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" Final Resting Place of Patsy Cline"

          

Patsy Cline
September 8th, 1932 - March 5th, 1963
Cause of death: Plane crash
Shenandoah Memorial Park, Winchester, Winchester City, Virginia.
 The above memorial stone is at the crash site West of  Camden, Benton County, Tennessee.

Patsy Cline was an American country music singer.

Born Virginia Patterson Hensley in Winchester, Virginia, United States, she received her first contract as a country singer in 1953 and, despite her short life, would become one of the most influential singers in the history of American popular music. Cline was the last name of her first husband, Gerald Cline, a construction industry mogul, whom she married in 1953 and divorced in 1957.

That same year, Cline married Charles Allen Dick, who worked as a linotype operator for the Winchester Star. They had a daughter, Julia Dick (b. 1958), and a son, Allen Randolph Dick (b. 1961).

Cline rocketed to fame after she performed her breakthrough hit "Walkin' After Midnight" (1957) on the Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, written by Don Hecht and Alan Block. She became a mainstay on the country music showcase Grand Ole Opry in 1960, which was the realization of her life long dream. Though she began her career recording rockabilly, it became clear that Cline's voice was best suited for pop/country crossover tunes, especially love songs. Some signature songs are "Crazy" (written by Willie Nelson but forever linked to Cline), "She's Got You", "I Fall To Pieces", and Don Gibson's "Sweet Dreams". Cline's producer was the legendary Owen Bradley of Decca Records, now MCA. It is Mr. Bradley whom is often credited as one of the pioneers of the "Nashville Sound". Bradley also produced the records of Loretta Lynn, Jim Reeves and Brenda Lee. Before her untimely death, Patsy became one of few female Country artists to play Carnegie Hall in NYC and later, the first to headline her own show in Las Vegas. She also played the Hollywood Bowl.

On June 14, 1961, Patsy Cline and her brother were involved in a head-on car collision. The impact of the accident threw Patsy through the windshield, nearly killing her. Upon arriving at the scene, singer Dottie West picked the glass from Patsy's hair and Patsy insisted that the driver from the other car be treated before her. Patsy later stated that she saw the other woman die before her eyes at the hospital. Suffering from a jagged cut across her forehead that required stitches, a broken wrist, and a dislocated hip, she spent a month in the hospital. When she left the hospital, her forehead was still visibly scarred. For the remainder of her career, she wore wigs to hide the scars and headbands to relieve pressure on her forehead.

Cline died in a plane crash at Camden, Tennessee while returning from Kansas City, Missouri at the age of 30, on March 5, 1963. Also killed in the crash were three other country music figures who were fairly well-known at the time, Hawkshaw Hawkins, Randy Hughes, and Cowboy Copas. Hughes, Cline's manager, was the plane's pilot. Country singer Jack Anglin died in an automobile accident while driving to her funeral. Today the crash site, located in a forest, is marked by a large memorial.

Were she alive today, Patsy Cline would have four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren (as of July 2006). After Cline's death, Charlie Dick married and divorced Jamey Ryan, also a singer, and had a son, Charles Allen Dick, Jr.

Cline is interred in the Shenandoah Memorial Park cemetery in her hometown of Winchester, Virginia.

Among her many honors, she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, she was the first female solo artist to be elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1973, in 1993 she was honored with her image on a United States postage stamp and in 1995, she was awarded posthumously a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

The 1985 movie Sweet Dreams, starring Jessica Lange as Cline, is based on her adult life and is said by some familiar with her to be fairly accurate in many respects, although some have disputed its portrayal of her mercurial relationship with second husband Charlie Dick (portrayed in the film by Ed Harris). However, its depiction of the plane crash as occurring in high desert mountains totally unlike any terrain found in West Tennessee is wildly inaccurate. Another adaptation of her life is the one-woman musical, A Closer Walk with Patsy Cline which originated in Canada in the 1990s and originally starred Louise Vallance as Cline. "I Fall to Pieces" was voted #107 on the RIAA list of the Songs of the Century.

In 2005 her album "Patsy Cline's Greatest Hits" was certified by the RIAA as Diamond, meaning it had reached sales of 10 million copies.

In 1980 Patsy Cline was portrayed in the film Coal Miner's Daughter by actress Beverly D'Angelo. The film displayed the close friendship Cline had with fellow country music singer, Loretta Lynn. Despite the number of songs by Patsy Cline used in the film, D'Angelo did all her own singing. Its possibly through this picture (and book of the same name by Lynn), that Patsy Cline's popularity began to soar again. Her introduction to a new generation of fans continued when author Ellis Nassour wrote his 1981 biography Honky Tonk Angel: The Intimate Story Of Patsy Cline. Excerpts from the book were later used in the hit 1990s musical Always Patsy Cline, originally produced by Ted Swidley.