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Margaux Hemingway: Model-actress who chose to die
1955-1996
"Whatever demons she was fighting, (it) is over now. It's just time to let her rest."
-- Graham Kaye Margaux Hemingway's agent
On July 1, almost 35 years to the day after her famous grandfather committed suicide, actress Margaux Hemingway was found dead in her Santa Monica apartment. In August, the Los Angeles coroner's office concluded that Hemingway had committed suicide by taking an overdose of the sedative Klonopin. She was 41.
After making a big splash as a model, being featured on the cover of Time and gaining a million-dollar perfume contract, Hemingway starred in "Lipstick" in 1976. But it was poorly received, and was followed by forgettable roles in "Killer Fish" in 1979, "They Call Me Bruce?" in 1982 and "Inner Sanctum" in 1991. Her younger sister Mariel, who had a small role in "Lipstick," went on to a successful career in films such as Woody Allen's "Manhattan."
Hemingway, who had fought well-publicized battles with alcohol and bulimia, was the fifth member of her family to commit suicide. Her grandfather, Ernest, notorious for boozing and periods of severe depression, killed himself on July 2, 1961. His brother, sister and father also killed themselves.
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Gene Kelly: Singer, dancer, choreographer
1912-1996
"Fred danced in tails -- everybody wore them before I came out here -- but I took off my coat, rolled up my sleeves and danced in sweat shirts and jeans and khakis."
Gene Kelly, the dancer and choreographer whose joyful splashing in puddles in the classic "Singin' in the Rain" endeared him to viewers worldwide, died February 2 of complications from two previous strokes. He was 83.
In the 1940s and 1950s, the golden age of movie musicals, Kelly was one of MGM's top box office draws. He developed a style of dancing that combined classical ballet training and a desire to break with musicals of the past. In a 1994 interview, Kelly said he never wanted to dance "like all those rich people in suits, because they hid the line of your body. I danced in sweat shirts, rolled-up sleeves, moccasins, socks, jeans, khakis and so forth."
Perhaps the high point of Kelly's career was the 1951 "An American in Paris," which Kelly choreographed, and in which he performed a 17-minute ballet with co-star Leslie Caron. The film won the Academy Award for best picture, and Kelly won a special award for his versatility "and especially for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film." More recently, at the age of 81, Kelly choreographed large parts of Madonna's 1993 "Girlie Show" tour.
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Krzysztof Kieslowski: In search of an answer
1941-1996
"I'm always shooting the same film!"
Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski used the big screen to pose the big questions of life. He tackled truth, beauty, love, good and evil in a body of work highlighted by "Dekalog," his 10-part television series of modern vignettes illustrating the bible's Ten Commandments, "The Double Life of Veronique" and his tricolor trilogy -- "Blue," "White" and "Red."
Kieslowski was a dark, pessimistic man whose early works in the 1970s obliquely questioned the communist system under which he worked. The director slowly built a name for himself, evidenced by a shelf of international awards, and finally fully blossomed with the end of communism in eastern Europe. After the worldwide success of the 1993-94 tricolor movies, which illustrated the French flag's symbolism of liberty, equality and fraternity, Kieslowski committed himself to retirement. Before long, however, Kieslowski was talking up another trilogy, this time tackling heaven, hell and purgatory.
Kieslowski's drive to continue asking the big questions and painting the big picture were cut short on March 12, 1996, when the director suffered a fatal heart attack. He was 54. Kieslowski had undergone a heart bypass surgery the day before.
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