The Terrible Catsafterme

The Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California, is a very nice Catholic cemetery which houses the final resting place of well over 150 famous Hollywood celebrities. The cemetery, which was founded in 1939, requires that every headstone or marker placed within its borders contains a cross. I had been to the cemetery in the past to check out the grave of Laurel and Hardy co-star Edgar Kennedy, but my visit in the summer of 2009 was by far the most extensive.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 – My friend Bob and I had spent the night in the Culver Hotel the night before, so a visit to this Culver City cemetery was very convenient. In fact, Bob was arranging through a friend to purchase a grave marker for another L&H co-star named Edna Marion, so it was a necessity to visit it anyways. We spent a good hour roaming the grounds, snapping photos of the famous.

There were several graves that I saw that I didn’t get photographed with – either because they didn’t mean that much to me, or there were simply up too high to get a picture with. For example: John Candy, Mario Lanza, Henry Hathaway, Bonita Granville, and Charles Boyer.

There are many more in this cemetery that I will need to see on a future visit, but Bob and I ran out of time. Jimmy and I revisited it later that day, but came up short on the first one that we were searching for and ran out of time again. Below are the ones that I did see on this date:

Fred MacMurray began his career in melodramas, film noir, and musicals in the 1930’s and 40’s – but became best known for his role as the paternal leader of the family in My Three Sons, which ran a whopping twelve seasons. He also starred in the Disney features The Shaggy Dog, The Absent Minded Professor, and Son of Flubber. I once saw Mr. MacMurray in person when I walked right by him at the Dayton Bogie Busters golf tournament in Dayton, Ohio in 1985. Unfortunately I was too dumb to approach him for an autograph or photo.

One of the old sitcoms that I enjoyed on the CBN cable network line-up was I I Married Joan, starring Joan Davis and Jim Backus. She also co-starred with Abbott and Costello in Hold That Ghost.

Most notable to me as a Laurel and Hardy director (Pack Up Your Troubles, Their First Mistake, and Towed in a Hole), George Marshall went onto greener pastures for directing Destry Rides Again and co-directing How the West Was Won. He also directed W.C. Fields in You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man.

Over in the famous grotto section of Holy Cross, the first grave I came upon was that of Jimmy Durante – the famous Schnozzola – whose bulbous nose helped make him famous. He has his own film career as a leading comedian in the 1930’s, and most notably to me, starred with Laurel and Hardy in Hollywood Party. He also had a pivotal role in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

Rita Hayworth was perhaps the 1940’s biggest sex symbol – starring in such films as Tales of Manhattan, Blood and Sand, and Gilda. The title of the novella by Stephen King that would become the basis for The Shawshank Redemption was originally Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.

Zasu Pitts starred in a series of comedy films with Thelma Todd at the Hal Roach Studios, among them On the Loose in which Laurel and Hardy make a cameo appearance. Her final screen appearance before her death was in It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

There is perhaps no greater crooner than one of my all-time favorites Bing Crosby. His presence lights up the screen in any film in which he appears. He was half of a comedy team with Bob Hope in the series of Road pictures. A good friend of Oliver Hardy, Bing employed him once in a cameo in his film Riding High. His various Christmas songs, most notably White Christmas, are a staple of my holiday every year.

Bela Lugosi was once one of the scariest villians to ever grace the screen. His most noted role was that of the title role in Dracula – after which he was typecase as a horror villian and went on to star in such classics as Murders in the Rue Morgue, White Zombie, The Black Cat, and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. His association with director Edward Wood became the basis of the film Ed Wood, with Martin Landau scoring an Oscar for his portrayal of Lugosi.

Who could ever forget Jack Haley as the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz? This was of course his most notable role, but Laurel and Hardy buffs will remember that among his many roles in light muscial comedies,  he also starred with them in Pick a Star.

I had the pleasure of meeting Laurel and Hardy’s leading lady from Swiss Miss in 1980 and again in 1992 (when I sat at her table at a Way Out West Tent banquet). Della Lind is buried under her given name Gretel Steininger.

