Where Are They Buried? (41 page)

Long before Johnny’s final
Tonight Show
on May 22, 1992, Ed capitalized on his “feel-good fever” and made a name for himself as a first-class pitchman; at one point he was hawking everything from Budweiser to Breck Shampoo while being a spokesman for
more than twenty different banks. For years he served as the spokesman for American Family Publishers’ national sweepstakes, his friendly mug famously informing Americans “You may already have won $10 million!” With Dick Clark he hosted sixteen years of
TV’s Bloopers & Practical Jokes,
made forty-one appearances on the Jerry Lewis Telethon, and spent a dozen years hosting
Star Search
.

One would think that with working so much in what seems to be a lucrative field, Ed would have had no financial worries, but in 2008 it was reported he was in arrears on his Beverly Hills home and his lender had filed a notice of default. “If you spend more money than you make, you know what happens, and it can happen,” he said. “You know, a couple of divorces thrown in, a few things like that.”

At 86, Ed’s multitude of medical problems—including a fractured neck suffered in a fall, evils brought on by an allergy to a mold, pneumonia and, ultimately, bone cancer—caught up with him and he died in his sleep. In keeping with what seems to be a tradition with
The Tonight Show
hosts, Ed was cremated and his ashes given to his family.

APRIL 23, 1943 – SEPTEMBER 4, 1993

The three-foot, nine-inch actor Herve Villechaize was best known for his TV role as Ricardo Montalban’s sidekick, Tattoo, on the popular
Fantasy Island
program. Every episode opened with a planeload of guests arriving at the island to realize their fondest dreams, and in his role Herve would excitedly exclaim, “Boss! De plane! De plane!”

Over a salary dispute, Herve quit
Fantasy Island
the year before it was retired in 1984, and perhaps his absence hastened its cancellation. But the show seemed to have crested a few seasons earlier, anyway. Herve’s next project was a lengthy unemployment streak broken only by an appearance in a doughnut commercial where he resurrected his infamous line in the context of his pastry preference: “De plain! De plain!” That’s show business.

Born with undersized lungs and suffering from ulcers and a spastic colon, of all things, Herve’s despondency over his health problems, and other personal issues, too, culminated in his suicide. He shot himself to death behind his garage at age 50.

Herve was cremated and his ashes scattered off Point Fermin in California.

MAY 26, 1907 – JUNE 11, 1979

After attending the University of Southern California on a football scholarship, Marion Morrison appeared in over 50 feature films and serials, mostly Westerns, during the 1930s. At some point in that early career, an executive did him the favor of a lifetime by unceremoniously changing his name to John Wayne, simply because he didn’t like his real name. Nonetheless, John Wayne appeared to be doomed to a role as a leading player in low-budget films.

But in 1939 John was cast in the lead role of John Ford’s
Stagecoach
and the film proved to be a turning point in his career. Although it took time for him to develop his rugged, American image, within a decade John was a top box-office draw and even today, he is one of the most popular actors of all time. Though the majority of his roles in the next 75 films were as an archetypal, no-nonsense hero in classic Westerns such as
The Searchers
and
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
, John also personified the hard-as-nails patriot in war films like
Sands of Iwo Jima
and
The Green Berets
.

After four decades of Hollywood stardom, John and his fans suspected that the 1978 film
The Shootist
would be his last hurrah. John had lost a lung to cancer back in 1964 and, after studio press agents tried to conceal the nature of the illness, he’d gone before the public and shown that the disease was no match for John Wayne. But now the disease had invaded his internal organs and everyone, especially John, was cognizant of the awful, impending
reality; the selfless hero onscreen was being done in by a selfish villain offscreen. When he died in the final shootout scene, everybody knew they’d seen the last of both John Waynes, the real and the imaginary.

John died of stomach cancer at 72 and was buried at Pacific View Memorial Park in Corona del Mar, California.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
From Route 1, turn east onto Marguerite Avenue where it intersects the highway a couple miles south of Newport Bay. Follow Marguerite Avenue for a mile to the “T,” then turn right onto Pacific View Drive and you’ll be led directly into the park.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Enter the park, bear left, and go up the hill toward the Lagunita Hill mausoleums. Across the drive from the mausoleums, find the “578” curb marking and John’s grave is six rows down the hill.

MARCH 11, 1903 – MAY 17, 1992

Who could ever have imagined that an uneducated, heavily accented, dirt-poor farm boy from North Dakota would preside over one of the longest-running shows in television history? Lawrence Welk attained that distinction by blending his folksy charm and his orchestra’s easy-listening music with such traditional entertainment forms as tap and ballroom dancing, ragtime piano, jazz accordion, and mellow singing acts.

After a quarter-century of crisscrossing the country and leading his band everywhere from Yankton, South Dakota, to Newport, Oregon, to Hackensack, New Jersey, Lawrence scored a television show in 1955.
The Lawrence Welk Show
was an immediate success and it popularized his “champagne music,” a term coined by a Pittsburgh radio announcer that succinctly characterized his sparkling and light, middle-of-the-road sound.

As the years wore on and the day’s popular music continually reinvented itself, Lawrence stayed true to his muse; he made no pretense of being even remotely hip, and he refused to vary his basic recipe: Play what the people understand, keep it simple so the audience feels like they participate, and, when in doubt, return to a composition that puts the girl back in the boy’s arms. The show’s banality became the butt of jokes, and detractors considered it tinkly Mickey Mouse music dispensed to geriatrics, but legions of fans adored the sentimentality as
a reassuring time capsule of a simpler and happier time. And Lawrence continued to be popular long after his contemporaries faded, suggesting that perhaps he was onto something after all.

