Shel Silverstein Died on May 8, 1999

The Life of Shel Silverstein
Sheldon Alan "Shel" Silverstein (September 25, 1930–May 8, 1999) was an American poet, songwriter, musician, composer, cartoonist, screenwriter, and author of children's books. He sometimes styled himself as Uncle Shelby, especially for his early children's books.

Silverstein confirmed he never studied the poetry of others and, therefore, developed his own quirky style: laid-back and conversational, occasionally employing profanity and slang. Silverstein had been writing and drawing since early adolescence, and had developed his own writing style because he would not read work from other writers. After graduating from Theodore Roosevelt High School several months before his class, he attended the University of Illinois, however he was expelled for failing grades in 1949. Shortly after, he began attending Roosevelt University, and graduated from there in 1953 with a bachelor's degree. Shortly after he graduated, he was drafted into the Army.

Silverstein was stationed in Kyoto, Japan and South Korea, and during his tour, he worked as cartoonist for the Pacific military newspaper Stars and Stripes, and had worked alongside and befriended Don Carpenter, who would later become a novelist and screenwriter. He served in the Army for two years until he was honorably discharged in 1955.

Silverstein's passion for music was clear early on as he studied briefly at Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University He is remembered as one of the greatest songwriters of our time. As such, Silverstein tended to shun publicity and even photographers. Nonetheless, his musical output included an astounding catalog of songs. A great number of which were huge hits for other artists - most notably the rock & roll group Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show (later shortened to just Dr. Hook).

He wrote the music and lyrics for "A Boy Named Sue" (which was performed by Johnny Cash and for which Silverstein won a Grammy in 1970), Tompall Glaser's highest-charting solo single "Put Another Log on the Fire," "One's on the Way" (which was a hit for Loretta Lynn), and "The Unicorn" (which, despite having nothing to do with Ireland nor Irish culture, became the signature piece for the Irish Rovers in 1968 and is popular in Irish pubs all over the world to this day). Another Silverstein-penned song recorded by Cash is "25 Minutes to Go," sung from the point of view of a man facing his last 25 minutes on Death Row, with each line of the song counting down one minute closer. He wrote the lyrics and music for most of the Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show songs, including "The Cover of the Rolling Stone," "Freakin' at the Freakers' Ball," "Sylvia's Mother," "The Things I Didn't Say", and a cautionary song about venereal disease, "Don't Give a Dose to the One You Love Most." He also wrote many of the songs performed by Bobby Bare, including "Rosalie's Good Eats Café," "The Mermaid," "The Winner," "Tequila Sheila," and co-wrote with Baxter Taylor the song "Marie Laveau," for which the songwriters received a BMI Award in 1975. "The Mermaid" was also covered in 2005 by Great Big Sea, which released its version on the album The Hard and the Easy. Further famous songs that Shel Silverstein wrote were "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan," (first recorded by Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show in 1975) which was re-recorded in 1979 by Marianne Faithfull and later featured in the films Montenegro and Thelma & Louise and "Queen of the Silver Dollar," (first recorded by Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show in 1973) which appeared on Emmylou Harris's 1975 album Pieces of the Sky, later covered by Dave & Sugar as well as Doyle Holly in 1973. Shel was nominated for an Oscar for his music for the film Postcards from the Edge. He also composed original music for several other films and displayed a musical versatility in these projects, playing guitar, piano, saxophone, and trombone.

Bibliography

Grab Your Socks! (1956)
Now Here's My Plan (1960)
Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book (1961)
A Playboy's Teevee Jeebies oh la la (1961)
(Uncle Shelby's story of) Lafcadio: The Lion Who Shot Back (1963)
A Giraffe and a Half (1964)
The Giving Tree (1964)
Who Wants a Cheap Rhinoceros? (1964)
Uncle Shelby's Zoo (1964)
More Playboy's Teevee Jeebies (1965)
Where the Sidewalk Ends (1974)
The Missing Piece (1976)
Different Dances (1979)
A Light in the Attic (1981)
The Missing Piece Meets the Big O (1981)
Falling Up (1996)
Draw a Skinny Elephant (1998)
Runny Babbit (2005) (published posthumously)
Don't Bump the Glump! and Other Fantasies (2008, originally published in 1964)

Silverstein believed that written works needed to be read on paper—the correct paper for the particular work. He usually would not allow his poems and stories to be published unless he could choose the type, size, shape, color, and quality of the paper himself. Being a book collector, he took seriously the feel of the paper, the look of the book from the inside and out, the typeface for each poem, and the binding of his books. He did not allow his books to be published in paperback because he did not want his work to diminish in any way.

