Hollywood Studio Magazine (September 1972)

place. Nor is he unusual. Mae Murray, until it was revealed she too had been laid in an unmarked grave had no headstone. When enough of a furor was made about it, the Screen Actors Guild paid for a small stone. There are no current plans the Forest Lawn officials know of to place a stone on Flynn’s grave. Nor was there any lavish funeral for the star whose career spanned 25 years. This was in keeping with the wishes of the actor’s widow and third wife, Patrice Wymore. Ceremonies at the time were private and the public was not notified. Ethel Barrymore is also hard to find without a guide. Her tomb is in the Catholic Calvary Cemetery mausoleum, located in a floor level crypt, with nothing to mark her occupancy. The lack of inscription, and the fact that regal Ethel is separated from her brothers inside the mausoleum was commented on several times in the Hollywood press. Both Lionel and John lie side by side and have markers. When contacted about his mother’s crypt, Samuel Barrymore Colt explained he was unable to get a crypt for his mother next to her brothers because the price was too high. Even when he puts an inscription on the crypt it will probably only be the name and the date. “Nothing fancy,” he told reporters. Rodolfo Gugliemlmi Valentino, better known to his fans as Rudolph Valentino, is sandwiched in between the crypts of William A. Diether and William D. Mathis, next to a stained glass window in the Hollywood Memorial Park — long a favorite with departed actors. Valentino’s crypt is No. 1205. A few steps from the front of the building is Nelson Eddy, “June 29, 1901 - March 6, 1967” on a small, flush-with-the-grass stone. Near Eddy overlooking a reflection pond is a marble bench which marks the resting place of Tyrone Power, “1914-1958” which bares the inscription, “Good night sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.” Apparently this inscription is a populär once since portions of the quote from Hamlet appear on the tombs of both Douglas Fairbanks, Senior and John Barrymore. Each November 15th, the Tyrone Power grave is the site of a tribute to the actor by his fans. Last year an estimated 100 persons turned up on November 15, the 13th anniversary of his death. Close by is a marble mausoleum with the name “Douras” inscribed on it. Here Marion Davies, constant companion of William Randolph Hearst lies with her maiden name over the doorway of her marble tomb. William Powell bought a $25,000 marble room for Jean Harlow, after the actress died of uremic poisoning at age 26 in 1937. Her crypt is marked simply, “Our Baby.” Another imposing section of Forest Lawn is a walled enclosure, actually a cemetery within the cemetery, where the mother, brother, sister and four aunts and three cousins of Mary Pickford are buried. The gate it is said, can only be opened with a special golden key, and only the surviving family members have a key. Humphrey deForest Bogart’s ashes are just a few paces away from an old friend, Victor McLaglen, 1886-1959. The graves of showman Earl Carroll and his steady girl Beryl Wallace are also not far away. The pair died together in a 1948 airliner crash. One of the more famous Hollywood tombs, one that is so opulent, one wonders if Cecil B. DeMille didn’t have a hand in desiging it, is Al Jolson’s Costing a cool $84,000, the marble and bronze monument with Moses reading from a scroll, with waterfalls and flood lights, would be a Hollywood landmark — except that it is next to the San Diego Freeway at the Hillside Memorial Cemetery near Culver City. Bronze letters spell out the singer’s name on both sides of the sarcophagus which also shelters a half life-size bronze figure of the entertainer singing “Mammy” while 30-feet overhead, supported by marble pillars is a dorne with the inscription, “The Sweet Singer of Israel.” This monument has one of the higher maintenance problems, people keep stealing the bronze letters that spell out the singer’s name. Another crypt that has been the object of tourist pilgrimages is that of Marilyn Monroe, 1926-1962. The blonde actress is resting in a block of crypts facing the road in the Westwood Memorial Park, barely 100 feet from busy Wilshire Blvd. traffic. Joe DiMaggio, the second of her three husbands pays a florist to place six red roses in the vault’s vase every other day. But the hundreds of visitors who used to pay their respects at the actress’ vault have been reduced to a trickle. An official of the cemetery estimates that less than ten people a day visit the crypt. Still the quiet ceremony on the roses continues. As might be expected, the tomb of Cecil B. DeMille is both imposing and grand. Located in Hollywood Memorial Park, the director of “The Ten Commandments” rests in style Around his tomb are the graves of his brother William, and William’s wife, and DeMille’s own spouse, Constance Adams. The tomb is white marble with “Cecil Blount DeMille, August 12, 1881 - January 2, 1959” written in bronze letters. The DeMille grave Stands alone on a grass incline overlooking a reflection pond and the final resting place of many of DeMille’s former actors and competitors. Among them is Harry Cohen, one of the most hated men in Hollywood, and former head of Columbia Studios. Like DeMille, the Cohen tomb is a massive marble monument that also marks the location of other members of the family. Again bronze letters read: “Harry Cohen, Beloved husband and father — July 23, 1891 - February 27, 1958.” Very often the actors real names are used in place of the stage names they adopted. Other times both names are used. One example of this is: “In Memory of Our Beloved Husband, Father and Son, Ira Grossell, Jeff Chandler 1918-1965.” In the case of Lou Costello the stone reads simply: “Louis Francis Cristillo, 1906-1959, Beloved Husband and Father.” Once in a while something theatrical is carried over into the star’s epitaph. Clara Bow is one example. In addition to her name and dates, the stone reads, “Hollywood’s ‘It’ Girl.” The comedian W. C. Fields often joked about his demise, and many thought that his famous quip, “On the whole, I’d rather be in Philadelphia,” would appear on his tombstone, as he often suggested it would. Instead, the marker reads simply, “W. C. Fields, 1880-1946.” Final billing for the stars of Hollywood is as diverse as the lives they led, and in most cases that is probably just the way they wanted it. After all most of them were very touchy about the subject when they were alive, and it looks like things haven’t changecL much even in death. *** 9