Where Are They Buried? (42 page)

DECEMBER 8, 1933 – NOVEMBER 25, 1998

One of eighteen children born to a poor New Jersey household, Clerow “Flip” Wilson lied about his age and joined the Air Force at sixteen. With a lively sense of humor, he excelled in the
service and it was his fellow servicemen who branded him “Flip,” for his “flipped-out” personality. After leaving the Air Force at 21, Flip worked as a bellhop and moonlighted as a stand-up comedian. In 1965 he was invited to appear on
The Tonight Show
, and after that exposure, his star rose meteorically. Within a few years he had his own television show,
The Flip Wilson Show
.

The variety comedy show received only a tepid response at first, but wide-eyed Flip quickly drove the show to the top of the ratings with his keen wit and a collection of stock characters to which he brought comedic life with his hysterical body fluidity: Geraldine Jones was the sassy and swinging liberate who “don’t take no stuff.” There was the lecherous and slightly less-than-honest Reverend LeRoy of the Church of What’s Happening, and Sonny the White House janitor was the “wisest man in Washington.”

In 1974, after four award-winning seasons, the show’s time was up and, strangely enough, so was Flip’s. Though he’d exhibited that he could draw audiences, his career immediately lost its momentum and, except for an occasional guest spot, Flip vanished from show business.

At 64, Flip died after surgery to remove a malignant tumor on his liver. He was cremated and his ashes given to his family.

If
The Wizard of Oz
had been released in almost any other year but 1939, it more than likely would have swept the Academy Awards. However, 1939 was one of the greatest years in movie history and
Oz
competed against such acclaimed films as
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
,
Of Mice and Men
,
Wuthering Heights
, and
Gone With the Wind
. Opposite such strong competition,
Oz
won just two “Ozcars.”

It did establish a new Hollywood benchmark of excellence for family musicals, but
The Wizard of Oz
didn’t receive its deserved recognition until it debuted on television, almost twenty years later, to an audience that was very different from the Depression-era movie patrons who had celebrated its first release.

In 1956 MGM sold the
Wizard of Oz
rights to CBS. It debuted on television in November of that year and, because their agreement stipulated that
Oz
could only be aired once a year, CBS presented the film with all the pomp and circumstance afforded a precious jewel, causing a substantial lifting of the film’s cultural status in the opinion of viewers. For the next 30 years, the annual
showing of the
Wizard of Oz
was a can’t-miss event for children of all ages because, if you did miss it, there was a one-year-long wait until Dorothy would again click her heels together. As a result, though
The Wizard of Oz
is certainly secure on its own merits as one of the best films ever made, the pageantry that surrounded its airings has indelibly branded
Oz
into the psyche of Baby Boomers who link it to the warmth and security of an innocent time long gone. Indeed, there’s no place like home.

JUNE 10, 1922 – JUNE 22, 1969

With her overambitious stage mother prodding her along, thirteen-year-old Judy Garland reported to MGM as a contract player in 1935 for $100 a week. Judy attended school on the studio lot with other future stars Ava Gardner and Mickey Rooney and, except for appearing in a handful of unremarkable movies, Judy was more or less just another teenager until 1939, when she lost herself and found Dorothy Gale, the forever-young, celluloid image of magnetic warmth blessed with a beautifully strong, tremulous singing voice. Later, when Dorothy became more than just a film personality to Judy’s fans, the innocent teenager named Judy disappeared forever.

In the decade after
Oz
, superstar Judy was a moneymaking machine for MGM and she made films at a breakneck pace. Judy married twice, began smoking heavily, and rode the roller coaster of drug and alcohol abuse. When the pace became unbearable in 1950, Judy escalated her troubles by slitting her own neck with a piece of glass. Within a few years, though, life for Judy turned more agreeable; MGM cancelled her contract, her domineering mother died, and she married Sid Luft. It was Sid’s idea that she sing in concerts and the 1950s turned out to be some of Judy’s best years. While dazzling sellout crowds with concerts that invariably included her lifelong theme song: “Over the Rainbow,” Judy also returned to the silver screen and gave a knockout performance in
A Star is Born
.

