Later Life and Death
With advancing age, Merman began to become forgetful, and on occasion had difficulty with her speech, and at times her behavior was erratic, causing concern among her friends.
On April 7, 1983, she was preparing to leave for Los Angeles to appear on the 55th Academy Awards telecast when she collapsed in her apartment. She was diagnosed with glioblastoma and underwent brain surgery to have the malignant tumor removed.
Early on the morning of February 15, 1984, she died in her sleep. Her private funeral service was held in a chapel at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, where she had frequently worshipped. On October 10, 1984, an auction of her personal effects, including furniture, artwork, and theatre memorabilia, earned in excess of $120,000 at Christie's East.
Read more about this topic: Ethel Merman
Famous quotes containing the words life and/or death:
“One can think of life after the fish is in the canoe.”
—Hawaiian saying no. 23, ‘lelo No’Eau, collected, translated, and annotated by Mary Kawena Pukui, Bishop Museum Press, Hawaii (1983)
“The dignity to be sought in death is the appreciation by others of what one has been in life,... that proceeds from a life well lived and from the acceptance of one’s own death as a necessary process of nature.... It is also the recognition that the real event taking place at the end of our life is our death, not the attempts to prevent it.”
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