The name Art Lloyd would not mean much to a lot of people, but he was quite important to me. He was the cameraman in a good portion of the Laurel and Hardy films created at the Hal Roach Studios. His widow Venice attended many of the Sons of the Desert functions, including the 1986 convention in Valley Forge. Since she had remarried, she is buried along with her second husband at Forest Lawn in Glendale.

Last and certainly not least, was one of Laurel and Hardy’s most famous foils, Edgar Kennedy. He starred with them in ten of their films – and directed two of their silent shorts: From Soup to Nuts and You’re Darn Tootin’. In fact, he had his own series of short subject films at RKO, in addition to working with other giant comedians of the day including Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers (quite notably in Duck Soup), Fatty Arbuckle, Charley Chase, and the Our Gang.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010 – Bob and I made a return visit less than a year later, scouting still more of the many famous graves at this location. Although I was able to add a small chunk of my checklist, there will still be more to see during a future visit.

Charles Gemora was a renowned Hollywood makeup man, known as the “King of the Gorilla Men” for his numerous appearances in many films in a gorilla costume – among them Laurel and Hardy’s Swiss Miss and The Chimp. He also starred with Abbott and Costello in Africa Screams, the Marx Brothers in At the Circus, Our Gang in Bear Shooters, and Hope and Crosby in The Road to Zanzibar.

If Hal Roach was the leading comedy producer in the 1930’s, then his main competitor Mack Sennett was certainly the King of the Slapstick Comedy during the 1920s. Under Sennett’s production came the genesis of comic genius of Charlie Chaplin, with numerous other luminaries such as W.C. Fields, Bing Crosby, Mabel Normand, Raymond Griffith, and the Keystone Kops beginning their careers at his studios.

Stephen McNally (who began his career using his real name Horace McNally) was a B-Western and action film star of the 1940’s and 50’s, most notably to me, starring in Laurel and Hardy’s 1943 feature Air Raid Wardens.

Lawrence Welk was a musician and bandleader who hosted his own show The Lawrence Welk Show from 1955-1982. A virtual television icon for years, both of my Grandmothers were big fans of Welk, so I though it only fitting to pay him a visit.

Fred Newmeyer worked as both an actor and director at the Hal Roach Studios. In addition to directing a handful of Harold Lloyd’s Lonesome Luke series, he also worked as a director on three of his most famous features Girl Shy, Safety Last!, and The Freshman. Of perhaps even greater significance was that he initially directed the first Our Gang film, which was later re-shot by director Robert McGowan. Newmeyer returned later in Our Gang history to direct their only feature film General Spanky as well as three of their one-reel shorts.

It was Leo McCarey’s grave that Jimmy and I had searched for unsuccessfully in July of 2009. Bob and I were more successful and I was eternally grateful. Leo McCarey is often credited for having teamed Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy. It was while directed at the Roach Studios that he noticed the chemistry and comedic interplay between the two. He directed eight of the L&H films as well as writing gags and screenplays for them. His connection to comedy was vast, directing the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup, W.C. Fields in Six of a Kind, Harold Lloyd in The Milky Way, and numerous Charley Chase silent shorts. He won an Academy Award for his direction in Going My Way.

Jackie Coogan’s first claim to fame was when he played opposite Charlie Chaplin in his classic film The Kid. He achieved a different kind of fame – albeit a freakish one – when he played Uncle Fester in the television series The Addams Family. He also notably starred in an episode of The Brady Bunch as the slimy guy who takes Mrs. Brady to court for the supposed neck injury she inflicted upon him.

Bang! Zoom! Audrey Meadows was of course the charming and feisty Alice Kramden, opposite Jackie Gleason on The Honeymooners. Audrey was the first to sign one of my most prized possessions, an autographed cast shot from the show.

Return to Wednesday 2009 in California…

Return to Tuesday 2010 in California…

Continue to the next Hollywood cemetery…

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 21st, 2009 at 6:38 am and is filed under 2000's - Late, Disney, Famous Graves, Laurel and Hardy, Vacations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.