A Wonderful Life: 50 Eulogies to Lift the Spirit - Hardcover

The farewells gathered in this collection celebrate the lives of some of the most famous figures of the twentieth century, writen in most instances by their equally famous peers. Informed by wit, humor, and affection, these minibiographies include rare insight and provide a real understanding of what made these people so exceptional.
Cyrus Copeland, in his second compilation of eulogies, has collected fifty inspiring tributes that honor icons from the realms of entertainment and the arts, government and politics, science and the media.
Here we have famed film director George Cukor revealing Joan Crawford's greatest love affair—with the camera; sex research guru Alfred Kinsey memorialized by his longtime secretary; Bill Clinton on how Rosa Parks changed our world; Charles Kurault on the awe he felt in working with Edward R. Murrow; chef Jacques Pépin calling Julia Child an "antisnob"; Dan Aykroyd celebrating his friendship with John Belushi; the uniqueness of Leonard Bernstein as described by friend and fellow composer Ned Rorem; a poem written by Robert Hunter to honor Jerry Garcia; Bob Costas's homage to his greatest hero, Mickey Mantle. In addition, there are eulogies for several 9/11 heroes, and tributes to parents by three distinguished writers.
As Copeland notes in his introduction, a good eulogy can be "a bridge between the living and the dead, between us and them, memory and eternity....A great eulogy assures us that our loved ones will endure in our collective memories." And so, in these pages, fifty memorable people come alive again and, thanks to these eulogies, will continue to live in our memory.

Cyrus Copeland, a former copywriter and advertising executive, is the editor of a previous collection of eulogies, Farewell, Godspeed: The Greatest Eulogies of Our Time. He travels extensively around the United States, speaking to state funeral director associations about the art of remembrance. He lives in New York City—and in the digital domain at cyrus2000@earthlink.net.