only the luck to be talented, but the talent to be lucky.’ Meyerbeer was at his peak with his operas Les Huguenots (1836) and Le prophète (1849); his last opera (L’Africaine) was performed posthumously. His operas made him the most frequently performed composer at the world’s leading opera houses in the nineteenth century. Meyerbeer, as a Prussian Court Kapellmeister (Director of Music) from 1832, and from 1843 as Prussian General Music Director, was also influential in opera in Berlin and throughout Germany. He was an early supporter of Richard Wagner, enabling the first production of the latter’s opera, Rienzi. He was commissioned to write the patriotic opera Ein Feldlager in Schlesien to celebrate the reopening of the Berlin Royal Opera House in 1844, and wrote music for certain Prussian state occasions. His operas were suppressed by the Nazi regime in Germany, and were neglected by opera houses through most of the twentieth century.
The Final Footprint – Gioachino Rossini, who, not having heard the news, came to Meyerbeer’s apartment the day after his death, intending to meet him, was shocked to hear the news and fainted. He was reportedly moved to write on the spot a choral tribute (Pleure, pleure, muse sublime!). A special train bore Meyerbeer’s body from the Gare du Nord to Berlin on 6 May, where he was entombed in the family vault at the 
On this day in 2000, U. S. Army veteran, bodybuilder and actor, Steve Reeves died from complications of lymphoma in Escondido, California at the age of 74. Born Stephen Lester Reeves on 21 January 1926 in Glasgow, Montana. While in high school, Reeves developed an interest in bodybuilding. After his military career, he began entering bodybuilding contests culminating with winning the Mr. Universe title in 1950. Reeves then began an acting career. In 1957, Reeves went to Italy and played the lead character in Pietro Francisci‘s Hercules, a low-budget epic based loosely on the tales of Jason and the Argonauts. From 1959 through 1964, Reeves went on to appear in a string of sword and sandal movies. Reeves reportedly turned down the role that finally went to Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars (1964) because he could not believe that “Italians could make a western”. That is what I call an “ouch babe” moment. I believe that Reeves was an early inspiration for Arnold Swarzenegger. I have been a fan of bodybuilding and an avid weightlifter since about 1990. I love the bodybuilder lifestyle, the workouts and diets; minus the steroids. Reeves is a legend and he is remembered.
On this day in 1883, painter 
Leenhoff in 1863. Leenhoff was a Dutch-born piano teacher of Manet’s age with whom he had been romantically involved for approximately ten years. Leenhoff initially had been employed by Manet’s father, Auguste, to teach Manet and his younger brother piano. She also may have been Auguste’s mistress. In 1852, Leenhoff gave birth, out of wedlock, to a son, Leon Koella Leenhoff. Eleven-year-old Leon Leenhoff, 
whose father may have been either of the Manets, posed often for Manet, most famously, as the subject of the Boy Carrying a Sword of 1861 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). He also appears as the boy carrying a tray in the background of The Balcony. Manet painted his wife in The Reading, among other paintings.
The Final Footprint – Manet is buried in Passy Cemetery in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. Opened in 1820 in the expensive residential and commercial districts of the Right Bank near the Champs-Élysées, by 1874 the small Passy Cemetery had become the aristocratic necropolis of Paris. Sheltered by a bower of chestnut trees, the cemetery is in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. The retaining wall of the cemetery is adorned with a bas relief (by Louis Janthial) commemorating the soldiers who fell in the Great War. Other notable final footprints as Passy include; Claude Debussy, Gabriel Fauré, Hubert de Givenchy, Octave Mirbeau, and Berthe Morisot.
Dead Matador, National Gallery of Art, 1864–1865
On this day in 1970 actress Inger Stevens died from a drug related overdose in Hollywood at the age of 35. Born Ingrid Stensland on October 18, 1934 in Stockholm. 
On this day in 1983, ballet choreographer George Balanchine died, aged 79, in Manhattan from Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease. Born Georgiy Melitonovich Balanchivadze on January 22, 1904 in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire. In my opinion, one of the most influential 20th century choreographers. Styled as the father of American ballet, he co-founded the New York City Ballet and remained its Artistic Director for more than 35 years.
On this day in 1983, blues musician, The Father of Chicago Blues, Muddy Waters died in his sleep from heart failure at his home in Westmont, Illinois at the age of 70. Born McKinley Morganfield on April 4, 1913 in Issaquena County, Mississippi. 
On this day in 1989, director, producer and screenwriter, Sergio Leone died from a heart attack in Rome at the age of 60. Born on 3 January 1929 in Rome. Best known as the director of three legendary, iconic westerns, often referred to as Spaghetti Westerns: A Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari) (1964) with Clint Eastwood; For a Few Dollars More (Per qualche dollaro in più) (1965) with Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef; and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo) (1966) with Eastwood, Van Cleef and Eli Wallach. The film score for all three movies was composed by Ennio Morricone. Leone also directed Once Upon a Time in the West (C’era una volta il West) (1968) with Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Jason Robards and Claudia Cardinale; and Once Upon a Time in America (C’era una volta il America) (1984) with Robert De Niro. All five of these movies are among my very favorites and I will stop what I am doing to watch them.
