Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath - who was born on October 27th, 1932, in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. - was an American poet, novelist, and short-story-writer.  After having her first poem published at age eight, Plath had numerous more printed in local publications over the next few years.  At age eleven, she began a journal, and showed early promise as a painter; she was also diagnosed with an I.Q. of around 160.  Raised as a Unitarian, Plath became ambivalent about religion after her father's death when she was eight.  Graduating from high school in 1950, she then attended Smith College in Massachusetts where she became editor of The Smith Review and guest editor of Mademoiselle magazine.  Becoming depressed and angry after failing to meet poet Dylan Thomas at a meeting, Plath slashed her legs to see if she had enough "courage" to kill herself.  Following electroconvulsive therapy for depression, Plath attempted suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping tablets on August 24th, 1953.  After six months in psychiatric care, she returned to college, graduating in June of 1955.  She was then awarded a scholarship to Cambridge University in England, where she spent the next two years.  Plath met the English poet Ted Hughes in February, 1956; the two were instantly attracted, and married on June 16th that year in London.  In June of 1957, the couple moved to the U.S.A., where Plath taught at her old college and resumed psychoanalytic treatment for her depression.  They travelled across the U.S.A. and Canada in 1959, returning to live in London, England that December.  Their first child, Frieda, was born on April 1st, 1960, with Plath's first volume of poetry, The Colossus, following in October.  In February, 1961, Plath's second pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, with Plath later claiming that Hughes had beaten her two days earlier.  That August, Plath finished writing (it was published in 1963) her semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, before the couple immediately moved to North Tawton in Devon, where Plath gave birth to her second child, Nicholas, in January, 1962.  Plath and Hughes had rented their London flat to two poets, Assia and David Wevill.  Plath had a car crash in June of 1962, which she described as one of many suicide attempts.  In July, she discovered that her husband was having an affair with Assia Wevill, and separated from him in September.  Plath now entered a period of great creativity, writing at least 26 poems between then and February, 1963.  In December of 1962, Plath returned to live in London with her children, her depression worsening during one of the coldest Winters in one-hundred years.  During January of 1963, Plath spoke to her doctor about her depression; he prescribed her anti-depressants, but failed to persuade her to enter hospital, instead arranging for a live-in nurse to help her look after her children.  The nurse tried to gain access to the property on February 11th, 1963, but was initially unable to do so.  With the help of a workman, she eventually broke in, only to discover Plath dead with her head in the gas oven.  She had sealed the rooms between her and her sleeping children to prevent them inhaling the fumes.  An inquest ruled that Plath had committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning.  On March 16th, 2009, her son, Nicholas - a wildlife biologist - hanged herself after suffering from depression.  Sylvia Plath was just 30 years old.

Robin Douglas-Home

Cecil Robin Douglas-Home - who was born on May 8th, 1932, in London, England - was an English-born Scottish aristocrat, jazz pianist, and author.  He was the eldest son of the Honourable Henry Douglas-Home from his first marriage to Lady Margaret Spencer; the nephew of the former British Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home; and the older brother of Charles Douglas-Home, the editor of The Times newspaper.  Douglas-Home was a jazz pianist and a leading society figure in the 1950s and '60s.  In the 1950s, he had a relationship with Princess Margaretha of Sweden, but was apparently refused permission to marry her by her mother, Princess Sibylla.  However, Margaretha's nanny later stated in her memoirs that the reason for the couple's breakup was simply that the princess did not want to marry him.  Douglas-Home instead married the 18-year-old fashion model Sandra Paul in 1959, and in 1962 they had a son, Sholto, who was conceived at Frank Sinatra's mansion in Palm Springs, Florida.  A talented writer, Douglas-Home was invited by Sinatra to write his first authorised biography, which was published in 1962, and he subsequently wrote four novels, the first of which, Hot for Certainties, won the Authors' Club's Best First Novel Award in 1964.  He also wrote articles for journals and magazines such as Queen and Woman's Own.  Shortly after the birth of his son, Douglas-Home fathered a son by Nicolette Vane-Tempest-Stewart, the Marchioness of Londonderry, the truth about which would remain secret until the late 1990s.  In 1965, Douglas-Home divorced his wife, the breakup being the subject of a documentary by Alan Whicker.  Around this time, he began a relationship with Princess Margaret, the sister of Queen Elizabeth II.  Margaret was at this time concerned about the deterioration of her own marriage to Antony Armstrong-Jones, Lord Snowdon, and sought solace in a one-month affair with Douglas-Home.  Their liaison ended rather abruptly, when the princess decided to try to salvage her relationship with Snowdon.  Eighteen months after his split with princess Margaret, and having suffered with clinical depression for some years, Robin Douglas-Home took his own life on October 15th, 1968, at his country home in West Chiltington, West Sussex, England.  He was just 36 years old.

Tony Hancock

Anthony John Hancock - who was born on May 12th, 1924 - was an English comedian and actor. Born in Hall Green, Birmingham, England, Hancock was the son of John Hancock, who was also a comedian and entertainer. Hancock had a high profile in Britain during the 1950s and 1960s, with his show, Hancock's Half Hour, being popular on radio and later television.  After parting with his scriptwriters, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, Hancock's career went into gradual decline, and he began to turn to drink in an attempt to cope.  His alcoholism started to affect his performance, and he collapsed after suffering a liver attack on January 1st, 1967; and, in December of the same year, while recovering from a broken rib after a drunken fall, he became ill with pneumonia.
Hancock arrived in Austalia in March, 1968, under contract to make a 13-part series for the Seven Network.  However, only three episodes were completed, and these remained unaired for nearly four years.  On June 25th, 1968, Hancock committed suicide by overdose at his flat in Bellevue Hill, Sydney, Australia.  An empty vodka bottle and a scattering of amylo-barbitone tablets were found by his side. He was 44 years old. 

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American writer, who was born in Oak Park, Illinois, U.S.A., on July 21st, 1899. Renowned for an economical and understated writing style, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.  Hemingway almost died after two plane crashes in 1952, which left him in pain and ill-health for much of the rest of his life. Hemingway - whose brother, Leicester, and sister, Ursula, also committed suicide - killed himself with a shotgun in the early-morning hours of July 2nd, 1961, at his home in Ketchum, Idaho, U.S.A.  He was 61 years old.