The Final Footprint – In accordance with Cervantes’ will, he was buried in the neighboring convent of Trinitarian nuns, in central Madrid.  According to the English newspaper The Guardian, his “bones went missing in 1673 when building work was done at the convent. They are known to have been taken to a different convent and were returned later.”  Don Quixote has been the subject of a variety of works in other fields of art, including operas by the Italian composer Giovanni Paisiello, the French Jules Massenet, and the Spanish Manuel de Falla, a Russian ballet by the Russian-German composer Ludwig Minkus, a tone poem by the German composer Richard Strauss, a German film (1933) directed by G. W. Pabst, a Soviet film (1957) directed by Grigori Kozintsev, a 1965 ballet (no relation to the one by Minkus) with choreography by George Balanchine, an American musical – Man of La Mancha (1965) – by Dale Wasserman, Mitch Leigh, and Joe Darion, which was made into a film in 1972, directed by Arthur Hiller, and a song by Brazilian tropicalia-pioneers Os Mutantes.

#RIP #OTD in 1945, artist who worked with painting, printmaking (including etching, lithography and woodcuts), sculpture, Käthe Kollwitz died in Moritzburg, Saxony, Nazi Germany aged 77. cremated and honoured with an Ehrengrab (honor grave) in Berlin’s Friedrichsfelde Cemetery

Earl Hines
performing for Pvt. Charles Carpenter, songwriter and manager of the Hines Orchestra, at Camp Lee, during World War II

On this day in 1983 jazz pianist and band leader Earl “Fatha” Hines died in Oakland, California at the age of 79. Born Earl Kenneth Hines on December 28, 1903 in Duquesne, Pennsylvania. In my opinion, he is one of the most influential figures in the development of jazz piano

The trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie (a member of Hines’s big band, along with Charlie Parker) wrote, “The piano is the basis of modern harmony. This little guy came out of Chicago, Earl Hines. He changed the style of the piano. You can find the roots of Bud Powell, Herbie Hancock, all the guys who came after that. If it hadn’t been for Earl Hines blazing the path for the next generation to come, it’s no telling where or how they would be playing now. There were individual variations but the style of … the modern piano came from Earl Hines.” 

Hines in 1947 (photograph by William P. Gottlieb) 

The Final Footprint

Hines was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, California.

Ansel Adams

On this day in 1984, photographer and environmentalist Ansel Adams died from cardiovascular disease in the Intensive-care unit at the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula in Monterey, California, at age 82 with his wife, children, and grandchildren by his side. Born Ansel Easton Adams on February 20, 1902 in San Francsco. His black-and-white landscape photographs of the American West, especially Yosemite National Park, have been widely reproduced on calendars, posters, books, and the internet. He primarily used large-format cameras because the large film used with these cameras (primarily 5×4 and 8×10) contributed to the clarity of his prints.

Church, Taos Pueblo (1942)

Farm, farm workers, Mt. Williamson in background, Manzanar Relocation Center, California.

Evening, McDonald Lake, Glacier National Park (1942)

Baton practice at the Manzanar War Relocation Center, 1943. 

The Tetons and the Snake River(1942)

The Final Footprint

Adams was cremated and his cremains were scattered on Mount Ansel Adams, Yosemite National Park. Publishing rights for most of Adams’s photographs are handled by the trustees of The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust. An archive of Adams’s work is located at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

On this day in 1994, U. S. Navy veteran, U. S. Senator from California, 36th Vice President of the U. S., 37th President of the U. S., author Richard Milhous Nixon died from a stroke at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan at the age of 81.  Born 9 January 1913 in Yorba Linda, California.  He graduated from Whittier College in Whittier, California and received his law degree from Duke University.  Nixon said “I always remember that whatever I have done in the past or may do in the future, Duke University is responsible in one way or another.”  Nixon was married  to Thelma Catherine “Pat” Ryan (1940-1993 her death).  He served as Vice President during both of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s terms in office.  Nixon and his running mate, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. lost the 1960 presidential election to John F. Kennedy and his running mate Lyndon Baines Johnson.  He lost the 1962 governor of California election to Pat Brown.  Nixon again ran for president, with Spiro Agnew as his running mate, in 1968 this time defeating Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey.  He and Agnew ran for reelection in 1972 winning in a landslide over George McGovern and Sargent Shriver (JFK‘s brother-in-law and father of Maria Owings Shriver Schwarzenegger).  On 10 October 1973, Vice President Agnew resigned, amid charges of bribery, tax evasion and money laundering from his tenure as Maryland’s governor.  Nixon chose Gerald Ford, Republican Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, to replace Agnew.  Nixon resigned the office of the presidency on 9 August 1974 over the Nixon administration’s involvement and subsequent cover-up of the break-in to Democratic party headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C. on 17 June 1972.  During the subsequent investigation, Nixon said during a 17 November 1973 televised question and answer session with the press; “People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook.  Well, I’m not a crook. I’ve earned everything I’ve got.”  Ford took the oath of office the day Nixon resigned becoming the 38th POTUS.  Ford selected Nelson Rockefeller to fill the vice presidency.  On 8 September 1974, Ford granted Nixon a “full, free, and absolute pardon”. This ended any possibility of an indictment.  Nixon then released a statement: “I was wrong in not acting more decisively and forthrightly in dealing with Watergate… No words can describe the depths of my regret and pain at the anguish of my mistakes over Watergate have caused the nation and presidency, a nation I so deeply love and an institution I so greatly respect.”  Nixon would spend the remaining 20 years of his life rebuilding his reputation as a world statesman and adviser on foreign affairs to his presidential successors.

The Final Footprint – Nixon is interred next to his wife Pat at the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda.  His grave is marked by an upright slant granite marker and features the inscription; “THE GREATEST HONOR HISTORY CAN BESTOW IS THE TITLE OF PEACEMAKER.”  At his funeral, eulogies were delivered by President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole, California Governor Pete Wilson, and the Reverend Billy Graham.  In attendance were former Presidents Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and their respective first ladies.  In keeping with his wishes, his funeral was not a full state funeral.  Nixon has been portrayed in multiple films and has been the subject of several books.  The films include; Oliver Stone’s Nixon (1995) starring Anthony Hopkins and Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon (2008) starring Frank Langella which received five Oscar nominations; Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor.

#RIP #OTD in 1995 poet and translator, muse of Donald Hall, New Hampshire’s poet laureate, Jane Kenyon died from leukemia in Wilmot, New Hampshire, aged 47. Proctor Cemetery, Andover, New Hampshire.

#RIP #OTD in 2003 songwriter (“We Could”, with husband Boudleaux; “Rocky Top,” “Bye Bye Love”, “Wake Up Little Susie”) Felice Bryant died in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, aged 77. Woodlawn Memorial Park, Nashville

On this day in 2004, Arizona State Sun Devil, pro football player and United States Army Ranger, Pat Tillman died in the mountains of Afghanistan as a result of a friendly fire incident.  Born Patrick Daniel Tillman on 6 November 1976, in Fremont, California.  Tillman left his professional career and enlisted in the United States Army in June 2002 in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.  His service in Iraq and Afghanistan, and subsequent death, were the subject of much media attention.  Tillman served several tours in combat before he died.  At first, the Army reported that Tillman had been killed by enemy fire.  Controversy ensued when the Pentagon notified the Tillman family that he had died as a result of a friendly fire incident.  Tillman’s family and other critics allege that the Department of Defense delayed the disclosure for weeks after Tillman’s memorial service out of a desire to protect the image of the U.S. armed forces.

The Final Footprint – Tillman was cremated and his cremains were scattered at sea.  He received posthumous Silver Star and Purple Heart medals.  After his death, the Pat Tillman Foundation was established to carry forward its view of Tillman’s legacy by inspiring and supporting those striving for positive change in themselves and the world.  A highway bypass around the Hoover Dam has a bridge bearing Tillman’s name.  Completed in October 2010, the Mike O’Callaghan – Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge spans the Colorado River between Nevada and Arizona.  On Sunday 19 September 2004, all teams of the NFL wore a memorial decal on their helmets in honor of Pat Tillman.  The Arizona Cardinals continued to wear this decal throughout the 2004 season.  The Cardinals retired his number 40, and Arizona State did the same for the number 42 he wore with the Sun Devils.  The Cardinals have named the plaza surrounding their University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale Pat Tillman Freedom Plaza.  On 12 November 2006, during a Cardinals game versus the Cowboys, a bronze statue was revealed in his honor.  ASU also named the football locker room entryway to Sun Devil Stadium the “Pat Tillman Memorial Tunnel” and made a “PT-42” patch that they place on the neck of their uniforms as a permanent feature.  Before the 2013 season, the Tillman Tunnel was renovated with graphics, signage, double doors separate the locker room from the tunnel, and television replaying Tillman’s career highlights, sound system and a gate opens up to the field featuring an image of him looking as if he’s leading the team out.  In 2004, the NFL donated $250,000 to the United Service Organizations to build a USO center in memory of Tillman.  The Pat Tillman USO Center, the first USO center in Afghanistan, opened on Bagram Air Base on 1 April 2005.  The Pacific-10 Conference renamed its annual defensive player-of-the-year award in football to the Pat Tillman Defensive Player of the Year.  Forward Operating Base Tillman is close to the Pakistan border, near the village of Lwara in Paktika Province, Afghanistan.  Tillman’s high school, Leland High School in San Jose, renamed its football field after him.  In New Almaden, an unincorporated community adjacent to San Jose, CA where Tillman grew up, a memorial was constructed near the Almaden Quicksilver County Park.  Jon Krakauer, author of Into Thin Air and Into the Wild, chronicles Tillman’s story in Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, published by Doubleday on 15 September 2009.  Tillman’s mother, Mary Tillman, wrote a book about her son, Boots on the Ground by Dusk, which was released in April 2008.

