Where Are They Buried? (38 page)

After he left
SNL
in 1995, Chris hammed his way through a string of starring roles as the same kind of lovable, bumbling slob in such movies as
Tommy Boy
and
Beverly Hills Ninja
. But though Chris’ hilarious onscreen routines garnered him professional triumph, his offscreen lifestyle propelled him toward disaster. For years Chris had battled against compulsions to overeat and overindulge in drugs and alcohol, and by 1997, those forces had conspired in a manner that was anything but funny.

It troubled the 300-pound, 5-foot-8 comic that he’d never had any meaningful girlfriends, and he often indulged in prostitutes to help ease the pain. Chris bought an apartment on the 60th floor of Chicago’s John Hancock tower and after a December day spent doing hard drugs with a call girl named Heidi, they ended up at his place. Around 3:00 a.m., Heidi went to depart when Chris collapsed onto the floor, wheezing, “Don’t leave me.” Ten hours later, Chris’s brother found him still lying on the floor, but no longer wheezing.

In an interview Chris had once confessed that he “dreamed of being John Belushi. I wanted to follow him,” but unfortunately, he never realized how far he would follow him. Just like his idol, Chris died at 33 of an accidental overdose of heroin and cocaine.

Chris was laid to rest at Resurrection Cemetery and Mausoleum in Madison, Wisconsin.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
Resurrection Cemetery is at 2705 Regent St., a sizable Madison road that begins just southwest of the Capitol building. From either the north or the south, follow Route 151 to its intersection with Regent Street, turn west and, within a mile, you’ll see the cemetery. Just before the cemetery, bear right at the “Y” and enter at the main drive on the left.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Immediately in front of you is the chapel and mausoleum. Walk into the chapel and you’ll find Chris’ crypt on the top left, just behind the altar.

JANUARY 21, 1924 – JANUARY 22, 1994

Over the course of his 30-plus-year acting career, Telly Aristotle Savalas appeared in dozens of movies, from
The Greatest Story Ever Told
to
The Dirty Dozen
to the James Bond flick
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
. But it was his personification of the tough-talking but big-hearted Lieutenant Theo Kojak in the
Kojak
television series that brought real celebrity to Telly. Fans adored him as the lollipop-addicted detective with a shiny, shaved head and trademark line, “Who loves ya, baby?” and the show enjoyed a six-season, award-winning run.

Reflecting on the recognition that the
Kojak
role brought him, Telly said, “Before
Kojak
, I made 60 movies with some of the biggest names in the business and people would still say ‘There goes what’s-his-name.’”

Telly died of prostate cancer at 70 and is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, California.

Either Telly or his survivors attempted to incorporate the writings of Aristotle (Telly’s middle namesake) into his epitaph but, embarrassingly, the chosen quote actually contains the last words of Socrates, as recorded by Plato.

The hour of departure has arrived,
and we go our ways.

I to die and you to live.
Which is the better God only knows.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
From Highway 134, which is the connector between Highway 101 and I-210, take the Forest Lawn Drive exit. Proceed west for a mile and the park’s entrance is on the left.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Get a map from the information booth and drive to the Gardens of Heritage, which are across the drive from the Old North Church. Enter the Gardens at the stairs that are to the left of the statue of Washington, walk up four short flights, then turn left. Telly lies 40 feet to the left, around the side of the Chu plot.

FEBRUARY 1, 1947 – OCTOBER 23, 1983

Young Jessica Savitch was a diligent Philadelphia newscaster whose big break came when she got national exposure during coverage of the 1975 Ford/Carter presidential debate. Within a year, she held the Senate news beat for NBC, and while old-school broadcasters were unimpressed with Jessica’s starlet style and follow-up remarks that sometimes displayed a lack of background knowledge, viewers loved her and she parlayed that into becoming one of the most prominent women in network news.

