Corin Redgrave

Posted in Highgate Cemetery with tags , , on May 20, 2024 by Cade

July 16, 1939 – April 06, 2010

Tony Award nominated actor, Corin Redgrave was the middle child – and only son – of legendary British actors Rachel Kempson and Michael Redgrave. Along with sisters, Lynn and Vanessa, Corin was part of the successful third generation of the Redgrave acting family.

Known most widely for his stage performances, Redgrave made a name for himself in productions ranging from Shakespeare to Tennessee Williams in both London and New York. In 1999, he was nominated for Tony and Evening Standard awards for his work in Williams’ Not About Nightingales.

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Lester Flatt

Posted in Oaklawn Memorial Cemetery with tags , , , , on May 13, 2024 by Cade

June 19, 1914 – May 11, 1979

Guitarist, mandolinist, singer and songwriter, Lester Flatt, played in a number of bands during his 20s all throughout the American south. In 1945, he joined Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys and the history of country music was altered forever. Flatt played rhythm guitar and sang lead vocals for the legendary group for 3 years, churning out dozens of hits that shaped the eponymous new genre: Bluegrass.

In 1948, Flatt left the Blue Grass Boys along with banjo player, Earl Scruggs. The two would team up to form Flatt and Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys and become one of the most popular bluegrass acts of all time.

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Émile Zola

Posted in The Pantheon with tags , on May 6, 2024 by Cade

April 02, 1840 – September 29, 1902

French author, journalist and playwright, Émile Zola, is widely regarded as the preeminent writer in the Naturalism movement in literature. With more than 30 works to his credit, Zola was one of the most prominent writers of his time. A large percentage of his books centered around multiple generations of a single family living in Napoleon III’s France.

His naturalistic portrayals of common people and his negative depictions of real-life political figures led Zola to a life of activism in addition to his writing. He became an outspoken proponent of the liberalization of France and his vocal critiques gained him a lot of enemies in the public sphere.

He was tried for criminal libel and forced to flee to England for a time.

And he may or may not have been murdered.

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Chita Rivera

Posted in Saint Anthony's Catholic Cemetery with tags , , , , on April 29, 2024 by Cade

January 23, 1933 – January 30, 2024

Broadway legends aren’t super rare, but Broadway icons are much more precious and exceptional. And friends, Chita Rivera was an ICON.

Born Dolores Conchita Figueroa del Rivero in Washington D.C., the dancer, actress and singer who would eventually become “Chita Rivera” took dance lessons as a teenager and found her way to New York by way of her growing reputation. By the time she was 18, she was already getting dancing roles in hit Broadway musicals like Guys and Dolls and Can-Can. Then, in 1957, Rivera landed her first featured role: Anita in a new musical called West Side Story.

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Bessie Smith

Posted in Mount Lawn Cemetery with tags , on April 22, 2024 by Cade

bsmith3April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937

Combining deep-seated poverty, a troubled childhood and one of the most powerful singing voices ever known is enough to lead anyone to take up residence in the music genre known as “the blues.” But, once in a lifetime – perhaps, in SEVERAL lifetimes – it leads to someone making an entire empire out of it.

Columbia records dubbed Bessie Smith the “Queen of the Blues.” The moniker didn’t last long. By the time her career was in full swing in the late 1920’s, Smith had taken her rightful place at the top of the music world with the more apt title “EMPRESS of the Blues.”

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Conrad Veidt

Posted in Golders Green Crematorium with tags , , on April 15, 2024 by Cade

January 22, 1893 – April 03, 1943

Conrad “Conny” Veidt was a German-British actor whose largest impact on the film industry was arguably his performances in classic German Expressionism silent films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and The Man Who Laughs (1928). He appeared in more than 70 early films in his native Germany, many of which have been lost. He learned to speak English and French and continued to work his way across the globe, eventually making it to Hollywood, where he played perhaps his most recognizable role: Major Strasser opposite Humphrey Bogart in the 1941 classic, Casablanca. It would be the last movie released in Veidt’s lifetime.

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Isaac Newton

Posted in Westminster Abbey with tags , on April 8, 2024 by Cade

December 25, 1642 – March 20, 1726

It would be easy to just say that Sir Isaac Newton invented gravity, the tides, comets and colored light. It would be wrong…but it would be easy.

Newton is widely regarded as one of the greatest scientific minds in human history and one of the principle minds behind what would become the Enlightenment. A genius, he used mathematics to explain everything from philosophy to the movement of the planets. He created the first reflecting telescope to study the movement of comets and other celestial objects. He determined, via prism, that the light spectrum contained an array of colors that were intrinsic to the white light itself. Love it or hate it, he invented Calculus.

And, as legend has it, he used observations of an apple tree in his garden to formulate his theory of gravitation.

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Jim Croce

Posted in Haym Salomon Memorial Park with tags , , on April 1, 2024 by Cade

January 10, 1943 – September 20, 1973

Jim Croce was a singer-songwriter whose instantly recognizable songs were popular in the early 1970s. His legend and impact only grew in the wake of his untimely death at the age of just 30.

Hits like “You Don’t Mess Around with Jim,” “Operator (That’s Not the Way It Feels),” and “Time in a Bottle” remain well-loved to this day.

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George Eliot

Posted in Highgate Cemetery with tags , on March 25, 2024 by Cade

November 22, 1819 – December 22, 1880

What’s in a name?

Born Mary Anne Evans – but known more prominently by her pen name – George Eliot was a Victorian novelist known for her depictions of rural English life and the intertwining themes of politics and humanism. Like contemporaries Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy, Eliot became very popular thanks in part to her vivid accounts of Victorian life, specifically the countryside in which her books took place.

But, her writing was probably the most Victorian thing about Mary Anne Evans (who also went by “Mary Ann” and “Marian” at various points of her life). The rest of her life was anything but the buttoned-up ideal of the time.

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Gaspard Ulliel

Posted in Père Lachaise Cemetery with tags , on March 18, 2024 by Cade

November 25, 1984 – January 19, 2022

César Award winning actor, Gaspard Ulliel, was one of the most promising French actors of the early 21st Century. By the time he was 30, Ulliel had appeared in a number of international hits including A Very Long Engagement and as the titular characters in both Hannibal Rising and Saint Laurent.  In addition to winning two César Awards (for Engagement and  Saint Laurent) he was nominated for a number of other prestigious awards during his brief career.

Ulliel also appeared in more than a dozen television shows and made-for-TV movies in France. His first English-language series, Disney and Marvel’s Moon Knight, would end up being his last performance.
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