#RIP #OTD in 2006 actress (The Paradine Case, The Third Man, Senso, Il Grido, Eyes Without a Face, Oedipus Rex, Lisa and the Devil, La Luna, Suspiria) Alida Valli died at home in Rome aged 84. Cimitero Comunale Monumentale Campo Verano, Rome

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The Final Footprint – Abelard was first buried at St. Marcel, but his remains were soon carried off secretly to the Paraclete, and given over to the loving care of Héloïse, who in time came herself to rest beside him in 1163.  The bones of the pair were moved more than once afterwards, but they were preserved even through the vicissitudes of the French Revolution, and now are presumed to lie in the well-known tomb in Père Lachaise Cemetery in eastern Paris.  The transfer of their remains there in 1817 is considered to have considerably contributed to the popularity of that cemetery, at the time still far outside the built-up area of Paris.  By tradition, lovers or lovelorn singles leave letters at the crypt, in tribute to the couple or in hope of finding true love.  However, this chain of events is disputed.  The Oratory of the Paraclete claims Abélard and Héloïse are buried there and that what exists in Père-Lachaise is merely a monument, or cenotaph.  Others believe that while Abelard is buried in the tomb at Père-Lachaise, Heloïse’s remains are elsewhere.  Other notable Final Footprints at Père Lachaise include; Guillaume Apollinaire, Honoré de Balzac, Jean-Dominique Bauby, Georges Bizet, Maria Callas, Chopin, Colette, Auguste Comte, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Max Ernst, Molière, Jim Morrison, Édith Piaf, Camille Pissarro, Marcel Proust, Sully Prudhomme, Gioachino Rossini, Georges-Pierre Seurat, Simone Signoret, Gertrude Stein, Dorothea Tanning, Alice B. Toklas, Oscar Wilde, and Richard Wright.

#RIP #OTD in 1699 dramatist (Phèdre, Andromaque, Athalie), one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, (Molière & Corneille), Jean Racine died from liver cancer, aged 59. Saint-Étienne-du-Mont church in Paris

On this day in 1910, author and humorist, Mark Twain died of a heart attack in Redding, Connecticut at the age of 74.  Born Samuel Langhorne Clemens on 30 November 1835 in Florida, Missouri.  Perhaps most noted for his novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885).  Ernest Hemingway said  “All modern American literature comes from” Huckleberry Finn.  William Faulkner called Twain “the father of American literature.”  Jimmy Buffett included Twain’s Following the Equator (1869) on his “baker’s dozen of books I would have to take to a desert island.”  Twain was a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi and took his pen name from the riverboat measurement term “mark twain” or two fathoms (12 feet).  Two fathoms, a depth indicating safe water for passage of boat, was measured on the sounding line.  The term twain is an archaic term for “two.”  The riverboatman’s cry was by the mark twain, meaning according to the mark on the line, the depth is two fathoms and it is safe to pass.  Twain married Olivia Langdon (1870-1904 her death).  In 1909, Twain was quoted as saying:  “I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835.  It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it.  It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet.  The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.”  His prediction was accurate and he got his wish passing away one day after the comet’s closest approach to earth.  Both Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn were a part of my childhood.

The Final Footprint – Twain is interred in the Langdon family plot next to his wife and three of his four children, who preceded him in death, in Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, New York.   Their plot is marked by a 12-foot (i.e., two fathoms, or “mark twain”) monument.  His grave is marked by an upright granite headstone.  Twain’s legacy lives on and his namesakes continue to grow; schools, structures, people and awards.

#RIP #OTD in 1924 Italian actress, one of the greatest of her time, notably in the plays of Gabriele d’Annunzio and Henrik Ibsen, Eleonora Duse died of pneumonia in Pittsburgh in Suite 524 of the Hotel Schenley, aged 65. Sant’ Anna, Asalo, Italy.

On this day in 1978, singer-songwriter Sandy Denny died at Atkinson Morley Hospital, Wimbledon, England, from traumatic mid-brain haemorrhage and blunt force trauma after a fall at a friends home, at the age of 31. Born Alexandra Elene MacLean Denny on 6 January 1947 in . Denny was the lead singer of the British folk rock band Fairport Convention. She has been described as “the pre-eminent British folk rock singer”. After briefly working with the Strawbs, Denny joined Fairport Convention in 1968, remaining with them until 1969. She formed the short-lived band Fotheringay in 1970, before focusing on a solo career. Between 1971 and 1977, Denny released four solo albums: The North Star Grassman and the Ravens, Sandy, Like an Old Fashioned Waltz and Rendezvous. She also duetted with Robert Plant on “The Battle of Evermore” for Led Zeppelin’s album Led Zeppelin IV in 1971. Music publications Uncut and Mojo have called Denny Britain’s finest female singer-songwriter. Her composition “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?” has been recorded by several other artists. Her recorded work has been the subject of numerous reissues, along with a wealth of previously unreleased material which has appeared over the more than 40 years since her death, most notably including a 19-CD box set which was released in November 2010.

The Final Footprint

The funeral took place on 27 April 1978 at Putney Vale Cemetery, London. After the vicar had read Denny’s favourite psalm, Psalm 23, a piper played “Flowers of the Forest”, a traditional song commemorating the fallen of Flodden Field and one which had appeared on the 1970 Fairport album Full House. The inscription on her headstone reads:

The Lady
Alexandra Elene
MacLean Lucas
(Sandy Denny)
6·1·47 – 21·4·78

Other notable final footprints at Putney Vale include; J. Bruce Ismay chairman of White Star Line and a passenger of its ship RMS Titanic, and Eugen Sandow the father of modern bodybuilding.

On this day in 2003,  singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist, Nina Simone died in her sleep at her home in Carry-le-Rouet, Bouches-du-Rhône from breast cancer at the age of 70.  Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina on 21 February 1933.  Simone worked in a broad range of musical styles including classical, jazz, blues, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop.  Her recording Gershwin and Gershwin’s, “I Loves You, Porgy” was a hit in the United States in 1958.  Over the length of her career Simone recorded more than 40 albums, mostly between 1958, when she made her debut with Little Girl Blue, and 1974.  Her musical style arose from a fusion of gospel and pop songs with classical music, in particular with influences from her first inspiration, Johann Sebastian Bach, and accompanied with her expressive jazz-like singing in her characteristic contralto voice.  She injected her classical background into her music as much as possible to give it more depth and quality, as she felt that pop music was inferior to classical.  Her intuitive grasp on the audience–performer relationship was gained from a unique background of playing piano accompaniment for church revivals and sermons regularly from the early age of six years old.

The Final Footprint – Her funeral service was attended by singers Miriam Makeba and Patti LaBelle, poet Sonia Sanchez, actor Ossie Davis, among others.  Simone’s ashes were scattered in several African countries.

Prince
performing at the 2008 Coachella Festival

And on this day in 2016, singer-songwriter, actor, multi-instrumentalist, philanthropist, dancer and record producer, Camille, (Love Symbol), The Artist Formerly Known as Prince (TAFKAP), The Artist, Prince died from an accidental fentanyl opioid overdose at his Paisley Park home in Chanhassen, Minnesota at the age of 57.  Born Prince Rogers Nelson on June 7, 1958 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Prince was a musical innovator who was known for his eclectic work, flamboyant stage presence, extravagant dress and makeup, and wide vocal range. His music integrates a wide variety of styles, including funk, rock, R&B, new wave, soul, psychedelia, and pop. He has sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling artists of all time. He won seven Grammy Awards, an American Music Award, a Golden Globe Award, and an Academy Award for the film Purple Rain. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, his first year of eligibility.

He signed a recording contract with Warner Bros. at the age of 18, and released his debut album For You in 1978. His 1979 album Prince went platinum, and his next three records—Dirty Mind (1980), Controversy (1981), and 1999 (1982. In 1984, he began referring to his backup band as the Revolution and released Purple Rain, the soundtrack album to his eponymous 1984 film debut. It quickly became his most critically and commercially successful release, spending 24 consecutive weeks atop the Billboard 200 and selling over 20 million units worldwide. After releasing the albums Around the World in a Day (1985) and Parade (1986), The Revolution disbanded, and Prince released the double album Sign o’ the Times (1987) as a solo artist. He released three more solo albums before debuting the New Power Generation band in 1991.

In 1993, while in a contractual dispute with Warner Bros., he changed his stage name to , an unpronounceable symbol also known as the “Love Symbol”, and began releasing new albums at a faster pace to remove himself from contractual obligations. He released five records between 1994 and 1996 before signing with Arista Records in 1998. In 2000, he began referring to himself as “Prince” again. He released 16 albums after that, including the platinum-selling Musicology (2004). His final album, Hit n Run Phase Two, was first released on the Tidal streaming service on December 12, 2015.

The Final Footprint – Prince was cremated and his cremains were placed into a custom, 3D printed urn shaped like the Paisley Park estate. The urn is on display in the atrium of the Paisley Park complex.

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The Final Footprint – Stoker was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium and his cremated remains were placed in a urn at Golders Green.  To pay respects to him, visitors must be escorted to the room where the urn is kept.  The cremated remains of his son, Irving Noel Stoker, were placed in the same urn following his death in 1961.

Other notable Final Footprints at Golders Green include; Kingsley Amis, Marc Bolan, Sigmund Freud, Johnny Kidd, Keith Moon, Anna Pavlova, and Peter Sellers.  In addition, among those who were cremated here, but whose cremated remains are elsewhere; Neville Chamberlain, T. S. Eliot, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, Vivien Leigh, Peter O’Toole, Ralph Vaughan Williams, H. G. Wells, and Amy Winehouse.