The Death of Shel Silverstein
Shel Silverstein died sometime during the weekend of May 8, 1999, in Key West, Florida, of a heart attack. His body was found by two housekeepers the following Monday, May 10. It was reported that he could have died on either day that weekend.

Gustave Flaubert Died on May 8, 1880

The life of Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert (December 12, 1821 – May 8, 1880) was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary (1857), and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style, best exemplified by his endless search for "le mot juste" ("the right word").

Flaubert was born on December 12, 1821, in Rouen, Seine-Maritime, in the Haute-Normandie region of France. He was the second son of Achille-Cléophas Flaubert (1784–1846), a surgeon, and Anne Justine Caroline (née Fleuriot) (1793–1872). He began writing at an early age, as early as eight according to some sources. He was educated in his native city and did not leave it until 1840, when he went to Paris to study law.

In Paris, he was an indifferent student and found the city distasteful. He made a few acquaintances, including Victor Hugo. Towards the close of 1840, he travelled in the Pyrenees and Corsica. In 1846, after an attack of epilepsy, he left Paris and abandoned the study of law.

In September 1849, Flaubert completed the first version of a novel, The Temptation of Saint Anthony. He read the novel aloud to Louis Bouilhet and Maxime du Camp over the course of four days, not allowing them to interrupt or give any opinions. At the end of the reading, his friends told him to throw the manuscript in the fire, suggesting instead that he focus on day to day life rather than on fantastic subjects.

In 1850, after returning from Egypt, Flaubert began work on Madame Bovary. The novel, which took five years to write, was serialized in the Revue de Paris in 1856. The government brought an action against the publisher and author on the charge of immorality, which was heard during the following year, but both were acquitted. When Madame Bovary appeared in book form, it met with a warm reception.

In 1858, Flaubert traveled to Carthage to gather material for his next novel, Salammbô. The novel was completed in 1862 after four years of work.

Drawing on his childhood experiences, Flaubert next wrote L'Éducation sentimentale (Sentimental Education), an effort that took seven years. L'Éducation sentimentale, his last complete novel, was published in 1869.

He wrote an unsuccessful drama, Le Candidat, and published a reworked version of La Tentation de Saint-Antoine, portions of which had been published as early as 1857. He devoted much of his time to an ongoing project, Les Deux Cloportes (The Two Woodlice), which later became Bouvard et Pécuchet, breaking from the obsessive project only to write the Three Tales in 1877. This book comprised three stories: Un Cœur simple (A Simple Heart), La Légende de Saint-Julien l'Hospitalier (The Legend of St. Julian the Hospitaller), and Hérodias (Herodias). After the publication of the stories, he spent the remainder of his life toiling on the unfinished Bouvard et Pécuchet, which was posthumously printed in 1881. It was a grand satire on the futility of human knowledge and the ubiquity of mediocrity. He believed the work to be his masterpiece, though the posthumous version received lukewarm reviews. Flaubert was a prolific letter writer, and his letters have been collected in several publications.

Flaubert was fastidious in his devotion to finding the right word ("le mot juste"), and his mode of composition reflected that. He worked in sullen solitude - sometimes occupying a week in the completion of one page - never satisfied with what he had composed, violently tormenting his brain for the best turn of a phrase, the final adjective. His private letters indeed show that he was not one of those to whom correct, flowing language came naturally. His style was achieved through the unceasing sweat of his brow. Flaubert’s just reward, then, is that many critics consider his best works to be exemplary models of style.

