Death
Berlin died in his sleep on September 22, 1989 of natural causes, in New York City at the age of 101 and was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York. He was survived by three daughters: Mary Ellin Barrett and Elizabeth Irving Peters of New York, and Linda Louise Emmet, who lives in Paris. He is also survived by nine grandchildren Edward Watson Emmet (born circa 1968), Ellin Emmet, and Caroline Emmet from daughter Linda; Elizabeth Matson (born in 1954), Irving Barrett (born in 1955), Mary Ellin Barrett Lerner (born in 1956), and Katherine Swett (born in 1960), from daughter Mary Ellin; and Emily Anstice Fisher (born circa 1966) and Rachel, from daughter Elizabeth and six great grandchildren Peter and James Matson; Benjamin Lerner; Rachel, Nicholas and William Swett, Madeleine and Isobel Fletcher.
On the evening following the announcement of his death, the marquee lights of Broadway playhouses were dimmed before curtain time in his memory. President George H. W. Bush said Mr. Berlin was "a legendary man whose words and music will help define the history of our nation." Just minutes before the President's statement was released, he joined a crowd of thousands to sing Berlin's "God Bless America" at a luncheon in Boston. Former President Ronald Reagan, who costarred in Berlin's 1943 musical This Is the Army, said, "Nancy and I are deeply saddened by the death of a wonderfully talented man whose musical genius delighted and stirred millions and will live on forever."
Morton Gould, the composer and conductor who was president of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), of which Mr. Berlin was a founder, said, "What to me is fascinating about this unique genius is that he touched so many people in so many age groups over so many years. He sounded our deepest feelings—happiness, sadness, celebration, loneliness." Ginger Rogers, who danced to Berlin tunes with Fred Astaire, told The Associated Press upon hearing of his death that working with Mr. Berlin had been "like heaven."
Read more about this topic: Irving Berlin
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“To die, to sleep—
No more, and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil
Must give us pause.”
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They will deliver death and wounds tomorrow.
And I doubt all. You. Or a violet.”
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