The sad and untimely deaths of Bernie Mac and Isaac Hays got me thinking about the saying that bad things happening in three’s. While that is not always true, what is true is that on August 11th on different years two famous but very different people were both killed in auto accidents. Well, one of the men was probably much more famous in Minnesota than in the rest of the country, but he definitely had his day in the sun in the winter of 1980. The other person made a splash (or a drip) on the international scene in the 1940’s and 1950’s and was even the subject of a documentary in 2006.
I believe I have given you more than enough clues; can you name the two victims of what I will now call the August 11th curse? If you can please let me know.
Last time around I wanted to know the name of the author from Indiana who joins the rank of William Faulkner and John Updike for winning not one, but two Pulitzer prizes for fiction. However despite this fact he is better known by the general public for the film adaptations of his award winning books. The author? Booth Tarkington. The novels? The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams, which aired on Turner Classic movies last weekend! How cool is that?
The campus hoosierphiles (yes that is a word) who knew the answer are –
Marianne Hageman
JoAnn Toussaint
Peter Erickson