Stoker did not invent the vampire, but his novel’s influence on the popularity of vampires has been singularly responsible for many theatrical, film and television interpretations since its publication.  Dracula was not an immediate bestseller, although reviewers were unstinting in their praise.  It only reached its broad iconic legendary classic status later when the movie versions appeared.  The first film adaptation was Nosferatu (1922), directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau and starred Max Schreck as Count Orlock.  The first authorized film version was Tod Browning’s Dracula (1931) starring Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula.  My favorite version is Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), starring Gary Oldman as Count Dracula and Winona Ryder as Mina Harker, and featuring Anthony Hopkins as Professor Abraham Van Helsing, Keanu Reeves as Jonathan Harker, and Sadie Frost as Lucy Westenra.  In 2009, Dracula: The Un-Dead, a sequel novel was released, written by Dacre Stoker, his great-grandnephew, and Ian Holt.

#RIP #OTD in 1991 singer/songwriter (“Itchycoo Park”, “Lazy Sunday”, “All or Nothing”, “Tin Soldier”, “30 Days in the Hole”) and frontman guitarist of Small Faces and Humble Pie, Steve Marriott died in a fire at his home in Arkesden, Essex at the age of 44. Cremation

#RIP #OTD in 1991  film and television director (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Dirty Harry, Escape from Alcatraz, The Shootist), producer, Don Siegel died from cancer in Nipomo, California, aged 78. Cayucos-Morro Bay District Cemetery, Cayucos, California

#RIP #OTD in 1992 actor, comedian, singer, writer, remembered for his television programme The Benny Hill Show, Benny Hill died at his home, Teddington, Greater London, in his armchair in front of the TV from a heart attack, aged 68. Hollybrook Cemetery, Bassett, Southampton

#RIP #OTD in 1993, iconic comedian in Latin America and Spain, actor (Around World in 80 Days, Pepe), Cantinflas, Mario Moreno dies from lung cancer in Mexico City aged 81. Thousands appeared on a rainy day for his funeral. The ceremony was a national event, lasting three days. He was honored by many heads of state and the United States Senate, which held a moment of silence for him. His cremated remains are in the crypt of the Moreno Reyes family, in the Panteón Español (“Spanish Cemetery”) in Mexico City.

And on this day in 1999, the Columbine High School massacre shooting occurred at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado. The perpetrators, twelfth grade (senior) students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered 12 students and one teacher. Ten students were killed in the library, where the pair subsequently committed suicide.  Those killed were;

Rachel Scott, Daniel Rohrbough, William David Sanders, Kyle Velasquez, Steven Curnow, Cassie Bernall, Isaiah Shoels, Matthew Kechter, Lauren Townsend, John Tomlin, Kelly Fleming, Daniel Mauser, and Corey DePooter.  Anne Marie Hochhalter died on 16 February 2025 from complications from the wounds she suffered that day.

At the time, it was the deadliest shooting at a high school in United States history. The crime has inspired several copycats, and “Columbine” has become a byword for a school shooting.

The two perpetrators injured 21 additional people with gunshots and also exchanged gunfire with the police. Another three people were injured trying to escape the school. In addition to the shootings, the attack involved several homemade bombs. The largest of these were placed in the cafeteria; car bombs were also placed in the parking lot and at another location that was intended to divert first responders.

The motive remains unclear, but the pair planned the crime for about a year and wished for the massacre to rival the Oklahoma City bombing and cause the most deaths in United States history.

The incident resulted in the introduction of the Immediate Action Rapid Deployment tactic, which is used in situations where an active shooter is trying to kill people rather than take hostages. Columbine also resulted in an increased emphasis on school security with zero tolerance policies. Debates were sparked over gun control laws and gun culture, high school cliques, subcultures, and bullying. Also discussed were the moral panic over goths, social outcasts, the use of pharmaceutical antidepressants by teenagers, teenage Internet use and violence in video games.

The Final Footprint

HOPE Columbine Memorial Library

The Columbine memorial in Clement Park

In 2000, youth advocate Melissa Helmbrecht organized a remembrance event in Denver featuring two surviving students, called “A Call to Hope.” The library where most of the massacre took place was removed and replaced with an atrium. In 2001, a new library, the HOPE memorial library, was built next to the west entrance.

On February 26, 2004, thousands of pieces of evidence from the massacre were put on display at the Jeffco fairgrounds in Golden.

A permanent memorial “to honor and remember the victims of the April 20, 1999 shootings at Columbine High School” was dedicated on September 21, 2007, in Clement Park.

#RIP #OTD in 2021, The Queen of Burlesque, burlesque star, actress (French Peep Show, Paris After Midnight, Striptease Girl Teaserama), Tempest Storm died in Las Vegas aged 93. Lovely Grove Baptist Church Cemetery, Eastman, Georgia

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Portrait by Richard Westall

On  this day in 1824, poet and eading figure in the Romantic movement, Lord Byron died at the age of 36 in Missolonghi, Aetolia-Acarnania,Ottoman Empire (Greece).  Born George Gordon Byron on 22 January 1788 in a house on 24 Holles Street in London.  In my opinion, Byron is one of the greatest British poets, and remains widely read and influential.  He travelled widely across Europe, especially in Italy where he lived for seven years.  Later in life, Byron joined the Greek War of Independence fighting the Ottoman Empire, for which many Greeks revere him as a national hero.  Often described as the most flamboyant and notorious of the major Romantics, Byron was both celebrated and castigated in life for his aristocratic excesses, including huge debts, numerous love affairs, rumours of a scandalous liaison with his half-sister, and self-imposed exile.  He also fathered the Countess Ada Lovelace, whose work on Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine is considered a founding document in the field of computer science.  Perhaps his best known works are the lengthy narrative poems Don Juan and Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and the short lyric She Walks in Beauty. 

Lord Byron On His Deathbed by Joseph Denis Odevaere

The Final Footprint – Alfred, Lord Tennyson would later recall the shocked reaction in Britain when word was received of Byron’s death.  The Greeks mourned Lord Byron deeply.  The national poet of Greece, Dionysios Solomos, wrote a poem about the unexpected loss, named To the Death of Lord Byron.  Βύρων (“Vyron”), the Greek form of “Byron”, continues in popularity as a masculine name in Greece, and a town near Athens is called Vyronas in his honour.  Byron’s body was embalmed, but the Greeks wanted some part of their hero to stay with them.  According to some sources, his heart remained at Missolonghi.  His other remains were sent to England (accompanied by his faithful manservant, “Tita”) for burial in Westminster Abbey, but the Abbey refused for reason of “questionable morality”.  Huge crowds viewed his body as he lay in state for two days in London.  He is buried at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire. A marble slab given by the King of Greece is laid directly above Byron’s grave.  A duplicate of the slab was later placed in Westminster Abbey.  His daughter, Ada Lovelace, was later buried beside him.  Byron’s friends raised the sum of 1,000 pounds to commission a statue of the writer; Thorvaldsen offered to sculpt it for that amount.  However, for ten years after the statue was completed in 1834, most British institutions turned it down, and it remained in storage.  The statue was refused by the British Museum, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and the National Gallery before Trinity College, Cambridge, finally placed the statue of Byron in its library.  In 1969, 145 years after Byron’s death, a memorial to him was finally placed in Westminster Abbey.  The memorial had been lobbied for since 1907: The New York Times wrote, “People are beginning to ask whether this ignoring of Byron is not a thing of which England should be ashamed … a bust or a tablet might be put in the Poets’ Corner and England be relieved of ingratitude toward one of her really great sons.”.  Robert Ripley had drawn a picture of Boatswain’s grave with the caption “Lord Byron’s dog has a magnificent tomb while Lord Byron himself has none”.  This came as a shock to the English, particularly schoolchildren, who, Ripley said, raised funds of their own accord to provide the poet with a suitable memorial.  Close to the centre of Athens, Greece, outside the National Garden, is a statue depicting Greece in the form of a woman crowning Byron.  The statue is by the French sculptors Henri-Michel Chapu and Alexandre Falguière.

Dame Daphne du Maurier DBE
(about 1930)

On this day in 1989 author and playwright Daphne du Maurier died, aged 81, at her home in Cornwall. Born on May 1907 in London.

Although she is classed as a romantic novelist, her stories seldom feature a conventional happy ending and have been described as “moody and resonant” with overtones of the paranormal. These bestselling works were not at first taken seriously by critics, but have since earned an enduring reputation for storytelling craft. Many have been successfully adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel, and Jamaica Inn, and the short stories “The Birds” and “Don’t Look Now/Not After Midnight”.

Du Maurier spent much of her life in Cornwall, where most of her works are set. As her fame increased, she became more reclusive.

Du Maurier married Major (later Lieutenant-General) Frederick “Boy” Browning in 1932. Biographers have noted that du Maurier’s marriage was at times somewhat chilly and that she could be aloof and distant to her children, especially the girls, when immersed in her writing. Her husband died in 1965 and soon after Daphne moved to Kilmarth, near Par, Cornwall, which became the setting for The House on the Strand.

After her death in 1989, references were made to her reputed bisexuality; an alleged affair with Gertrude Lawrence, as well as her attraction to Ellen Doubleday, the wife of her U.S. publisher Nelson Doubleday, were cited. The Daphne du Maurier Companion, edited by Helen Taylor, includes Taylor’s claims that du Maurier confessed to her in 1965 that she had had an incestuous relationship with her father and that he had been a violent alcoholic.

