Richard Farnsworth - Personal Life and Death

Personal Life and Death

Farnsworth was married to Margaret "Maggie" Hill for 38 years. She was the mother of his two children, Diamond and Missy. She died in 1985. Toward the end of his life, he met Jewly Van Valin on the bridle trail, a stewardess 35 years his junior. Farnsworth and Van Valin started riding together and were engaged. He was well liked and busy in his community of Lincoln, New Mexico, where he had a 60-acre (240,000 m2) ranch and moved after his wife's death.

Farnsworth was the spokesman for the Lincoln County Cowboy Symposium, an annual event in Ruidoso, New Mexico. He made a video with cowboy poet Waddie Mitchell called Buckaroo Bard. He also helped with the 'Last Great Cattle Drive of This Millennium' in 1999. Shortly before his death, he was presented with an award from the Governor of New Mexico for Excellence and Achievement in the Arts.

Farnsworth was diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer in the early 1990s. By 1999, he had been diagnosed as having terminal bone cancer. He made the movie The Straight Story while in considerable pain. Not wanting to live his life in pain, Farnsworth committed suicide by shooting himself at his ranch in Lincoln, New Mexico. He is interred with his wife Margaret in the Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.