The Death of Gustave Flaubert
In 1870 Flaubert became very sick, but continued to write after attaining Chevalier, Legion of Honour, though ironically he resisted ennobling human nature in his writings. Anne Justine Caroline Flaubert, his mother, died in 1872, the one woman to provide constancy and comfort to Gustave.

Afflicted by syphilis and rapidly declining health, two weeks before his death, he told his niece Caroline, "Sometimes I think I'm liquefying like an old Camembert." On 8 May, 1880, Flaubert suddenly died from brain hemorrhage.

He is buried at Rouen Cemetery in Normandy, France alongside another literary giant Marcel Duchamp. His unfinished Bouvard et Pécuchet was published in 1880, followed by his Correspondence in 1923, containing the letters and forever immortalizing the tumultuous love affair between himself and Louise Colet.

Alexander von Humboldt Died on May 6, 1856

The Life of Alexander von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt (help·info) (September 14, 1769 – May 6, 1859) was a German naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767-1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography was foundational to the field of biogeography.

Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt traveled to Latin America, exploring and describing it in a manner generally considered to be a modern scientific point of view for the first time. His description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. He was one of the first to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). Later, his five-volume work Kosmos (1845) attempted to unify the various branches of scientific knowledge. Humboldt supported and worked with other scientists, including Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac, Justus von Liebig, Louis Agassiz, Matthew Fontaine Maury, and most notably Aimé Bonpland (with whom he conducted much of his scientific exploration).

There has been some criticism of the written accounts of Humboldt's explorations. His writings are known for their fantastical descriptions of the so-called 'new continent', while leaving out its inhabitants. Coming from the Romantic school of thought, Humboldt believed that '...nature is perfect till man deforms it with care.'[3] In this line of thinking, he largely neglected the human societies amidst this nature. The writing style that describes the 'new world' without people is a trend among explorers both of the past and present. Views of indigenous peoples as 'savage' or 'unimportant' leaves them out of the historical picture.

The Death of Alexander von Humboldt
On February 24, 1857 Humboldt suffered a minor stroke, which passed without perceptible symptoms. It was not until the winter of 1858-1859 that his strength began to decline, and that spring, on May 6, he died quietly in Berlin at the age of 89.

The honours which had been showered on him during life continued after his death. His remains, prior to being interred in the family resting-place at Tegel, were conveyed in state through the streets of Berlin, and received by the prince-regent at the door of the cathedral. The first centenary of his birth was celebrated on September 14, 1869, with great enthusiasm in both the New and Old Worlds. Numerous monuments erected in his honour, and newly explored regions named after Humboldt, bear witness to his wide fame and popularity.

Violet Jessop, Titanic Survivor, Died on May 5, 1971

The Life of Violet Jessop
Violet Constance Jessop (2 October 1887 – 5 May 1971) was an ocean liner stewardess and nurse who achieved fame by surviving the disastrous sinkings of two sister ships: the RMS Titanic in 1912 and the HMHS Britannic in 1916. In addition, she had been on board the one other ship of the class, the RMS Olympic, when it collided with the HMS Hawke in 1911.

Violet Jessop was born to William and Katherine Jessop, Irish emigrants living near Bahía Blanca, Argentina. William Jessop had emigrated from Dublin in the mid-1880s to try his hand at sheep farming in the Argentine. His fiancée, Katherine Kelly, followed him out there from Dublin in 1886. Violet was the first of nine children, only six of whom survived. Violet herself contracted tuberculosis at an early age and despite doctor's predictions survived. After her father died, Violet and her family moved to Great Britain where she attended a convent school.

In 1908, after her mother became sick, Violet left school and became a stewardess for the Royal Mail Line. In 1910 she began working for the White Star Line and in 1911, while working on board the RMS Olympic she experienced her first incident on an Olympic-class vessel. Off the Isle of Wight, the British warship HMS Hawke collided with the Olympic, seriously damaging both ships.