In 1971
The Lawrence Welk Show
was cancelled, but Lawrence shrewdly signed up some 250 independent television stations and kept the program going for another eleven seasons. In sum, there were 1,542 “wunnerful, wunnerful,” Lawrence Welk-hosted, champagne music broadcasts. Even today, at the Welk Resort Centers and Museums in Escondido, California, and in Branson, Missouri, additional productions continue in one form or another.

At 89, Lawrence Welk died of pneumonia at his Santa Monica beachfront condo.

He was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
From I-405, take Slauson Avenue east for a half-mile and the cemetery is on the left at #5835.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Enter the cemetery, drive up to the mausoleum on the hill, and to the right of the mausoleum you’ll see a flower shop. Lawrence’s grave is about 175 yards diagonally behind and to the left of the flower shop in Plot 110-T9.

Due to Lawrence’s accent and his affinity for polkas, most folks thought he was Polish. In fact, he was born in the U.S. His parents had emigrated from Russia eight years earlier.

MAY 6, 1915 – OCTOBER 10, 1985

Although he worked on the stage for more than 50 years, gave countless radio performances, starred in more than 60 films—many of which he both wrote and directed—and had a hand in another hundred or so motion pictures, Orson Welles’ fame rests primarily on two projects he completed before he was barely 25 years old. By Orson’s own admission, he “started at the top and worked my way down.”

The public became aware of Orson with his chillingly realistic 1938 radio dramatization of
War of the Worlds
, complete with news bulletins and field reports of a supposed Martian landing and invasion in New Jersey. The radio play caused a panic among thousands of listeners; some even armed themselves and fled for the hills.

Orson was also the boy genius that co-wrote, directed, and starred in the film
Citizen Kane
, an extraordinary epic that some consider to be the greatest movie ever made. The film won Orson accolades and Academy Awards as well as numerous offers to direct many other films. After
Citizen Kane
, though, Orson’s directorial work was inconsistent and he was eventually unable to find work as a director. Orson resorted to acting, just for the money it seems, as his primary ambition was to acquire necessary financing for a number of his other dream projects. The next decades of his life were a cycle of bad movies, grandiose projects that inevitably failed, and then more acting work to acquire more funds. After years of acting in truly terrible films (with the exceptions of
Jane Eyre
and
A Man for All Seasons
), and decades of relentless panning by critics, Orson had fallen from grace in Hollywood.

In the twilight of his life, Orson enjoyed a new acceptance within the show-business mainstream and, even though he still could not attract the funding to direct motion pictures, he became a frequent talk-show guest and commercial pitchman. And in 1975 the American Film Institute presented him with its Lifetime Achievement Award.

In his latter years, Orson was obese and suffered a number of weight-related ailments. Seated at his typewriter working on the next day’s script changes for his movie,
The Other Side of the Wind
, Orson suffered a heart attack and died at 70.

He was cremated and his ashes shipped to the retired bull-fighter, Antonio Ordoñez, an old friend in Ronda, Spain. Orson’s cremains were placed into an old brick well at Ordonez’s country house, which was then sealed and, per Orson’s request, no designation of any kind marks the spot.

AUGUST 17, 1892 – NOVEMBER 22, 1980

Mae West left formal education behind at age twelve to join a professional stock company, and by fourteen was consistently drawing crowds to the vaudeville stage. With tight-fitting clothing and provocative comments delivered in a throaty voice, Mae soon gained a bawdy reputation and, throughout her career, never squandered an opportunity to heighten this risqué allure or, better yet, use it to advantage.

In 1926 she wrote a play entitled
Sex
. It was popular on Broadway, but after 41 weeks of performances the entire cast was arrested and Mae was found guilty of corrupting the morals of youth. Later plays,
The Drag
,
Pleasure Man
, and
Constant Sinner
also became the targets of censors and some were forced to close after just one performance.

Tired of censorship struggles, Mae moved to Hollywood in 1931, confident that a career in film would afford more artistic freedom. Already popular on stage, she immediately won a contract with Paramount and enjoyed an enormous streak of success at the box office. Opposite many of the biggest actors of the day, Mae played diverse roles, from lion tamers to gangsters’ girlfriends, with the haughty sexuality that had become her trademark.

By the 1940s though, Mae’s age began to show and as her allure slipped, so did her popularity. Mae attempted to return to the stage but, beyond writing and starring in the risqué play,
Catherine Was Great
, her revival was not well received. In the early 1950s Mae tried again to revive her career, this time creating a nightclub act, complete with bodybuilders in loincloths, that portrayed her as a sultry siren, though she was now over 60.

Apparently, Mae never heard the word “quit,” because in the 1960s she was back again—this time with an album that featured her singing Bob Dylan and Beatles songs. In 1977, at 84, Mae made one last movie,
Sextette
, which even her die-hard fans agree was her worst ever.

In her final years, Mae became increasingly interested in paranormal events and insisted she was in contact with a pet monkey who had died. Mae herself expired at 88 after suffering a stroke and lies at Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
From the Interboro Parkway, take Exit 3 and head south on Cypress Hill Street (not the same as the nearby Cypress Avenue). At Jamaica Avenue turn left, and the cemetery entrance is a short way beyond to the left.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Enter the cemetery, turn right and go past the office. After the road’s left-hand bend, turn at the first right and then the next left. Go up the hill and Memorial Abbey will be in front of you. In this Abbey, which is generally locked, is the West family tomb.