In correspondence that her family released to biographer Margaret Forster, du Maurier explained to a trusted few people her own unique slant on her sexuality: her personality comprised two distinct people – the loving wife and mother (the side she showed to the world); and the lover (a decidedly male energy) hidden from virtually everyone and the power behind her artistic creativity. According to Forster’s biography, du Maurier believed the male energy propelled her writing. Forster wrote that du Maurier’s denial of her bisexuality unveiled a “homophobic” fear of her true nature.

The Final Footprint

Her body was cremated and her ashes scattered off the cliffs at Fowey, Kilmarth, Cornwall.

Levon Helm
performing in 2004 on the Village Green in Woodstock, New York

On this day in 2012, musician, drummer, actor Levon Helm died from throat cancer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City at the age of 71. Born Mark Lavon Helm on May 26, 1940 in Elaine, Arkansas. Perhaps best known as the drummer and one of the vocalists for The Band. Helm was known for his soulful, country-accented voice, multi-instrumental ability, and creative drumming style, highlighted on many of the Band’s recordings, such as “The Weight”, “Up on Cripple Creek”, and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”.

Helm also had a successful career as a film actor, appearing as Loretta Lynn’s father in Coal Miner’s Daughter, as Chuck Yeager’s friend and colleague Captain Jack Ridley in The Right Stuff, and as a Tennessee firearms expert in Shooter.

In 1998, Helm was diagnosed with throat cancer, which caused him to lose his singing voice. After treatment, his cancer eventually went into remission, and he gradually regained the use of his voice. His 2007 comeback album Dirt Farmer earned the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album in February 2008. In 2010, Electric Dirt, his 2009 follow-up to Dirt Farmer, won the first Grammy Award for Best Americana Album, a category inaugurated in 2010. In 2011, his live album Ramble at the Ryman won the Grammy in the same category. On April 17, 2012, his wife and daughter announced on Helm’s website that he was “in the final stages of his battle with cancer” and thanked fans while requesting prayers. Two days later, Helm died from throat cancer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City at the age of 72.

Helm met singer-songwriter Libby Titus in April 1969, while the Band was recording its second album.

Helm met his future wife, Sandra Dodd, in 1975 in California, while he was still involved with Titus. Helm and Dodd were married on September 7, 1981.

Gustave Moreau
Self-portrait, 1850

On this day in 1898 Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau died of stomach cancer in Paris at the age of 72. Born in Paris on 18 April 1898. His main emphasis was the illustration of biblical and mythological figures. As a painter, Moreau appealed to the imaginations of some Symbolist writers and artists. He is recognized for his works that are influenced by the Italian Renaissance and exoticism. His art work was preserved in Paris at the Musée Gustave Moreau. 

Moreau had a 25-year personal, possibly romantic relationship, with Adelaide-Alexandrine Dureux (b.Guise, 8 November 1835), a woman whom he drew several times. On 28 March 1890, Dureux died. Her death affected Moreau greatly, and his work after this point contained a more melancholic edge.

The Final Footprint

Moreau is entombed at the Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris in his parent’s tomb. Other notable final footprints at Montmartre include Hector Berlioz, Dalida, Edgar Degas, Léo Delibes, Alexandre Dumas, fils, Marie Duplessis, Théophile Gautier, Henri Murger, Jacques Offenbach, François Truffaut, and Alfred de Vigny.

Gallery

• • 

    Oedipus and the Sphinx(1864)

• • 

    Jason and Medea (1865)

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    Orpheus (1865)

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    Venus Rising from the Sea(1866)

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    Europa and the Bull (1869)

• • 

    La chimère (1876)

• • 

    Salomé (1876)

• • 

    The Apparition (1876)

• • 

    Jacob and the Angel (1878)

• • 

    Galatée (1880)

• • 

    The Sacred Elephant (Péri)(1885)

• • 

    Eve by Gustave Moreau (1885)

• • 

    The Toilette (1885–90)

• • 

    Hesiod and the Muse (1891)

• • 

    Song of Songs (Cantique des Cantiques) (1893)

• 

  Jupiter and Semele (1894–95) 

On this day in 1955, theoretical physicist, the father of modern physics, Albert Einstein died in Princeton Hospital in Princeton, New Jersey at the age of 76.  Born on 14 March 1879 in Ulm, in the Kingdom of Württemberg in the German Empire.  Einstein discovered the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics.  He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics “for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect”.  Einstein was visiting the United States when Hitler came to power in 1933.  He did not go back to Germany, becoming a U. S. citizen in 1940.  In the summer of 1939, Einstein wrote a letter, with Leo Szilard, to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, alerting him of the possibility that Nazi Germany might be developing an atomic bomb.  The letter recommended that the U.S. government should become directly involved with uranium research and chain reaction research.  Einstein and Szilard, along with other refugees such as Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner, “regarded it as their responsibility to alert Americans to the possibility that German scientists might win the race to build an atomic bomb, and to warn that Hitler would be more than willing to resort to such a weapon.”  Einstein married twice;  Mileva Marić (1903-1919 divorce) and Elsa Löwenthal (1919-1936 her death).  On his religious belief, Einstein said; “I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings.”  The day before he died, Einstein experienced internal bleeding caused by the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm.  He refused surgery, saying: “I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.”  I have always thought physics was fascinating and had I been born a little smarter, actually a lot smarter, perhpaps I would have been a physicist.  It is the study of the final frontier, or the next frontier.

The Final Footprint – Einstein was cremated and his cremains were possibly scattered around the grounds of The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.  Einstein has been the subject of, or inspiration for, many novels, films, plays, and works of music.

Dick Clark
in 1961

And on this day in 2012, radio and television personality, television producer and film actor, as well as a cultural icon Dick Clark died from a heart attack at the age of 82 in Santa Monica, California. Born Richard Wagstaff Clark on November 30, 1929 Perhaps best known for hosting American Bandstand from 1957 to 1987. He also hosted the game show Pyramid and Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, which transmitted Times Square’s New Year’s Eve celebrations. Clark was well known for his trademark sign-off, “For now, Dick Clark — so long!”, accompanied by a facsimile of a military salute.

As host of American Bandstand, Clark introduced rock & roll to many Americans. The show gave many new music artists their first exposure to national audiences, including Iggy Pop, Ike and Tina Turner, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Stevie Wonder, Prince, Talking Heads, Simon & Garfunkel and Madonna. Episodes he hosted were among the first in which blacks and whites performed on the same stage, and likewise among the first in which the live studio audience sat without racial segregation. Due to his perennial youthful appearance and his largely teenaged audience of American Bandstand, Clark was often referred to as “America’s oldest teenager” or “the world’s oldest teenager”.

as host of The $10,000 Pyramid

in 1963. His ABC radio show was called “Dick Clark Reports”.

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1. “Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.”
2. “Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.”
3. “Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.”
4. “Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.”
5. “Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.”
6. “Industry. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.”
7. “Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.”
8. “Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.”
9. “Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.”
10. “Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.”
11. “Tranquility. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.”
12. “Chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.”
13. “Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.”

The Final Footprint – Franklin is interred in Christ Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia with his wife Deborah.  He wrote a possible epitaph for himself when he was 22; “The Body of B. Franklin Printer; Like the Cover of an old Book, Its Contents torn out, And stript of its Lettering and Gilding, Lies here, Food for Worms. But the Work shall not be wholly lost: For it will, as he believ’d, appear once more, In a new & more perfect Edition, Corrected and Amended By the Author.”  Franklin’s actual grave, however, as he specified in his final will, simply reads “Benjamin and Deborah Franklin.”  Franklin’s likeness and name are ubiquitous, as are cultural references to him, even more than two centuries after his death.  He has been honoured on coinage and money, and many towns, counties, educational institutions, people, and companies are named after him.

Linda McCartney

On this day in 1998, musician, photographer, animal rights activist Linda McCartney died from breast cancer at the age of 56 at the McCartney family ranch in Tucson, Arizona with her family. Born Linda Louise Eastman on September 24, 1941 in New York City. She was married to Paul McCartney of the Beatles. Her photos were published in the book Linda McCartney’s Sixties: Portrait of an Era in 1992.

Linda married McCartney in 1969 at Marylebone registry office in London and thereafter went to St John’s Wood Church for a blessing. Her daughter, Heather Louise, from her first marriage to Melville See, was adopted by her new husband. Together, the McCartneys had three other children.

Following their 1969 marriage and the 1970 breakup of the Beatles, Paul and Linda formed the band Wings in 1971. She continued to be part of her husband’s touring band following Wings’ breakup in 1981 up until The New World Tour in 1993.

McCartney was an animal rights activist and wrote and published several vegetarian cookbooks. She also founded the Linda McCartney Foods company with her husband.

In 1995 she was diagnosed with breast cancer and died from the disease in 1998 at the age of 56.

with Paul at the Academy Awards in 1974

performing in 1976 with Paul and Wings

The Final Footprint

She was cremated in Tucson, and her ashes were scattered at the McCartney farm in Sussex, England. Paul later suggested fans remember her by donating to breast cancer research charities that do not support animal testing, “or the best tribute – go veggie.” A memorial service was held for her at St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London, which was attended by George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Billy Joel, Elton John, David Gilmour, Peter Gabriel, and other celebrities among a congregation of 700. A memorial service was also held at Riverside Church in Manhattan, two months after her death. “She was my girlfriend,” McCartney said at her funeral. “I lost my girlfriend.” 

