W. S. Van Dyke - Final Years and Death

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.

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