Violet boarded the RMS Titanic as a stewardess on 10 April 1912 and four days later on 14 April, at 11:40 PM the Titanic struck an iceberg and began to sink. Violet described in her memoirs that she was ordered up on deck where she watched as the crew loaded the lifeboats. She was later ordered into lifeboat 16, and as the boat was being lowered, one of the Titanic's officers gave her a baby to look after. The next morning Violet and the rest of the survivors were rescued by the RMS Carpathia. According to Violet, while on board the Carpathia, a woman grabbed the baby she was holding and ran off with it without saying a word.

During World War I Violet served as a nurse for the British Red Cross. In 1916, she was on board His Majesty's Hospital Ship Britannic when the ship apparently struck a mine and sank in the Aegean Sea. While the Britannic was sinking she jumped out of a lifeboat being sucked into the Britannic's propellers. She was sucked under the water and struck her head on the ship's keel before being rescued by another lifeboat.[1] She later stated that the cushioning due to her thick auburn hair helped save her life. She had also made sure to grab her toothbrush before leaving her cabin on the Britannic, saying later that it was the one thing she missed most immediately following the sinking of the Titanic.

After the war Violet continued to work for the White Star Line, before joining the Red Star Line and then the Royal Mail Line again. During her tenure with the Red Star Violet went on two round the world cruises on that company's largest ship, the Belgenland. In her late 30's Violet had a brief marriage and in 1950 she retired to Great Ashfield, Suffolk. Years after her retirement, she got a telephone call on a stormy night from a woman claiming to be the baby she saved from the sinking Titanic. The voice asked Violet if she saved a baby on that dreadful night. "Yes", Jessop replied. The voice then said "Well, I was that baby", laughed, and then hung up. Her friend, and biographer John Maxtone-Graham said it was most likely some children in the village playing a joke on her. She replied, "No, John, I had never told that story to anyone before I told you now." To this day, the baby she saved has never been positively identified.

The Death of Violet Jessop
In 1971, after surviving two sinking ships and one ship collision, Violet Jessop dies of congestiev heart failure. She was 84 years old.

Jeffrey Miller, Kent State Victim, Died on May 4, 1970

The Life of Jeffrey Miller
(March 28, 1950 – May 4, 1970) was a student at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio when he was shot and killed by Ohio National Guardsmen in the Kent State shootings. At the time of his death, Miller had recently transferred to Kent State from Michigan State University. While at Michigan State, Miller pledged Phi Kappa Tau fraternity where his older brother had been a member.

The Death of Jeffrey Miller
Miller was shot after lobbing a tear-gas canister back at Ohio National Guardsmen at a protest against the Vietnam War. He was facing the Guardsmen while standing in an access road leading into the Prentice Hall parking lot at a distance of approximately 270 ft. A single rifle bullet entered his open mouth and exited at the back of his head at the base of his posterior skull, killing him almost instantly.

John Filo's iconic Pulitzer Prize-winning photo, the most famous picture from the event, features fourteen-year-old runaway Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling over Miller's body.

Three other students were killed in the shootings: Allison Krause, Sandra Scheuer, and William Knox Schroeder. The shootings led to protests and a national student strike, causing hundreds of campuses to close because of both violent and non-violent demonstrations. The Kent State campus remained closed for six weeks. Five days after the shootings, 100,000 people demonstrated in Washington, D.C., against the war and protesting the killing of unarmed students on a college campus.

Miller was buried in Hartsdale, New York. A memorial has been erected at Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School, the school that replaced Miller's high school in Plainview, New York. Miller's mother had been a secretary to the principal of J.F. Kennedy H.S. in the 1960s. There is a Kent State Memorial Lecture Fund at MIT established in 1970 by one of Jeffrey Miller’s childhood friends.

Dalida Died on May 3, 1987

The Life of Dalida
Dalida (17 January 1933 – 3 May 1987) was an Italian singer born and grown up in Egypt who lived most of her life in France. Dalida was born Yolanda Cristina Gigliotti to middle-class parents in Shoubra, Cairo, Egypt. Her family was of Italian origin, her grandparents having emigrated at the turn of the century from Calabria.

