Pardon My Hearse: A Colorful Portrait of Where the Funeral and Entertainment Industries Met in Hollywood (41 page)

In 1998, Universal Studios called our former mortuary regarding props, so they were given my number in Monterey. Universal was preparing to do an annual episode of
Columbo
. It was going to be called
Ashes to Ashes
, and Patrick McGoohan was going to play a funeral home owner. They wanted all new caskets, urns, and as much prep room equipment that could be provided, plus a small two-body refrigerator and a rolling body-lifting mechanism.

I told the set decorator that all of my props had been sold and that he should check with the three major prop houses. He said that he had already called all of them, but he wanted everything new. After some quick calculations, I gave him the bad news, which was that everything would run about $20,000. I also informed him that Universal had been a little slow to pay and that this was going to require a lot of up-front payment. He then asked, “Do you still have access to all of this type of equipment?” and of course the answer was yes. Surprisingly, he said he would send me a check that day for $10,000 to start the process moving forward.

I wouldn’t be present for the required setup of much of this equipment, but a good friend of mine, Brett Minor, who had worked in his parents’ mortuary for years, said he would be happy to oversee the project at the studio. He operated his own Ferno equipment repair service and was one of the most knowledgeable technicians in the field. Another friend who is a licensed embalmer, Rueben Andreatta, also agreed to spend time there, showing the carpenters and set decorators how to build an authentic looking embalming room. In the process, he became the technical advisor for the show.

Over the next few weeks, the studio called and added numerous items to their ever-growing list of props. When they told me that they were going to have a scene in which ashes would be scattered from a helicopter, I warned them of the problems with scattering ashes in a windy environment and advised them to use dust-free cat litter, which looks almost identical to cremated remains. They also requested a photograph of a crematory retort and an official mortuary brochure. I called my friends at Mountain View Mortuary in Altadena, who provided the studio with a brochure that they reproduced exactly, except with a picture of Patrick and his mortuary’s name.

Brett and Rueben set up everything as it arrived. Under Rueben’s direction, their carpenters build a state-of-the-art embalming room on a sound stage. One evening, Brett asked me where they had obtained the cremation retort, which was something we didn’t normally furnish. When I told him that it wasn’t real, he said, “Of course it’s real, it even has the firebricks in the interior.” The furnace wasn’t real, but it looked fantastic with all the lights, gauges, an electrically operated door, and simulated firebricks.

One night Rueben called and said that I had to come to LA and see Patrick’s beautiful mortuary interior, including an office with a fireplace, a good-size chapel, a separate room housing the crematory furnace, and a prep room. The idea of returning to Los Angeles didn’t appeal to me, but he was absolutely insistent because they had built “the embalming room to die for.” Now, how could I refuse with a description like that? Sure enough, everything looked like the real McCoy. On a table in the hallway of the mortuary set was a stack of the brochures they had made. There were over a dozen of them, so I knew they wouldn’t miss just one, which ended up in my pocket.

After participating in over 300 shoots, I had never asked anyone for an autograph. The studios paid me for my professional services, not for me to act like some starstruck fan. However, this rare opportunity seemed like an exception, particularly considering my retirement from the business, so I asked Patrick to sign the brochure, which he did, right under his photograph.

In the episode, Patrick kills a reporter, played by Rue McClanahan, who had accused him of stealing a diamond necklace from a wealthy woman’s body. When it came time to place her body into the refrigerator, they used a stunt double for McClanahan. However, it was so upsetting to the stuntwoman to be in such a claustrophobic dark space that when they opened the door and let her out she threw up.

Following the production, Rueben took over the props to continue with the rental business. One day he called and asked if he could drive up to pay me a visit. When he arrived, he presented me with a script for the pilot on an upcoming HBO series called
Six Feet Under
. He was going to be furnishing all of the props for it. Although he had been a licensed embalmer for many years, he admitted that he didn’t know much about running a mortuary, so the reason for showing me the script was to check it for technical accuracy. After the series began, they also contacted Greg to get some copies of
Mortuary Management
that they could use as props around the fictitious Fisher & Sons Funeral Home.

For quite a while, Rueben and I would have hour-long conversations about the business and many of my experiences. As many people had done before him, he kept telling me, “You’ve got to write a book.” Writing is not my forte, and without a computer the thought of spending hundreds of hours compiling an autobiography, let alone trying to remember everything that happened over four decades, seemed daunting.
Nevertheless, many people continued to encourage me, so I started scribbling my recollections on paper. It was going to require a lot of assistance from Greg along the way, with his years of editing experience. When he started reading the details of my experiences, he told me that after having been involved in so many notable events, “You were like the Forrest Gump of the funeral industry.”

I decided to invest in some rental property in Monterey. Rather than going into debt, it seemed wiser to think of a way of raising some additional capital. After selling a valuable oil painting by Russian seascape artist Eugene Garin, the only other possession of great value remaining was my collection of ivory sperm whale teeth with beautiful scrimshaw. Kathy and I started our collection on a visit to Hawaii in the late ’60s, when almost every shop was selling them. It was legal to do so because the Hawaiian Islands had been heavily involved in the whaling industry at the turn of the nineteenth century, and they considered this part of their heritage.

Seeking guidance on selling scrimshaw, I placed a call to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). They said the only way you could legally buy or sell this type of ivory was from one private collector to another, which was always my intention. After Greg put a notice on the Internet, responses began coming in. I always made it a point to explain that these teeth were collected at a time and in a place that was legal.

