Death
Smith died unexpectedly at the relatively young age of 39 after contracting shigella and pneumonia while on a trip to India, apparently as a result of AIDS. It is suspected that Smith himself didn't know he had the disease, although those around him knew he was fragile in his last days. Most thought it was just that Smith had pushed himself so hard, being such a perfectionist with his work. John Bartlett, who was working at the time of Smith's untimely death, took over design operations and remained until 1990.
Smith, who was openly gay, has a panel in the original NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt and is also lamented in a poem Speak: A Poem for the Millennium March by Keith Boykin, read by its author for the Millennium March on Washington for Equality on April 29, 2000.
Read more about this topic: Willi Smith
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“During these fits of absolute unconsciousness I drank, God only knows how often or how much. As a matter of course, my enemies referred the insanity to the drink rather than the drink to the insanity. I had indeed, nearly abandoned all hope of a permanent cure when I found one in the death of my wife.”
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“Eyes spiritualised by death can judge,
I cannot, but I am not content.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)