But as her professional career zoomed, Jessica’s personal travails became tabloid fodder. There were reports of the usual celebrity problems—screaming off-camera rants, cocaine binges, and promiscuous weekends—but other peculiar gossips surfaced as well. Jessica married the wealthy socialite Mel Korn, 30 years her senior, and after a quick divorce she then married her gynecologist, Donald Payne. During the marriage to Donald, Jessica carried on an affair with reporter Ron Kershaw (who reportedly beat her, resulting in bruises that makeup artists weren’t always able to conceal), and a distraught Donald hung himself in her basement with the leash of her dog, Chewy.

By 1983 Jessica’s on-camera persona had become increasingly unreliable and her popularity waned. As other bright newswomen emerged, the competition for a finite number of anchor positions intensified and Jessica’s on-screen time was reduced. In one of her final spots, she humiliated herself with a slurred and confused newsbreak delivery.

After dinner at Odette’s Restaurant in New Hope, Pennsylvania, with Martin Fischbein, vice president of the
New York Post
, Jessica and Martin (and her infamous dog, Chewy) drowned after Martin accidentally drove the car into a canal bordering the restaurant’s parking area. In poor visibility due to an evening downpour, Martin had drifted left off of the pavement and once the driver’s side wheels went over the edge, the whole car plunged upside down into the canal. Though the canal held just four feet of water, knee-deep mud sealed the doors shut and the two were trapped inside. Nobody had seen the accident and it was about four hours before the car was found. By that time, Jessica and Martin were long dead. Neither drugs nor alcohol were determined to have been a factor in the accident.

At 36, Jessica was cremated together with her dog, Chewy, and their ashes were scattered in the ocean surf near Atlantic City, New Jersey.

DECEMBER 25, 1924 – JUNE 28, 1975

On the day he graduated from high school, Rod Serling enlisted in the Army. During the invasion of the Philippines he was wounded by shrapnel and awarded the Purple Heart and, when Rod was discharged from the Army, he was “bitter about everything and at loose ends.” For the remainder of his life, in flashbacks and nightmares, Rod was troubled by the hypocritical experiences of the war and by the ultimate dimensions of mankind’s assault on its own humanity.

After the war, while attending Antioch College on the G.I. Bill, Rod began writing and acting for a local radio station and, by 1952, he was writing for television full-time. Rod won three Emmys during television’s golden age: for
Patterns
in 1955,
Requiem for a Heavyweight
in 1956, and
The Comedian
in 1957. Though he was very successful, many scripts Rod wrote contained social commentary or touched on weighty issues, and corporate sponsors in 1950s America were unwilling to underwrite anything that might clash with the time’s apple-pie outlook.

But Rod also realized that advertisers might approve scripts with potentially controversial material as long as they took place in a fictitious world. (“I found that it was all right to have Martians saying things Democrats and Republicans could never say.”) From this awareness came
The Twilight Zone
in 1959, and, with its instantly recognizable opening theme music and Rod as the charismatic host, the program achieved a permanent place in American
popular culture as well as, it seems, permanent syndication. And, much to Rod’s gratification, its out-of-this-world vignette format lent him license to skewer dozens of formerly untouchable social issues including bigotry, religious zealotry, capital punishment, aging, and sexism.

After production of
The Twilight Zone
ended in 1964, leaving Rod “tired and frustrated,” he began to concentrate on movie scripts; his most acclaimed screenplay was the adaptation he co-wrote with Michael Wilson of Pierre Boulle’s book,
The Planet of the Apes
. Later, Rod was enticed back to television, writing episodes of the 1970s anthology series
Rod Serling’s Night Gallery
, a kind of
Twilight Zone
stepchild. During the 1970s, Rod showed another side of his personality, that of a liberal and concerned American who spoke frankly about social reform and the nation’s policies concerning Vietnam.

A lifelong smoker, Rod died at 50 of complications after a coronary bypass operation. He was buried at Lakeview Cemetery in Interlaken, New York.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
North of town on Route 96, turn east onto County Road 150 and the cemetery is a short distance ahead on the left.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Enter the cemetery and bear right at the first two forks. Go past the concrete holding house on the left, turn right at the four corners, and stop at the twin cedar trees on the left. A hundred feet further left is the flat stone that marks Rod’s grave.