The Linda McCartney Memorial Garden is located in Campbeltown, Kintyre, Scotland

The Linda McCartney Memorial Garden and bronze statue

#RIP #OTD in 2013 singer, actress (Every Sunday, Three Smart Girls, One Hundred Men and a Girl, Christmas Holiday, Lady on a Train), Deanna Durbin died in Paris aged 91. Cremation

On  day in 2014, novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, Gabo, Gabriel García Marquez died of pneumonia at the age of 87 in Mexico City.  Born Gabriel José de la Concordia García Marquez on 6 March 1927 in Aracataca, Colombia.  In my opinion, one of the most significant authors of the 20th century.  He was awarded the 1972 Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature.  He pursued a self-directed education that resulted in his leaving law school for a career in journalism.  In 1958, he married Mercedes Barcha.  García Márquez started as a journalist, and wrote many acclaimed non-fiction works and short stories, but is perhaps best known for his novels, such as One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975) and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985).  His works have achieved significant critical acclaim and widespread commercial success, most notably for popularizing a literary style labeled as magic realism, which uses magical elements and events in otherwise ordinary and realistic situations.  Some of his works are set in a fictional village called Macondo (the town mainly inspired by his birthplace Aracataca), and most of them explore the theme of solitude.

The Final Footprint – On his death in April 2014, Juan Manuel Santos, the President of Colombia, described him as “the greatest Colombian who ever lived”.  Garcia Marquez was cremated at a private family ceremony in Mexico City.  On 22 April, the presidents of Colombia and Mexico attended a formal ceremony in Mexico City, where Garcia Marquez had lived for more than three decades.  A funeral cortege took the urn containing his ashes from his house to the Palacio de Bellas Artes, where the memorial ceremony was held.  Earlier, residents in his home town of Aracataca in Colombia’s Caribbean region held a symbolic funeral. In May of 2016 his cremated remains were relocated to La Merced monastery in Cartagena.

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The Final Footprint – Goya was initially interred in Bordeaux.  In 1919 his remains were transferred to the Real Ermita de San Antonio de la Florida in Madrid. However, the skull was missing, a detail the Spanish consul immediately communicated to his superiors in Madrid, who wired back, “Send Goya, with or without head.”  The chapel ceiling and dome frescoes were painted by Goya.  In the Oliver Stone film, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Goya’s Saturno devorando a su hijo hangs in the office of Bretton James (Josh Brolin).  James states that this is the 15th Black Painting and that the other 14 are in the Museo del Prado.  Actually, it appears there may be a 15th Black Painting; Heads in a Landscape (Cabezas en un paisaje) (see below).  It may have became separated from the other paintings in the collection and is now in the collection of poet, publisher and art dealer Stanley Moss in New York.

Images of the Black Paintings

(Saturno devorando a su hijo), Saturn Devouring His Son, 1819-1823 (El perro), The Dog, 1819-1823 (Dos viejos/Un viejo y un fraile), Two Old Men, 1819-1823 (Hombres leyendo), Men Reading, 1819-1823 (Judith y Holofernes), Judith and Holofernes, 1819-1823 (Mujeres riendo), Women Laughing, 1819-1823 Heads in a Landscape (Cabezas en un paisaje)  possibly, the fifteenth Black Painting. It became separated from the other paintings in the collection and is now in the collection of poet, publisher and art dealer Stanley Moss in New York. (Una manola/La Leocadia), Leocadia, 1819-1823 (Átropos/Las Parcas), Atropos (The Fates), 1819-1823 (Duelo a garrotazos), Fight with Cudgels, 1819-1823 (Dos viejos comiendo sopa), Two Old Men Eating Soup, 1819-1823 (Vision fantástica/Asmodea), Fantastic Vision, 1819-1823 (Peregrinación a la fuente de San Isidro/Procesión del Santo Oficio), Procession of the Holy Office, 1819-1823 (El Gran Cabrón/Aquelarre), Witches’ Sabbath, 1819-1823 (La romería de San Isidro), A Pilgrimage to San Isidro, 1819-1823

#RIP #OTD in 1850 French artist known for her wax sculptures and Madame Tussauds, the wax museum she founded in London, Marie Tussaud died in her sleep in London, aged of 88. Memorial tablet on the right side of the nave of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, Cadogan Street, London

On this day in 1968, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, short story writer and playwright, Edna Ferber died from stomach cancer in New York City at the age of 82.  Born on 15 August 1885 in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  She was awarded the Pulitzer for her book So Big (1924).  Her novel Show Boat (1926) was made into a Broadway play with music by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II.  The book was also made into three films.  The 1951 version starred Kathryn Grayson, Ava Gardner, and Howard Keel.  And of course, she wrote the novel, Giant (1952), the epic story of the Benedict family and their Reata Ranch in Texas.  The book was made into a Hollywood classic in 1956 starring; Elizabeth Taylor (Leslie Lynnton Benedict), Rock Hudson (Jordan “Bick” Benedict, Jr.) and James Dean (Jett Rink) and featuring Carroll Baker (Luz Benedict, Leslie and Bick’s daughter), Jane Withers, Chill Wills, Mercedes McCambridge (Luz Benedict, Bick’s sister), Dennis Hopper (Jordan “Jordy” Benedict III), Sal Mineo, Rod Taylor and Earl Holliman.  Giant was the last of  Dean’s three films as a leading actor, and earned him his second and last Academy Award nomination; he was killed in a car accident before the film was released.  The book and the movie are perhaps my very favorites.  Feber never married.  In her early novel Dawn O’Hara (1911), the title character’s aunt is said to have remarked, “Being an old maid was a great deal like death by drowning — a really delightful sensation when you ceased struggling.”

The Final Footprint – Feber was cremated.  A plaque was placed in her honour in Manhattan on the building at 65th Street and Central Park West where she lived for six years.  The plaque reads; “The widely-read novelist, short story writer, and playwright, best known for the novel Giant (1952), lived here from 1923 to 1929.  Ferber’s fiction is distinquished by larger-than-life stories, strong female characters, and distinctive renderings of Amercian settings.  Two of her novels were published while she lived here:  the Pulitzer Prize-winning So Big (1924), and Show Boat (1926).”

Sir David Lea

On this day in 1991, film director, producer, screenwriter and editor David Lean died In Limehouse, London at the age of 83. Born on 25 March 1908 in Croydon, Surrey, England, United Kingdom. Lean was responsible for large-scale epics such as The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Doctor Zhivago (1965). He also directed adaptations of Charles Dickens novels Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948), as well as the romantic drama Brief Encounter (1945).

Originally starting out as a film editor in the early 1930s, Lean made his directorial debut with 1942’s In Which We Serve, which was the first of four collaborations with Noël Coward. Beginning with Summertime in 1955, Lean began to make internationally co-produced films financed by the big Hollywood studios. In 1970 the critical failure of his film Ryan’s Daughter led him to take a fourteen-year break from film making, during which he planned a number of film projects which never came to fruition. In 1984 he had a career revival with A Passage to India, adapted from E. M. Forster‘s novel; it was an instant hit with critics but proved to be the last film Lean would direct.

Nominated seven times for the Academy Award for Best Director, which he won twice for The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia, he has seven films in the British Film Institute’s Top 100 British Films (with three of them being in the top five) and was awarded the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1990.

Lean in Northern Finland in 1965 while shooting Doctor Zhivago.

Lean was married six times and was divorced five times. He was survived by his last wife, art dealer Sandra Cooke, the co-author (with Barry Chattington) of David Lean: An Intimate Portrait. His six wives were:

• Isabel Lean (28 June 1930 – 1936) (his first cousin)
• Kay Walsh (23 November 1940 – 1949)
• Ann Todd (21 May 1949 – 1957)
• Leila Matkar (4 July 1960 – 1978) (From, Hyderabad, India). Lean’s longest-lasting marriage.
• Sandra Hotz (28 October 1981 – 1984)
• Sandra Cooke (15 December 1990 – 16 April 1991)

The Final Footprint

Lean was cremated at Putney Vale Cemetery and Crematorium, Wimbledon.

Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison

On this day in 1994 novelist, literary critic and scholar Ralph Ellison died from pancreatic cancer in New York City at the age of 81. Born Ralph Waldo Ellison on March 1, 1913 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Perhaps best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote Shadow and Act (1964), a collection of political, social and critical essays, and Going to the Territory (1986). A posthumous novel, Juneteenth, was published after being assembled from voluminous notes he left after his death.

In 1938 Ellison met Rosa Araminta Poindexter, a woman two years his senior. They were married in late 1938. Rose was a stage actress, and continued her career after their marriage. In biographer Arnold Rampersad’s assessment of Ellison’s taste in women, he was searching for one “physically attractive and smart who would love, honor, and obey him–but not challenge his intellect.” At first they lived at 312 West 122nd Street, Rose’s apartment, but moved to 453 West 140th Street after her income shrank. In 1941 he briefly had an affair with Sanora Babb, which he confessed to his wife afterward, and in 1943 the marriage was over.

Published in 1952, Invisible Man explores the theme of man’s search for his identity and place in society, as seen from the perspective of the first-person narrator, an unnamed African American man in the New York City of the 1930s. In contrast to his contemporaries such as Richard Wright and James Baldwin, Ellison created characters that are dispassionate, educated, articulate, and self-aware. Through the protagonist, Ellison explores the contrasts between the Northern and Southern varieties of racism and their alienating effect. The narrator is “invisible” in a figurative sense, in that “people refuse to see” him, and also experiences a kind of dissociation. The novel also contains taboo issues such as incest and the controversial subject of communism.

The Final Footprint

Ellison was entombed at Trinity Church Cemetery and Mausoleum in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan.

Robert Urich
in 1973

On this day in 2002, actor Robert Urich died at Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, California at the age of 55 from synovial sarcoma. Born Robert Michael Urich on December 19, 1946 in Toronto, Ohio. Over the course of his 30-year career, he starred in 15 television series. Perhaps best know for his role as Jake Spoon in the television mini-series adaptation of Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove. 