On this day in 2019, actor Peter Mayhew died 
On this day in 1980, director and producer, Alfred Hitchcock died of renal failure in his Bel Air, Los Angeles, California home at the age of 80. Born Alfred Joseph Hitchcock on 13 August 1899 in Leytonstone, London, England. One of the most influential filmmakers of all time. Hitchcock took suspense and psychological thrills to a whole new level in his films. His stories frequently feature fugitives on the run and beautiful blonde female characters. My favorite Hitchcock movies include: Suspicion (1941) with Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine; Spellbound (1945) with Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman; Notorious (1946) with Grant and Bergman; Dial M for Murder (1954) with Ray Milland and Grace Kelly; Rear Window (1954) with Jimmy Stewart and Kelly; To Catch a Thief (1955) with Grant and Kelly; Vertigo (1958) with Stewart and Kim Novak; North by Northwest (1959) with Grant and Eva Marie Saint; and Psycho (1960) with Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh.
On this day in 1991, actor Ken Curtis died in his sleep in Fresno, California at the age of 74. Born Curtis Wain Gates on 2 July 1916 in Lamar, Colorado. Best known for his role as Festus Haggen on the long-running CBS western television series, Gunsmoke. Through his first marriage, Curtis was a son-in-law of director John Ford. Curtis teamed with Ford and John Wayne in Rio Grande, The Quiet Man, The Wings of Eagles, The Searchers, The Horse Soldiers, The Alamo and How The West Was Won. I remember him best for his role as Charlie McCorry in The Searchers, perhaps my favorite western movie. Curtis was married three times; Lorraine Page, Barbara Ford (1952-1964 divorce) and Torrie Ahern Connelly (1966-1991 his death).
The Final Footprint – Curtis was cremated and his cremains were scattered in the Colorado flatlands.
On this day in 2019 
On this day in 1953, English-born Irish revolutionary, feminist, actress, and muse of William Butler Yeats, Maud Gonne died in Clonskeagh, Ireland at the age of 86. Born Edith Maud Gonne on 21 December 1866 in Tongham near Farnham, Surrey, England. She was won over to Irish nationalism by the plight of evicted people in the Land Wars. In 1889, she first met Yeats, who fell in love with her. Gonne in turn, was in love with Lucien Millevoye a French journalist and right-wing politician with whom she would have two children. Many of Yeats’s poems are inspired by her, or mention her. He wrote the plays The Countess Cathleen and Cathleen Ní Houlihan for her. His poem Aedh wishes for the Cloths of Heaven ends with a reference to her:
The Final Footprint – Gonne is interred in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, the largest nondenominational cemetery in Ireland. Her grave is marked by a simple upright stone marker. Upon their deaths, her son, his wife and their son were interred next to her. Michael Collins is also interred at Glasnevin.
On this day in 1932, poet Hart Crane likely died by suicide by jumping overboard from the steamship 
The Final Footprint – Although evidently, Crane had been drinking heavily and left no suicide note, witnesses believed his intentions to be suicidal, as several reported that he exclaimed “Goodbye, everybody!” before throwing himself overboard. His body was never recovered. A marker on his father’s tombstone in Park Cemetery, Garrettsville includes the inscription, “Harold Hart Crane 1899–1932 lost at sea”. 
On this day in 1984, jazz pianist, bandleader, and composer Count Basie died of pancreatic cancer in Hollywood, Florida at the age of 79. Born William James Basie on August 21, 1904 in Red Bank, New Jersey. His mother taught him to play the piano and he started performing in his teens. Dropping out of school, he learned to operate lights for vaudeville and to improvise accompaniment for silent films at a local movie theater in his home town of Red Bank, New Jersey. By age 16, he increasingly played jazz piano at parties, resorts and other venues. In 1924, he went to Harlem, where his performing career expanded; he toured with groups to the major jazz cities of Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City.
On this day in 1989, legendary comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, multiple Emmy winner, Lucille Ball died Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles from an aortic aneurysm at the age of 77. Born Lucille Désirée Ball on 6 August 1911 in Jamestown, New York. Perhaps best known as the star of the sitcom I Love Lucy, co-starring her then husband Desi Arnaz as Ricky Ricardo and Vivian Vance and William Frawley as Ethel and Fred Mertz, the Ricardo’s landlords and friends. Ball met and eloped with Cuban bandleader Arnaz in 1940. Ball and Arnaz founded Desilu Productions and Desilu Studios which was home to I Love Lucy and other hit television shows including; Star Trek, The Andy Griffith Show, Mission: Impossible, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Lucy Show, My Three Sons, Family Affair, The Untouchables, I Spy, Mannix, Gomer Pyle, USMC, and That Girl. On 17 July 1951, almost 40 years old, Ball gave birth to their first child, Lucie Désirée Arnaz. A year and a half later, Ball gave birth to their second child, Desiderio Alberto Arnaz IV, known as Desi Arnaz, Jr. Ball and Arnaz divorced on 4 May 1960. Her second marriage was to Gary Morton (1961-1989 her death).
