Final Years and Death
Ill with cancer and a bad heart, he directed one last film: Journey for Margaret, it was a heart-rending movie that made five-year old Margaret O'Brien an overnight star.
A devout Christian Scientist, Van Dyke refused most medical care during his last years. After finishing his last film he said his goodbyes to his wife, children and studio boss Louis B. Mayer, and committed suicide on February 5, 1943. in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California. At his request, Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy both sang and officiated at his funeral.
Read more about this topic: W. S. Van Dyke
Famous quotes containing the words final, years and/or death:
“All cries are thin and terse;
The field has droned the summer’s final mass;
A cricket like a dwindled hearse
Crawls from the dry grass.”
—Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)
“Lonesome? God, no! From the day the kids are born, if it’s not one thing, it’s another. After all those years of being responsible for them, you finally get to the point where you want to scream: “Fall out of the nest already, you guys, will you? It’s time.””
—Anonymous Mother of Four. As quoted in Women of a Certain Age, by Lillian B. Rubin, ch. 2 (1979)
“Old age is a tyrant that forbids us upon pain of death all the pleasures of youth.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)