Urich began his career in television in the early 1970s. After guest stints and roles in short-lived television series, he won a co starring role in the action/crime drama series S.W.A.T. in 1975. In 1976, he landed the role of Dan Tanna in the crime drama series Vega$. It aired on ABC from 1978 to 1981, and earned him two Golden Globe Award nominations. In addition to his work in television, he also starred in several feature films, including Magnum Force (1973), The Ice Pirates (1984), and Turk 182 (1985). From 1985 to 1988, he portrayed the title role in the detective television series Spenser: For Hire, based on Robert B. Parker’s popular series of mystery novels. In 1988, he began hosting the documentary series National Geographic Explorer. He won a CableACE Award for his work on the series. He was also awarded a Golden Boot Award for his work in Western television series and films.

In 1996, Urich starred in The Lazarus Man. It was canceled shortly after he announced that he had been diagnosed with synovial sarcoma, a rare cancer, in July 1996. He sought treatment for his illness while continuing his career and also worked to raise money for cancer research. He was declared cancer free in 1998 and returned to television in the UPN series, Love Boat: The Next Wave. In 2000, he made his Broadway debut as Billy Flynn in the musical Chicago. His last role was in the NBC sitcom Emeril in 2001, but in the autumn of that year, his cancer returned.

Urich’s first marriage was to actress Barbara Rucker in 1968. They divorced in 1974. He married actress Heather Menzies in 1975. They remained married until his death.

The Final Footprint

His Funeral Mass was offered on April 19 at St. Charles Borromeo Church in North Hollywood. He was cremated and his ashes were interred on the grounds of his family’s vacation home in Prince Edward County, Ontario, Canada. A monument was placed in the West Lake Church of Christ Cemetery, which is located near the family’s vacation home.

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“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

The Final Footprint – Lincoln is entombed in Lincoln’s Tomb in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois.  His wife Mary and three of their four sons are entombed in the walls opposite his tomb.  Lincoln’s name and image appear in numerous places, including the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Lincoln $5 bill and the Lincoln cent, and Lincoln’s sculpture on Mount Rushmore.  Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, who was present when Lincoln died said, “Now he belongs to the ages.”  Indeed he does.

On this day in 1912, RMS Titanic sank in the north Atlantic Ocean, four days into her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City.  The largest passenger liner in service at the time, Titanic had an estimated 2,224 people on board when she struck an iceberg at 23:40 (ship’s time) on Sunday, 14 April 1912.  Her sinking two hours and forty minutes later at 02:20 (05:18 GMT) on Monday, 15 April resulted in the deaths of more than 1,500 people, which made it one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history.  Titanic received six warnings of sea ice on 14 April but was travelling near her maximum speed when her crew sighted the iceberg.  Unable to turn quickly enough, the ship suffered a glancing blow that buckled her starboard (right) side and opened five of her sixteen compartments to the sea.  Titanic had been designed to stay afloat with four of her forward compartments flooded but not more, and the crew soon realised that the ship would sink.  They used rocket flares and radio (wireless) messages to attract help as the passengers were put into lifeboats.  However, in accordance with existing maritime practice, the ship was carrying far too few lifeboats for everyone (though slightly more than the law required), and many boats were not filled to their capacity due to a poorly managed evacuation.  The ship sank with over a thousand passengers and crew members still on board.  Almost all those who jumped or fell into the water died from hypothermia within minutes.  RMS Carpathia arrived on the scene about an hour and a half after the sinking and had rescued the last of the survivors in the lifeboats by 09:15 on 15 April, little more than 24 hours after Titanic‘s crew had received their first warnings of drifting ice.

The Final Footprint – The disaster caused widespread public outrage over the lack of lifeboats, lax shipping regulations, and the unequal treatment of the different passenger classes aboard the ship.  Inquiries set up in the wake of the disaster recommended sweeping changes to maritime regulations. This led to the establishment in 1914 of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS).  Titanic’s sinking became a cultural phenomenon, commemorated by numerous artists, film-makers, writers, composers, musicians and dancers from the time immediately after the sinking to the present day.  On 1 September 1985 a joint US-French expedition led by Robert Ballard found the wreck of Titanic, and the ship’s rediscovery led to increased interest in Titanic‘s story.  In 1997, James Cameron‘s eponymous film became the first movie ever to earn $1 billion at the box office, and the film’s soundtrack became the best selling soundtrack recording of all time.  Numerous expeditions have been launched to film the wreck and to salvage objects from the debris field.  Many artifacts have been recovered and conserved, but the wreck itself is steadily decaying.  In time, Titanic‘s structure will collapse into a pile of iron and steel fragments.  Eventually she will be reduced to a spot of rust on the seabed, with the remaining scraps of the ship’s hull mingled with her more durable fittings, like her propellers, the bronze capstans and the telemotor.  The following memorials have been erected in memory of those who lost their lives:

Titanic Memorial, Belfast

The Titanic Memorial in Belfast was erected to commemorate the lives lost.  It was funded by contributions from the public, shipyard workers and victims’ families, and was dedicated in June 1920.  It is located on Donegall Square in central Belfast in the grounds of Belfast City Hall.  The memorial presents an allegorical representation of the disaster in the form of a female personification of Death or Fate holding a laurel wreath over the head of a drowned sailor raised above the waves by a pair of mermaids.  It has been used as the site of annual commemorations of the Titanic disaster.  For a while it was obscured by the Belfast Wheel that was removed in April 2010.  It is now the centrepiece of a small Titanic memorial garden that was opened on 15 April 2012, the centenary of the disaster. Together with the garden, it is the only memorial in the world to commemorate all of the victims of the Titanic, passengers and crew alike.

Memorial to the Engine Room Heroes of the Titanic

The Memorial to the Engine Room Heroes of the Titanic is a granite monument located in St. Nicholas Place, Pier Head, Liverpool, England.  The city of Liverpool is strongly associated with the ill-fated liner.  The RMS Titanic was owned by White Star Line which was founded in Liverpool in 1840.  Liverpool was also the port of registry of the liner with the words ‘Titanic, Liverpool’ visible on the stern of the ship.  The memorial on Liverpool’s waterfront is dedicated to the 244 engineers that lost their lives in the disaster as they remained in the ship supplying the stricken liner with electricity and other amenities for as long as possible.  The monument is notable as the first monument in the United Kingdom to depict The Working Man.  The monument dedicated to the hundreds of men who died during the sinking was designed by Sir William Goscombe John and constructed circa 1916.  It stands 14.6 m tall and although it is most strongly associated with the RMS Titanic, its dedication was broadened to include all maritime engine room fatalities incurred during the performance of duty in World War I.  The monument is Grade II* listed.  Shrapnel damage from bombs that fell during the Second World War can be clearly seen on the monument.

Titanic Memorial (New York City)

Titanic Memorial Lighthouse

Dedication plaque on the Lighthouse

The Titanic Memorial is a 60-foot-tall (18 m) lighthouse built, due in part to the instigation of Margaret Brown, to remember the people who died on the RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912. Its design incorporates the use of a time ball.

Titanic Engineers’ Memorial, Southampton

The Titanic Engineers’ Memorial is a memorial in East (Andrews) Park, Southampton, United Kingdom, to the engineers who died in the RMS Titanic disaster on 15 April 1912.  The bronze and granite memorial was originally unveiled by Sir Archibald Denny, president of the Institute of Marine Engineers on 22 April 1914.  The event was attended by an estimated 100,000 Southampton residents.

Titanic Memorial (Washington, D.C.)

The Titanic Memorial is a granite statue in southwest Washington, D.C., that honors the men who gave their lives so that women and children might be saved during the RMS Titanic disaster.  The thirteen-foot-tall figure is of a partly clad male figure with arms outstretched.  The statue was erected by the Women’s Titanic Memorial Association.  The memorial is located on P Street SW next to the Washington Channel near Fort Lesley J. McNair.  It was designed by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, who won the commission in open competition, and sculpted by John Horrigan from a single piece of red granite furnished from Westerly, RI, by the Henry C. Smalley Granite Co.  It was unveiled on May 26, 1931, by Helen Herron Taft, the widow of President Taft.  Originally located at the foot of New Hampshire Avenue, NW in Rock Creek Park along the Potomac River, the monument was removed in 1966 to accommodate the Kennedy Center.  The memorial was re-erected without ceremony in 1968 on the south Washington waterfront outside Fort McNair in Washington Channel Park at Fourth and P Streets, SW.  A replica of the head of the memorial, carved in marble and exhibited in Paris in 1921, was purchased by the French Government for the Musée du Luxembourg.

On this day in 1927, journalist and author Gaston Leroux died in Nice, France at the age of 58.  In the English-speaking world, he is perhaps best known for writing the novel The Phantom of the Opera (Le Fantôme de l’Opéra, 1911).  Born Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux in Paris on 6 May 1868.  His novel The Mystery of the Yellow Room is also one of the most famous locked room mysteries ever written.

The Final Footprint – Leroux is interred in Cimetiére du Château in Nice.  La Belle Otero is interred there as well.   The Phantom of the Opera has been made into several film and stage productions of the same name, notably the 1925 film starring Lon Chaney, and Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s 1986 musical.

