Ian McDonald, co-founder of King Crimson and Foreigner.
(Hattip: Lawrence.)
Lars Eighner. I’m not sure how many people outside of Austin recognize that name. For those long time Austinites, this should be a blast from the past.
Mr. Eighner lost his job and spent three years homeless on the streets of Austin with his dog. He wrote periodically for the “Austin Chronicle”, and eventually published Travels With Lizbeth about that experience. He published two other books after that, but those were less successful.
I’m going to put this last obit behind a jump. I’m noting it because it’s a sad sundae with chopped sad and a sad cherry on top.
Stephanie Selby. When she was 10 years old, she was attending the School of American Ballet. George Balanchine picked her for the lead role in his version of “The Nutcracker”.
And at the same time, a writer and photographer named Jill Krementz visited the school, became fascinated, and decided to write a book. When Ms. Selby was picked for “The Nutcracker”, Ms. Krementz found her angle, and followed Ms. Selby for the next year.
“A Very Young Dancer” (1976) leapt onto The New York Times’s children’s best-seller list. Fan mail poured in. Ms. Selby appeared on the “Today” show and a one-hour “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” Christmas special. And she fueled the imaginations of other young dancers.
“I remember poring over every word and especially every photograph in the book,” Dena Abergel, who read it when she was 7, recalled by email. “I completely identified with Stephanie and hoped to live in her ballet world one day.” She did, training at the School of American Ballet, becoming a dancer with New York City Ballet and originating a number of roles there. She now serves as children’s repertory director for the company.
I wasn’t in the target audience for this, but apparently it was a huge deal among those who were.
Ms. Selby, however, wasn’t totally comfortable with the demands of high level ballet. By 13, she had left the School of American Ballet. (She and her family told the press that she quit to go to college: Ms. Selby admitted in a 2011 NYT interview that she was actually asked to leave.)
She went to college, got a degree, and knocked around quite a bit. She was a mounted park ranger in New York, spent time in a Connecticut monastery, did social work, and eventually fetched up in Wyoming. There, she did outfitting work, joined a church, and got married and divorced.
She also struggled with depression. Ms. Selby was 56 when she passed: according to her family, the cause of death was complications from a suicide attempt.
The number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). If you live outside of the United States or are looking for other help, TVTropes has a good page of additional resources.