The Final Footprint – Ball was cremated and her cremated remains were initially interred in Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. In 2002, her children had her cremated remains moved to the Ball family plot at Lake View Cemetery in Jamestown, New York where Ball’s mother, father, brother, and grandparents are buried. Her grave and her parent’s is marked by a large black granite upright marker with the inscription; “You’ve Come Home”.
On this day in 2013, United States Marine Corp veteran, musician and singer, Thumper Jones, No Show Jones, The Possum, George Jones died, aged 81, from hypoxic respiratory failure in Nashville. Born George Glenn Jones on September 12, 1931 in Saratoga, Texas. He achieved fame for his long list of hit records, including perhaps his best known song “He Stopped Loving Her Today”, as well as his distinctive voice and phrasing. Waylon Jennings expressed his opinion on Jones in his song “It’s Alright”: “If we all could sound like we wanted to, we’d all sound like George Jones.” In 1959, Jones recorded “White Lightning,” written by J. P. Richardson, which launched his career as a singer. During his career, Jones had more than 150 hits, both as a solo artist and in duets with other artists.He married his first wife, Dorothy Bonvillion, in 1950, and was divorced in 1951. He married Shirley Ann Corley in 1954. His second marriage ended in divorce in 1968; he married fellow country music singer Tammy Wynette a year later. After his divorce from Wynette in 1975, Jones married his fourth wife, Nancy Sepulvado, in 1983 and became sober for good in 1999.
On this day in 1472, Italian author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher, cryptographer, polymath, Renaissance man, Leon Battista Alberti died in Rome at the age of 68. Born in Genoa on 14 February 1404. Although he is often characterized as an “architect” exclusively, as art historian James Beck has observed, “to single out one of Leon Battista’s ‘fields’ over others as somehow functionally independent and self-sufficient is of no help at all to any effort to characterize Alberti’s extensive explorations in the fine arts.” Alberti’s life was described in Giorgio Vasari‘s Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori or ‘Lives of the most excellent painters, sculptors and architects’.
The Final Footprint – Entombment in Basilica di Santa Croce. Other notable final footprints at Santa Croce include; Ugo Foscolo, Galileo Galilei, Niccolò Machiavelli, Michelangelo, and Gioachino Rossini.
On this day in 1566, La Belle Cordière, (The Beautiful Ropemaker), French poet of the Renaissance, Louise Labé died in Parcieux-en-Dombes, France at the age of about 44. Born in 1520 or 1522 in Lyon. Her Œuvres include two prose works and poetry. Her poetry consists of three elegies in the style of the Heroides of Ovid, and twenty-four sonnets that draw on the traditions of Neoplatonism and Petrarchism. The Debat, the most popular of her works in the sixteenth century, inspired one of the fables of Jean de la Fontaine. The sonnets, remarkable for their frank eroticism, have been her most famous works following the early modern period.
On this day in 1595, Italian poet Torquato Tasso died at the convent of Sant’Onofrio in Rome at the age of 51. Born in Sorrento, Kingdon of Naples on 11 March 1544. Perhaps best known for his poem La Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered, 1580), in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the siege of Jerusalem. He suffered from mental illness and died a few days before he was due to be crowned as the king of poets by the Pope. Until the beginning of the 19th century, Tasso remained one of the most widely read poets in Europe.
The Final Footprint – Tasso is entombed in Sant’Onofrio.
On this day in 1995, Academy Award-winning actress, singer and dancer, Ginger Rogers died in Rancho Mirage, California of congestive heart failure at the age of 83. Born Virginia Catherine McMath on 16 July 1911 in Independence, Missouri. This year, 2011, will mark the 100th anniversary of her birth. Best known for her role as Fred Astaire’s romantic interest and dancing partner in a series of ten Hollywood musical films that revolutionized the genre. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Kitty Foyle (1940). When Rogers was nine years old, her mother Lela married John Logan Rogers. They lived in Fort Worth, Texas. Rogers reportedly dated Howard Hughes and even turned down his proposal. Rogers was married five times; Jack Pepper (1929-1931 divorce), Lew Ayres (1934-1941 divorce), Jack Briggs (1943-1949 divorce), Jacques Bergerac (1953-1957 divorce), and William Marshall (1961-1969 divorce).
The Final Footprint – Rogers was cremated and her cremains were interred next to her mother’s, and just a short distance from Astaires’s grave, in Oakwood Memorial Park in Chatsworth, California. Another notable final footprint at Oakwood is that of Gloria Grahame .