But by the early sixties, the screw had again turned and she accelerated toward her tragic destiny. As an honorary member of the Rat Pack, her drinking problem was exacerbated and
The Judy Garland Show
was cancelled after she appeared on it drunk and disoriented once too often. Although she was brilliant in
Judgment at Nuremberg
, she was fired from other movies. Her personal life was again a shambles; she lived in hotels, was
constantly in and out of hospitals for substance-related illnesses and, not surprisingly, her fourth marriage was disintegrating. By the late 1960s the prematurely aged Judy was performing on stage again, but her voice was shot, and she would often slur her way through her concerts.

In 1969 Judy was living in London with her fifth husband, Mickey Deans. He awoke one morning to a phone call for Judy and, seeing that she wasn’t in bed, called for her in the bathroom. Getting no answer and finding the door locked, Mickey climbed onto the roof to look in the bathroom window and, there on the toilet, he saw Judy slumped over dead at 47.

The coroner determined she had died “of an incautious self-overdosage of sleeping pills,” though others saw her death in less clinical terms. Ray Bolger, the Scarecrow, said, “Judy didn’t die of anything except wearing out. She just plain wore out.”

In the silver lamé gown she’d worn at her most recent wedding, Judy was interred in a crypt at the Ferncliffe Mausoleum in Hartsdale, New York.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
From I-87, take Exit 7 in Ardsley and follow Route 9A north for 1¼ miles. Turn right onto Secor Road at the traffic light, and the Ferncliffe Cemetery is a short distance on the left.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Enter Ferncliffe at the first entrance, bear left, and park toward the left-hand side of the main mausoleum. Enter the mausoleum through the front bronze doors and go up the stairs on the left. At the top of the stairs turn left, go to the end of the hall, and turn left again. Then make the next right, walk up the four stairs, and turn at the next right. Judy is in Alcove HH on the left bottom wall.

MAY 15, 1856 – MAY 6, 1919

Originally from a wealthy family in the castor oil business, Lyman Frank Baum took turns as a small-town journalist, a chicken breeder, and an actor before failing as the proprietor of a South Dakota general store. Finally, at 40, Frank settled into writing and in the course of his remaining days turned out 30 books, from fairy-tale collections to window-dressing manuals. But, of course, Frank’s most celebrated book is
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
.

The book was immediately popular upon its release in 1900 and two years later, it became a musical stage production. Soon Frank’s life revolved around everything
Oz
; he wrote thirteen
Oz
sequels, published a periodical,
The Ozmopolitan
, and built a home in California that he called “Ozcot.” But for all his enthusiasm for his progeny, Frank would not live to enjoy its greatest celebrity.

At 62, twenty years before his
Wizard of Oz
appeared in Technicolor, Frank died of a congenital heart defect. He directed his last words to his wife, saying, “Now we can cross the shifting sands,” a reference to the boundary that separates this world from the Land of Oz.

Frank 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. The park’s entrance is immediately on the right.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Get a map at the information booth and drive over to Section G, which is in a maze of lawns behind the funeral home. In the middle of the section you’ll see the white Peters stone, and just twenty feet left is the big and blocky Baum stone.

JUNE 4, 1881 – APRIL 15, 1962

Clara Blandick enjoyed a 40-year career as a stage and film actress but, as Auntie Em on the film that would immortalize her, she worked for just one week. And she’s almost forgotten there; for some reason, Clara’s name doesn’t appear in the film’s opening credits and she is billed last in the closing credits, right below Pat Walshe, who was the chief winged monkey. Perhaps MGM felt that the $750 Clara received for her appearance was payment enough.