In 1951, at the age of 18, Dalida entered a beauty pageant, and shortly after began working as a model for a Cairo-based fashion house. In 1954, she entered the Miss Egypt pageant, and was awarded first prize. It was here she was spotted by French director Marc de Gastyne, and, much to the reluctance of her parents, she moved to Paris on Christmas Eve of the same year with the intention of pursuing a career in motion pictures. It was about this time she adopted the name Dalila, which was shortly thereafter changed to the more familiar Dalida.

Dalida performed and recorded in more than 10 languages including: French, Italian, Arabic, German, Spanish, Hebrew, English, Dutch, Japanese, and Greek. Some of Dalida's most well known songs are: Avec le temps, Je suis malade, Paroles, Paroles (with Alain Delon), Il venait d'avoir 18 ans, Gigi l'Amoroso, Salma ya salama and Laissez-moi danser.
Dalida’s quest for a career in French cinema proved to be of limited success. Instead, she began taking singing lessons, and was booked as a cabaret act on the Champs Elysées, which proved successful. Performing the song "Etrangère au Paradis" in a variety show at Coquatrix’s recently-opened Paris Olympia theatre, Dalida was introduced to Lucien Morisse and Eddie Barclay, who played a considerable part in launching the starlet’s career. Morisse was artistic producer of the popular Radio Europe 1, and Barclay an established record producer. After signing a recording contract with Barclay, Dalida’s debut single "Madona" was promoted heavily by Morisse, and was a moderate success. However, the release of "Bambino" in 1956 would prove to be even more triumphant - it spent 46 weeks in the French top ten and remains one of the biggest-selling singles in French history, and for its sales (which exceeded 300,000 copies) Dalida was awarded her first gold disc, presented on 17 September 1957. In the same year, she would also support Charles Aznavour at The Olympia. The follow up single to "Bambino", the exotic-sounding "Gondolier", was released in the Christmas on 1957, was also a great success, as were other early releases such as "Come Prima (Tu Me Donnes)", "Ciao Ciao Bambina", and a cover of The Drifters’ "Save the Last Dance For Me", "Garde-Moi la Dernière Danse".

Dalida toured extensively from 1958 through the early 1960s, playing dates in France, Egypt, Italy and United States. Her tour of Egypt and Italy spread her fame outside of France and Dalida soon became well-known throughout Europe. However, her tour of America was less successful and fame eluded her in English-speaking markets.

Despite enormous career success, Dalida’s private life was marred by a series of failed relationships and personal problems. Her first husband, Lucien Morisse committed suicide several years after her divorce. Two of her lovers, Luigi Tenco and Richard Chanfray, also took their own lives.

The Death of Dalida
On 3 May 1987 Dalida died as a result of an overdose of barbiturates,[2] leaving a suicide note reading "Life has become unbearable ... Forgive me." Dalida was buried in the Cimetière de Montmartre, Paris, and a life-size statue of the singer stands outside her tomb.

Since her death, Dalida has become a cult figure to a new generation of fans.In 1999 the play "Solitudini - Luigi Tenco e Dalida", written and directed by Maurizio Valtieri, was performed in Rome. In 2005, her life was documented in the two-part TV film Dalida, in the role of Dalida was Sabrina Ferilli. From 11 May to September 2007, The Paris City Hall commemorated the 20th anniversary of Dalida’s death with an exhibition of her outfits and previously unreleased photographs.

Have you ever seen such a beautiful and iconic tomb? Perfectly fit for a diva like Dalida.

Jack Wild Died on March 2, 2006

The life of Jack Wild
Jack Wild (30 September 1952 – 2 March 2006) was an English actor who achieved fame for his roles in both stage and screen productions of the Lionel Bart musical Oliver! with Ron Moody, Shani Wallis and Oliver Reed. For the latter performance (playing the Artful Dodger), he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the age of 16, but the Oscar went to Jack Albertson for his performance in The Subject Was Roses. Jack Wild appeared with actor Mark Lester in two films: Oliver! (1968) and Melody (1971).