#RIP #OTD in 1975 actor (Call Northside 777, Cry of the City, House of Strangers, Whirlpool, The Blue Gardenia, The Big Combo, Ocean’s 11, Tony Rome, Lady in Cement, The Godfather), Richard Conte died from a heart attack at UCLA Medical Center aged 65. Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles

On this day in 1980, philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic, Jean-Paul Sartre died from pulmonary edema in Paris at the age of 74.  Born Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre on 21 June 1905 in Paris.  In my opinion, Sartre was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism and phenomenology, and one of the leading figures in 20th-century French philosophy and Marxism.  His work has also influenced sociology, critical theory, post-colonial theory, and literary studies, and continues to influence these disciplines.  Sartre has also been noted for his open relationship with the prominent feminist theorist Simone de Beauvoir.  He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature but refused it, saying that he always declined official honors and that “a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution”.  In 1929 at the École Normale, he met de Beauvoir, who studied at the Sorbonne.  The two became inseparable and lifelong companions, initiating a romantic relationship, though apparently, they were not monogamous.  Together, Sartre and de Beauvoir challenged the cultural and social assumptions and expectations of their upbringings, which they considered bourgeois, in both lifestyle and thought.  The conflict between oppressive, spiritually destructive conformity (mauvaise foi, literally, “bad faith”) and an “authentic” way of “being” became the dominant theme of Sartre’s early work, a theme embodied in his principal philosophical work L’Être et le Néant (Being and Nothingness) (1943).  Sartre’s introduction to his philosophy is his work Existentialism and Humanism (1946), originally presented as a lecture.

The Final Footprint – Sartre is entombed in Cimetière de Montparnasse in Paris.  Evidently, his funeral was well attended, with estimates of the number of mourners along the two hour march ranging from 15,000 to over 50,000.

In 1975, when asked how he would like to be remembered, Sartre replied:

“I would like [people] to remember [my novel] Nausea, [my plays] No Exit and The Devil and the Good Lord, and then my two philosophical works, more particularly the second one, Critique of Dialectical Reason. Then my essay on Genet, Saint Genet…. If these are remembered, that would be quite an achievement, and I don’t ask for more. As a man, if a certain Jean-Paul Sartre is remembered, I would like people to remember the milieu or historical situation in which I lived,… how I lived in it, in terms of all the aspirations which I tried to gather up within myself.”

De Beauvoir was entombed next to him upon her death in 1986.  Other notable Final Footprints at Montparnasse include; Charles Baudelaire, Samuel Beckett, Emmanuel Chabrier, Guy de Maupassant, Adah Isaac Menken, Camille Saint-Saëns, Jean Seberg, and Susan Sontag.

#RIP #OTD in 1986 novelist (Journal du voleur, Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs), playwright (Le Balcon, Les Bonnes, Les Paravents), poet, essayist, political activist, Jean Genet died at Jack’s Hotel in Paris aged 75. Larache Christian Cemetery in Larache, Morocco

Greta Garbo
in Anna Karenina (1935)

On this day in 1990, film actress Greta Garbo died in New York City at the age of 84 from pneumonia and renal failure. Born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson on 18 September 1905 in Stockholm. Garbo was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Actress and received an Academy Honorary Award in 1954 for her “luminous and unforgettable screen performances.”

Garbo launched her career with a secondary role in the 1924 Swedish film The Saga of Gosta Berling. Her performance caught the attention of Louis B. Mayer, chief executive of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), who brought her to Hollywood in 1925. She immediately stirred interest with her first silent film, Torrent, released in 1926; a year later, her performance in Flesh and the Devil, her third movie, made her an international star.

Garbo’s first talking film was Anna Christie (1930). MGM marketers enticed the public with the catch-phrase “Garbo talks!” That same year she starred in Romance. For her performances in these films she received the first of three Academy Award nominations for Best Actress. (Academy rules at the time allowed for a performer to receive a single nomination for their work in more than one film). In 1932, her popularity allowed her to dictate the terms of her contract and she became increasingly selective about her roles. Her success continued in films such as Mata Hari (1931) and Grand Hotel (1932). Many critics and film historians consider her performance as the doomed courtesan Marguerite Gautier in Camille (1936) to be her finest. It is certainly my personal favorite. The role gained her a second Academy Award nomination. For her role in Ninotchka (1939), she earned her third Academy Award nomination. She retired from the screen, at the age of 35, after acting in twenty-eight films.

From then on, Garbo declined all opportunities to return to the screen. Shunning publicity, she began a private life. Garbo also became an art collector in her later life; her collection, included works from painters such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Pierre Bonnard, and Kees van Dongen.   

Monument on the building which now stands where Greta Garbo was born on Södermalm.

in her first leading role in the Swedish film The Saga of Gösta Berling (1924) with Lars Hanson

Portrait photograph, 1925

in Flesh and the Devil (1926) with John Gilbert

with John Gilbert in A Woman of Affairs (1928).

“Garbo talks!” in Anna Christie (1930).

with Fredric March in Anna Karenina (1935).

with Robert Taylor in Camille (1936).

with Charles Boyer in Conquest (1937)

with Melvyn Douglas in a scene from Ninotchka (1939).

with Melvyn Douglas in “Two-Faced Woman” (1941)

From the early days of her career, Garbo avoided industry social functions, preferring to spend her time alone or with friends. She never signed autographs or answered fan mail, and rarely gave interviews. Nor did she ever appear at Oscar ceremonies, even when she was nominated. Her aversion to publicity and the press was genuine, and exasperating to the studio at first. In an interview in 1928, she explained that her desire for privacy began when she was a child, stating “as early as I can remember, I have wanted to be alone. I detest crowds, don’t like many people.”

She is closely associated with a line from Grand Hotel, “I want to be alone; I just want to be alone.”

signing her US citizenship papers in 1950

On 9 February 1951, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States and, in 1953, bought a seven-room apartment at 450 East 52nd Street in Manhattan, New York City, where she lived for the rest of her life.

Garbo never married, had no children. Her most famous romance was with her frequent co-star, John Gilbert, with whom she lived intermittently in 1926 and 1927. Gilbert allegedly proposed to her numerous times, with Garbo agreeing but backing out at the last minute. “I was in love with him,” she said. “But I froze. I was afraid he would tell me what to do and boss me. I always wanted to be the boss.”

In 1937, she met conductor Leopold Stokowski, with whom she had a highly publicized friendship or romance while traveling throughout Europe the following year. In his diary, Erich Maria Remarque discusses a liaison with Garbo in 1941. In his memoir, Cecil Beaton described an affair with her in 1947 and 1948. In 1941 she met the Russian-born millionaire, George Schlee, who was introduced to her by his wife, fashion designer Valentina. Nicholas Turner, Garbo’s close friend for 33 years, said that, after she bought an apartment in the same building, “Garbo moved in and took Schlee right away from Valentina.” Schlee would split his time between the two, becoming Garbo’s close companion and advisor until his death in 1964.

In 1927, Garbo was introduced to stage and screen actress Lilyan Tashman and they may have had an affair. Silent film star Louise Brooks stated that she and Garbo had a brief liaison.

In 1931, Garbo befriended the writer Mercedes de Acosta, introduced to her by her close friend, Salka Viertel, and, according to Garbo’s and de Acosta’s biographers, began a sporadic and volatile romance. The two remained friends for almost 30 years, during which time Garbo wrote de Acosta 181 letters, cards, and telegrams, now at the Rosenbach Museum & Library in Philadelphia. 

Of Mimi Pollak, Garbo wrote “We cannot help our nature, as God has created it. But I have always thought you and I belonged together”. In 1975, she wrote a poem about not being able to touch the hand of her friend with whom she might have been walking through life.

The Final Footprint

Garbo was cremated in Manhattan, and her ashes were interred in 1999 at Skogskyrkogården Cemetery just south of her native Stockholm.

in Inspiration (1931) publicity still

In Camille (1936)

On this day in 2001, musician, singer-songwriter, and lead vocalist of the punk rock band the Ramones, Joey Ramone died at the age of 49 following a seven-year battle with lymphoma at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in manhattan.  Born Jeffrey Ross Hyman on May 19, 1951 in Queens. His image, voice, and tenure as frontman of the Ramones made him a countercultural icon.

In 1974, Hyman co-founded the punk rock band the Ramones with friends John Cummings and Douglas Colvin. Colvin was already using the pseudonym “Dee Dee Ramone” and the others also adopted stage names using “Ramone” as their surname: Cummings became Johnny Ramone and Hyman became Joey Ramone. Joey initially served as the group’s drummer while Dee Dee was the original vocalist. However, when Dee Dee’s vocal cords proved unable to sustain the demands of consistent live performances, Ramones manager Thomas Erdelyi suggested Joey switch to vocals. After a series of unsuccessful auditions in search of a new drummer, Erdelyi took over on drums, assuming the name Tommy Ramone^.

The Ramones were a major influence on the punk rock movement in the United States. Recognition of the band’s importance built over the years, and they are now regularly represented in many assessments of all-time great rock music–. In 1996, after a tour with the Lollapalooza music festival, the band played their final show and then disbanded.

The Final Footprint

Joey is interred at New Mount Zion Cemetery in Lyndhurst, New Jersey.

He was reportedly listening to the song “In a Little While” by U2 when he died. His solo album Don’t Worry About Me was released posthumously in 2002, and features the single “What a Wonderful World”, a cover of the Louis Armstrong standard. MTV News claimed: “With his trademark rose-colored shades, black leather jacket, shoulder-length hair, ripped jeans and alternately snarling and crooning vocals, Joey was the iconic godfather of punk.”

On November 30, 2003, a block of East 2nd Street in New York City was officially renamed Joey Ramone Place. It is the block where Hyman once lived with bandmate Dee Dee and is near the former site of the music club CBGB, where the Ramones began their career. Hyman’s birthday is celebrated annually by rock ‘n’ roll nightclubs, hosted in New York City by his brother and, until 2007, his mother, Charlotte. He is interred at Hillside Cemetery in Lyndhurst, New Jersey.

The Ramones were named as inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of the class of 2002.