After
The Wizard of Oz
, Clara continued acting and most often appeared as an archetypal maternal character or kindly spinster until her retirement in 1950.

In 1962, after years of surviving as a near-blind arthritic, Clara had had enough. Following a Palm Sunday service, Clara returned to her room at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, dressed
in her finest clothes, and penned a suicide note that began, “I am now about to take the great adventure …” Clara then ingested a number of sleeping pills, secured a plastic bag around her head, and died.

At 80, Clara was cremated and her ashes interred 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:
If you’d like, you can stop at the booth, get a map of the grounds, and make your way over to the Great Mausoleum where Clara’s remains are interred, but it probably won’t do you any good. The Great Mausoleum is open only to property owners and there’s a gatekeeper at its entrance that keeps everyone honest. But if you do manage to schmooze your way in, Clara’s niche is Number 17230 in the Columbarium of Security.

JANUARY 10, 1904 – JANUARY 15, 1987

While Ray Bolger’s portrayal of the Scarecrow made him one of the most beloved characters in
The Wizard of Oz
, Ray seemed to love
Oz
fans just as much. He was one of the few
Oz
actors who lived long enough to enjoy the movie’s success after it became a television phenomenon, and he faithfully made
Oz
-related appearances, signed autographs, and sat for interviews.

Starting in vaudeville, Ray Bolger was half of a dance team called Sanford and Bolger. By 1936 Ray had secured a contract with MGM and when casting began for
The Wizard of Oz
, he was delighted to be included, then horrified to find out that he had been cast as the Tin Man. Knowing his dance style was better suited to the rubbery-legged straw man, he fought for the Scarecrow role and eventually wore down studio executives, who agreed to a switch.

The slow pace of moviemaking took its toll on high-energy Ray and, a month after finishing
The Wizard of Oz
, he asked to be released from his MGM contract. Ray then returned to his comfort zone on Broadway stages, though he reunited with
Judy Garland in
The Harvey Girls
in 1946 and with Margaret Hamilton in
The Daydreamer
in 1966. He had his own television sitcom in 1953,
The Ray Bolger Show
, and later made the rounds on talk shows. In 1985, Ray took an affectionate look back at his 50-year career in a
That’s Dancing
film extravaganza that was sentimentally co-hosted by Judy’s daughter, Liza Minnelli, and directed by her ex-husband Jack Haley Jr., who was the son of the Tin Man from
Oz
, Jack Haley.

Three years later, Ray died of bladder cancer and he bequeathed a $2.5 million trust in his name to the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television.

At 83, Ray was laid to rest at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

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

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Enter the cemetery, drive to the mausoleum at the top of the hill, and enter it through the front door. Proceed straight into the chapel and you’ll see Ray’s crypt alongside the pews, the sixth one on the bottom left.

AUGUST 7, 1884 – MAY 14, 1970

Billie Burke, the delightful redhead cast as Glinda the Good Witch in
The Wizard of Oz
, was named after her father, Billy Burke, a Barnum and Bailey circus clown.

After establishing herself as a stage actress in London, where she spent her formative years, Billie moved to the States in 1908 and duplicated that success in the New York theater. In 1919 Billie married Florenz Ziegfeld, the producer whose dazzling
Ziegfeld Follies
revues featuring glitzy costumes and lavish sets epitomized the theatrical excesses of the Roaring Twenties. With money no longer an issue, Billie retired from show business to have a family, but the stock market crash of 1929 financially devastated their household and Billie was forced to return to work. Three years later, Florenz died of a stress-related heart attack.

Billie was 55 when she was cast as Glinda in 1939, and, as she was under contract to MGM, she didn’t receive any more compensation for the blockbuster movie than her regular paycheck. By the time she played her last role in 1960, Billie had appeared in almost 70 films, usually as a daffy and
scatterbrained lady of society. Highlights include
Dinner at Eight
,
Father of the Bride
, and
Merrily We Live
, the last of which earned her an Oscar nomination.