MAY 20, 1908 – JULY 2, 1997

In 1932, upon graduating with a degree in architecture from Princeton University where he had served on the cheerleading squad, the stammering, “aw-shucks” actor Jimmy Stewart promptly got into theater. After some summer stock and barnstorming stage work, he headed to Hollywood and for a few years languished as a bit player in everything from murder mysteries to musicals. But in 1938 Jimmy scored in the romantic comedy
You Can’t Take It With You
, and the next year he received an Oscar nomination for
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
. In 1940 Jimmy won an Oscar for his performance as a smitten reporter in
The Philadelphia Story
.

In his 50-year career, Jimmy often played the earnest and bashful hero, slow to anger but possessed with bottomless reserves of perseverance. In an age of elegant, handsome matinee idols, lanky Jimmy was more the average-looking guy next door who embodied the small-town values of decency and moral courage, both on the screen and off. While he served in the Air Force as a bomber pilot he refused all the publicity the military tried to pour on him, insisting instead on being treated like any other serviceman. He continued as a reservist after the war, retiring as a brigadier general in 1968. Jimmy sometimes returned to help his family’s small-town Pennsylvania hardware store where his best actor Oscar was displayed in the window for twenty years. Jimmy was married just once, for 45 years, and he and his wife lived quietly, generally avoiding the Hollywood social whirl.

Of course, he’s best known for his role as a suicidal businessman who finds redemption in the 1946 Christmas classic
It’s a Wonderful Life
, but Jimmy also starred in the great Alfred Hitchcock films
Vertigo
and
Rear Window
. In these roles Jimmy set a precedent that actors profit from today. Trading his flat salary for a percentage of the movie profits, he benefited handsomely when the films went on to become box-office hits. But Jimmy even refuted credit for that idea, saying, “There’s too much praise for small things. I won’t let it get me, but too much praise can turn a fellow’s head if he doesn’t watch his step.”

Suffering respiratory problems and mourning the recent death of his wife, Gloria, he died of cardiac arrest at his home in 1997. Jimmy’s last words were, “I’m going to be with Gloria now.”

At 89, he was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
From Highway 2, take the San Fernando Road exit and turn northwest. After a mile, make a right onto Glendale Avenue and the park’s entrance is immediately on the right.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Enter the park, start driving up the hill and turn at the first left. As the road winds around in a wide, right-hand curve, on the right is the Taylor memorial, which is a statue of a crouching archer. Stop here, walk up the hill, and orient yourself so that the archer is aiming directly at you. Then, six rows from the memorial’s base, you can find Jimmy’s grave.

SEPTEMBER 28, 1901 – OCTOBER 13, 1974

Straight out of high school, Ed Sullivan became a stringer reporter and sports columnist for New York’s Hearst-owned newspapers, and in 1932 seized an opportunity to replace rival reporter Walter Winchell as the reporter for the
New York Daily News
Broadway gossip column, “Little Old New York.” As a leading entertainment columnist for the next 42 years, he was wooed by celebrities from all walks of media and his access to the glamorous world of stars made him a luminary himself.

Frequently exploiting his column contacts to enlist celebrity guests for charity galas and parties, Ed finally took full advantage of his unique situation in 1948 and debuted his
Toast of the Town
variety show on CBS. The network gave Ed just $375 to secure his guest lineup for the opening show, and even with that paltry budget he was able to produce a half-dozen acts, including the little-known comedy team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

As a host, Ed Sullivan had a strange drawl, awkward mannerisms, and a deadpan delivery style—but whatever he lacked in stage presence, he compensated for in his outstanding eye for talent. Temperamental and controlling, he choreographed each act’s staging and edited their material, but as the popularity of the show grew, it was understood that Sullivan was a certified star maker and few argued with his demands, lest they be denied their “big break.” From Elvis Presley and the Beatles to Sammy Davis Jr. and Phyllis Diller, the show was a hit. After being renamed
The Ed Sullivan Show
in 1955, it ran until 1971 for a total of 1,087 shows, and Ed continued his tenure as newspaper gossip columnist throughout.