Excessive drinking at an early age quickly derailed Wild's career. Some observers believe that Wild was the inspiration for "Little Man, What Now?" on Morrissey's first solo album Viva Hate.[citation needed] The song wistfully laments an unnamed, forgotten child star of Wild's approximate age.

Sobering up in 1988, he returned to the big screen in a few minor roles, such as in the 1991 Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. He was also reported to be developing a TV situation comedy with Suzi Quatro around the same time, but those plans never materialized in an actual series. For the most part, though, Wild spent the remainder of his career working in theater.

The Death of Jack Wild
Wild died on 2 March, 2006, aged 53, after a long battle with oral cancer, which he claimed[citation needed] was caused by his alcoholism and smoking. Diagnosed with the disease in 2000, he underwent surgery in July 2004 and had part of his tongue and both vocal cords removed. Because of this surgery, he had lost his speech and had to communicate through his wife, Clare Harding, whom he had met in the pantomime Cinderella Greenwich where Jack played one of the ugly stepsisters. He is buried in Toddington Parish Cemetery

Lindley Armstrong "Spike" Jones Died on May 1, 1965

The life of Spike Jones
(December 14, 1911 – May 1, 1965) was a popular musician and bandleader specializing in performing satirical arrangements of popular songs. Ballads and classical works receiving the Jones treatment would be punctuated with gunshots, whistles, cowbells and ridiculous vocals. Through the 1940s and early 1950s, the band recorded under the title Spike Jones and his City Slickers and toured the USA and Canada under the title The Musical Depreciation Revue.

Spike Jones's Record Hits:

Der Fuehrer's Face
In 1942, a strike by the American Federation of Musicians prevented Spike from making commercial recordings for over two years. He could, however, make records for radio broadcasts. These were released on the Standard Transcriptions label (1941–46) and have been reissued on a CD compilation called (Not) Your Standard Spike Jones Collection.
Recorded days before the record ban, Jones scored a huge broadcast hit late in 1942 with "Der Fuehrer's Face," a humorous attack on Adolf Hitler that followed every use of the word "Heil" with a razzberry (as in the repeated phrase "Sieg Heil, (razzberry), Heil (razzberry), right in Der Fuehrer's face!").

The song was originally written for Walt Disney's 1943 propaganda cartoon, first titled Donald Duck in Nutzi Land according to the Disney Archives. The success of the record prompted Disney to retitle the animated cartoon after the song. The song eventually reached number three on the charts, and it is said that even Hitler heard it. In fact, in the satirical magazine Cracked, in an article satirizing the fascination with Nazis, Hitler was depicted swinging a sledgehammer at a jukebox, from which a voice emanates singing "I went 'F-z-z-z-t-t-t!' right in Der Fuehrer's Face!".

More Satire
Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny and other Warner Brothers cartoon characters, performed a drunken, hiccupping verse for 1942's "Clink! Clink! Another Drink" (reissued in 1949 as "The Clink! Clink! Polka"). The romantic ballad "Cocktails for Two", originally written to evoke an intimate romantic rendezvous, was re-recorded by Spike Jones in 1944 as a raucous, horn-honking, voice-gurgling, hiccuping hymn to the cocktail hour. The Jones version was a huge hit, much to the resentment of composer Sam Coslow. Other Jones satires followed: "Hawaiian War Chant," "Chloe," "Holiday for Strings," "You Always Hurt the One You Love," "My Old Flame," (referring to Peter Lorre's voice and eerie scenes in contemporary movies) and many more.

All I Want for Christmas
Spike's recording, "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth," with a piping vocal by George Rock, was a number-one hit in 1948. (Dora Bryan recorded a 1963 variation, "All I Want For Christmas is a Beatle".)

The Death of Spike Jones
Jones was a lifelong smoker; he was once said to have gotten through the average workday on coffee and cigarettes. Smoking contributed to his contracting emphysema. His already thin frame deteriorated, to the point where he used an oxygen tank offstage, and onstage he was confined to a seat behind his drum set. He died at the age of 53, and is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California.