One of the callers started out by saying he was calling me from “rainy Oregon,” which sounded rather strange and was an unusual way to start a conversation. He stated that he was planning to visit a friend in Monterey and asked if it would be possible for him to drop by to see my collection. When he arrived, he asked permission to take pictures of the pieces for further consideration. We talked awhile, and he said he would call me when he decided what he wanted to purchase.

Within a week he contacted me to say that he wanted to purchase a certain tooth, adding that he would be back down to Monterey in a few weeks. The night before he was to arrive, he called and said that he couldn’t get time off work, so he asked if his friend in Monterey could pick up the one he had chosen and pay me for it. Once the purchase was
made, his friend asked me to mail it to him, which I did. Shortly after he received the tooth he called me again and said that he wanted an additional piece, which he would pick up personally.

When that day arrived there was a knock on my door, but instead of him, there was his friend, accompanied by two police officers. They served me with a search warrant and asked if there were any firearms in the house. None of this made sense until they confiscated all the pieces that he had photographed for the alleged offense of selling a whale’s tooth across state lines, which turned out to be unlawful. It’s too bad that when I first called, NOAA didn’t inform me of that fact. It dawned on me that they asked about guns because some people would get so incensed by having this done to them that they would resort to violence.

It turns out that the caller was actually agent Thomas Gaffney with the NOAA. They informed me that my hearing had been scheduled in Oregon, even though the transaction took place in California. I was then told that a response had to be submitted within thirty days. In my entire life, I’ve never heard of a case where the federal government responded to anything within thirty days. The attorney I hired said that he would handle the paperwork expeditiously in order to appeal my case, but explained that he didn’t think I would ever get the collection back because NOAA had a legal department with the capacity to outspend me until I gave up.

The only response we received was to inform me that my attorney’s letter had arrived two days late so there would be no further appeal, although they failed to produce any evidence that the paperwork was in fact late. The judge who signed the search warrant told me she heard a conversation taped by the NOAA indicating there was probable cause, even though the recording was only the agent’s end of the conversation.

I believe that NOAA was only acting in response to a series of lies from agent Gaffney. He had obviously manipulated the case to make a name for himself at the agency. At the time Gaffney purchased the whale’s tooth I was unaware that it was illegal to mail it, and he was counting on this fact.

In criminal law, entrapment is when a law enforcement agent persuades a person to commit an offense the person would otherwise have been unlikely to commit. Possibly the highest-profile case involved auto executive John DeLorean, who was contacted by undercover federal agents and enticed into drug trafficking in an attempt to raise funds for his faltering car company. He successfully defended himself against the charges, showing that his involvement was a result of entrapment.

During the discovery process we received recordings of my conversations with the agent over the phone and in person that were made illegally, without my knowledge or permission. From what I was able to deduce, Gaffney had not recorded our initial conversation at all because he did not have a warrant. However, he knew that a tape of only his end of the conversation was legal and would help prove to a judge that there was probable cause, so he simply fabricated a new tape after the fact. When they provided my attorney with a copy, the immediate giveaway that this was a bogus tape was his opening line: “I’m calling you from su . . . rainy Oregon.” It was obvious that he had almost said “sunny” and then quickly corrected himself. Amazingly, he didn’t even start a new recording to correct his stupid blunder!

We also reviewed a copy of the tape made at my home. It had a continuous background noise that made it difficult to hear what was being said. The noise was a deliberate attempt to reduce the listener’s ability to hear it clearly. Gaffney had created the interference by deliberately running his fingernail over the microphone’s metal mesh. You could hear the sound of his fingernail running across the mike repeatedly, with a slight pause each time he lifted his finger and stroked it again.

According to my attorney, a grand jury indictment is never issued if the only thing they hear is the law enforcement’s side of a taped conversation. However, the only way to pursue the case would have been to waste another $10,000 in attorney fees. To add insult to injury, NOAA’s fine for mailing the original tooth was more than what they had they paid me for it. According to their own research, they determined the collection they confiscated from me was worth $80,000.

I also faced some dreadful dealings with the federal government in my efforts to get Olga’s green card. After months of pestering them with letters, we finally got a second meeting, which was a disaster. At the conclusion, they told us that she would have to start her case all over again, with a medical report, fingerprints, photographs and a revocation of her work permit. This took place during a time when Congress had gone on the record stating that the INS was the worst-run division of the entire federal government.

During this second meeting, we were told that the setback had come about because of our failure to attend a previous meeting in Los Angeles. We were shown a dated copy of the notification, which had been mailed to my former home in Los Angeles, and told that it was our responsibility
to have notified them of our change of address. Fortunately, I had my file containing every document regarding her case. My records included a certified mail return postcard showing that they had been notified of our change of address, which was signed and dated before the meeting notification letter was sent to the wrong address.

At a third meeting Olga informed them that we were no longer married, so they said she would have to start a case over again on her own. I urged her to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for her entire INS file. I’m sure the government hates this law. After Olga had struggled with the problem for many years, her Russian friends were telling her that I must have had something to do with it. Shortly after the FOIA request was sent, she received a call telling her to come in for a meeting in LA. She was instructed to have me present, even though there was absolutely no provision for an appearance by someone who had no “status” in the case, since we were no longer married.

After I drove from Monterey the previous day, we appeared together before an interviewer. At the end of the interview the woman gave Olga her green card. I told her about Olga’s suspicion that I was hindering her case. She looked at Olga and said that after having reviewed her file for an hour and a half, she had never seen more impassioned letters from a husband, let alone from an ex-husband. That made my whole trip worthwhile. Olga never did receive a copy of her INS file, but at least she had her resident status and eventually got her American citizenship.