Several songs have been written in tribute to Joey Ramone. Tommy, CJ and Marky Ramone and Daniel Rey came together in 2002 to record Jed Davis’ Joey Ramone tribute album, The Bowery Electric. Other tributes include “Hello Joe” by Blondie from the album The Curse of Blondie, “Don’t Take Me For Granted” by Social Distortion, “You Can’t Kill Joey Ramone” by Sloppy Seconds, Joey by Raimundos, “I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone” by Sleater-Kinney, “Red and White Stripes” by Moler and “Joey” by the Corin Tucker Band, “I Heard Ramona Sing” by Frank Black, and Amy Rigby’s “Dancin’ With Joey Ramone”. Rammstein ended several shows of their Mutter tour in 2001 with a cover of “Pet Sematary” in honor of the passing of Joey Ramone. “The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)” by U2.

In September 2010, the Associated Press reported that “Joey Ramone Place,” a sign at the corner of Bowery and East Second Street, was New York City’s most stolen sign. Later, the sign was moved to 20 ft (6.1 m) above ground level. Drummer Marky Ramone thought Joey would appreciate that his sign would be the most stolen, adding “Now you have to be an NBA player to see it.”

After several years in development, Ramone’s second posthumous album was released on May 22, 2012. Titled …Ya Know?, it was preceded on Record Store Day by a 7″ single re-release of “Blitzkrieg Bop”/”Havana Affair”.

And on this day in 2018, actor, drill instructor, staff sergeant, honorary gunnery sergeant, Marine R. Lee Ermey died in Santa Monica, California, from complications related to pneumonia, at the age of 73. Born Ronald Lee Ermey on March 24, 1944 in Emporia, Kansas. Perhaps best known for his role as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in the 1987 film Full Metal Jacket, which earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

Ermey was often typecast in authority figure roles, such as Mayor Tilman in the film Mississippi Burning, Bill Bowerman in Prefontaine, Sheriff Hoyt in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, Jimmy Lee Farnsworth in Fletch Lives, a police captain in Se7en, plastic army men leader Sarge in the Toy Story films, Lt. “Tice” Ryan in Rocket Power, a prison warden in an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants, and John House in House.

  The Final Footprint

His funeral was held in Arlington National Cemetery on Friday, January 18, 2019, where his cremated remains are interred. Other notable Final Footprints at Arlington include; Space Shuttle Challenger, Space Shuttle Columbia, Medgar Evers, JFK, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, RFK, Edward Kennedy, Malcolm Kilduff, Jr., Lee Marvin, and Audie Murphy.

#RIP #OTD in 2020 actor (First Blood, Gorky Park, Silverado, Cocoon, F/X, Presumed Innocent, Tommy Boy, Romeo + Juliet, Knight of Cups), Brian Dennehy died of cardiac arrest due to sepsis in New Haven, Connecticut aged 81. Cremation

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On this day in 1759, Baroque composer George Frideric

Within fifteen years, Handel had started three commercial opera companies to supply the English nobility with Italian opera. As Alexander’s Feast (1736) was well received, Handel made a transition to English choral works. After his success with Messiah (1742) he never composed an Italian opera again. His funeral was given full state honours, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey in London.

Born the same year as Johann Sebastian Bach and Domenico Scarlatti, in my opinion, Handel is one of the greatest composers of the Baroque era. His works, Messiah, Water Music, and Music for the Royal Fireworks remain steadfastly popular. One of his four coronation anthems, Zadok the Priest(1727), composed for the coronation of George II, has been performed at every subsequent British coronation, traditionally during the sovereign’s anointing. Another of his English oratorios, Solomon (1748), has also remained popular, with the Sinfonia that opens act 3 (known more commonly as “The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba”) featuring at the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony. Handel composed more than forty operas in over thirty years, and since the late 1960s, with the revival of baroque music and historically informed musical performance, interest in Handel’s operas has grown.

Handel never married, and kept his personal life private.

Monument to George Frederic Handel in the south transept of Westminster Abbey. His grave is below.

The Final Footprint

The last performance he attended was of Messiah. Handel was entombed in Westminster Abbey. More than three thousand mourners attended his funeral, which was given full state honours.

His initial will bequeathed the bulk of his estate to his niece Johanna, however four codicils distributed much of his estate to other relations, servants, friends and charities. Other notable Final Footprints at Westminster include; Robert Browning, Lord Byron, Charles II, Geoffrey Chaucer, Oliver Cromwell, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Edward III, Edward VI, Edward The Confessor, Elizabeth I, George II, Stephen Hawking, Henry III, Henry V, Henry VII, James I (James VI of Scotland), Samuel Johnson, Ben Jonson, Rudyard Kipling, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Mary I, Mary II, Mary Queen of Scots, John Milton, Isaac Newton, Laurence Olivier, Henry Purcell, Thomas Shadwell, Edmund Spenser, Lord Alfred Tennyson, Dylan Thomas, and William III.

#RIP #OTD in 1925 American expatriate artist, considered the “leading portrait painter of his generation”, John Singer Sargent died at his Chelsea home of heart disease, aged 69. Brookwood Cemetery near Woking, Surrey, England

On this day in 1986, existentialist philosopher, public intellectual, social theorist and author, Simone de Beauvoir died of pneumonia in Paris at the age of 78.  Born Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir on 9 January 1908 in Paris.  Perhaps best known for her metaphysical novels, including She Came to Stay (1943) and The Mandarins (1954), and for her treatise The Second Sex (1949).  Also noted for her lifelong polyamorous relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre.  Scholarly discussions have analyzed the influences of Beauvoir and Sartre on one another.  She is seen as having influenced Sartre’s masterpiece, Being and Nothingness.  Yet she wrote much on philosophy that is independent of Sartrean existentialism.

 The Final Footprint – Beauvoir is interred with Sartre in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris.  In 2006, the city of Paris commissioned architect Dietmar Feichtinger to design a footbridge solely for pedestrians and cyclists across the Seine River.  The bridge was named the Passerelle Simone-de-Beauvoir in her honor.  It leads to the new Bibliothèque nationale de France.  Other notable Final Footprints at Montparnasse include; Charles Baudelaire,  Samuel Beckett, Emmanuel Chabrier, Henri Fantin-Latour, César Franck, Guy de Maupassant, Adah Isaac Menken, Man Ray, Camille Saint-Saëns, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Seberg, and Susan Sontag.

#RIP #OTD in 1995 singer (“A Little Bitty Tear”, “A Holly Jolly Christmas”) musician, actor (The Big Country, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), author, Burl Ives died from oral cancer at his home in Anacortes, Washington, aged 85. Mound Cemetery, Hunt City Township, Jasper County, Illinois

#RIP #OTD in 2012 actor, perhaps best known for his role as vampire Barnabas Collins on the gothic television soap opera Dark Shadows, Jonathan Frid died at Juravinski Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario, of pneumonia and complications after a fall aged 87. Cremation

On this day in 2015, R&B, soul and gospel singer Percy Sledge died of liver cancer at his home in Baton Rouge, at the age of 73. Born Percy Tyrone Sledge on November 25, 1941 in Leighton, Alabama. Perhaps best known for the song “When a Man Loves a Woman”, a No. 1 hit on both the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B singles charts in 1966. It was awarded a million-selling, Gold-certified disc from the RIAA.

Having previously worked as a hospital orderly in the early 1960s, Sledge achieved his strongest success in the late 1960s and early 1970s with a series of emotional soul songs. In later years, Sledge received the Rhythm and Blues Foundation’s Career Achievement Award. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2005.

Sledge married twice and was survived by his second wife, Rosa Sledge, whom he married in 1980.

The Final Footprint

Baton Rouge’s Heavenly Gates Cemetery.

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Baseball is my favorite sport and I enjoy listening to games on the radio.  The Phillies were one of my favorite teams, in part, due to Kalas’ voice.  I was listening to the game he would have called they day he died.  He is missed.

The Final Footprint – Kalas is interred in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.  His grave is marked by an individual upright granite marker with a replica of a microphone on top.  The terms of endearment; LOVING HUSBAND LOVING FATHER FRIEND TO ALL, are engraved on the monument.  On either side of the monument are four seats from Veteran’s Stadium.  Kalas became the fourth person to be given the honor of having their body lie in repose inside a major-league baseball stadium, after Babe Ruth, Jack Buck, and Miller Huggins, when his casket was displayed behind home plate and fans were encouraged to pay their respects at Citizens Bank Park.  Friends, broadcast partners, and every player on the Phillies team roster, passed by his casket to pay respects before it was placed in a hearse which carried him out of Citizens Bank Park one final time.  His grave was resurfaced with sod that originally came from Citizens Bank Park.  On 17 April 2009, at the first home game after Kalas’ death, fans sang along with a video of Harry singing “High Hopes” during the seventh-inning stretch, instead of the traditional “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”.

#RIP #OTD in 2015 novelist (The Tin Drum, Cat and Mouse, Dog Years, Crabwalk), poet, playwright, artist, recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature, Günter Grass died of a lung infection in a hospital in Lübeck, Germany aged 87. Friedhof Behlendorf, Germany

#RIP #OTD in 2018 film director (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Amadeus, Man on the Moon, Goya’s Ghosts), actor, professor Miloš Forman died died at Danbury Hospital in Warren, Connecticut at age 86. New Warren Cemetery in Warren

#RIP #OTD in 2024 painter, author, mixed media sculptor, performance artist, intersectionalactivist, perhaps best known for her narrative quilts, Faith Ringgold died at her home in Englewood, New Jersey aged 93. Cremated

#RIP #OTD in 2025, Peruvian novelist (The Time of the Hero, The Green House, Conversation in The Cathedral, The War of the End of the World, The Feast of the Goat), journalist, essayist, politician, Mario Vargas Llosa died at his home in Lima with his family, aged 89. Cremation

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