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Baire René-Louis (b. 1874-01-21 / d. 1932-07-05)
René-Louis Baire was a French mathematician most famous for his Baire category theorem, which helped to generalize and prove future theorems. His theory was published originally in his dissertation Sur les fonctions de variable réelles ("On the Functions of Real Variables") in 1899. Since he was young, Baire always had "delicate" health. He had developed problems with his esophagus before he attended school and he would occasionally experience severe attacks of agoraphobia. From time to time, his health would prevent him from working or studying. The bad spells became more frequent, immobilizing him for long periods of time. Over time, he had developed a kind of psychological disorder that made him unable to undertake work that required long periods of concentration. At times this would make his ability to research mathematics impossible. Between 1909 and 1914 this problem continually plagued him and his teaching duties became more and more difficult. He was given a leave of absence from the University of Dijon due to all these breakdowns. He retired from Dijon in 1925 and spent his last years living in multiple hotels that he could afford with his meager pension.
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Born 1924-09-30. Domain:Writing. Cause of death:alcohol, other drugs
After the revocation of his driver's license (the result of speeding near his Long Island residence) and a hallucinatory seizure in 1980 that required hospitalization, Capote became fairly reclusive. These hallucinations continued unabated and scans revealed that his brain mass had perceptibly shrunk. On the rare occasions when he was lucid, he continued to hype Answered Prayers as being nearly complete and was reportedly planning a reprise of the Black and White Ball to have been held either in Los Angeles or a more exotic locale in South America. On a few occasions, he was still able to write. In 1982, a new short story, "One Christmas", appeared in the December issue of Ladies Home Journal and the following year it became, like its predecessors "A Christmas Memory" and "The Thanksgiving Visitor", a holiday gift book. In 1983, "Remembering Tennessee", an essay in tribute to Tennessee Williams, who had passed away in February of that year, appeared in Playboy magazine.
Capote died in Los Angeles. According to the coroner's report the cause of death was "liver disease complicated by phlebitis and multiple drug intoxication." He passed at the home of his old friend Joanne Carson, ex-wife of late-night TV host Johnny Carson, on whose program Capote had been a frequent guest. He was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, leaving behind his longtime companion, author Jack Dunphy. Dunphy died in 1992, and in 1994 both his and Capote's ashes were scattered at Crooked Pond, between Bridgehampton and Sag Harbor on Long Island, close to where the two had maintained a property with individual houses for many years. Capote also maintained the property in Palm Springs, a condominium in Switzerland that was mostly occupied by Dunphy seasonally, and a primary residence at the United Nations Plaza in New York City.
In 1933, he moved to New York City to live with his mother and her second husband, Joseph Capote, a Cuban-born textile broker, who adopted his stepson and renamed him Truman García Capote.