Where Are They Buried? (9 page)

SEPTEMBER 8, 1925 – JULY 24, 1980

Peter Sellers’ given name was actually Richard Henry Sellers, but his parents, eclectic vaudeville entertainers, always called him Peter in memory of his stillborn older brother. In any event, the child spent his youth traveling the vaudeville circuit, and by sixteen was touring as a jazz band’s drummer. Immediately upon reaching legal age in 1943, he was drafted into the British Royal Air Force and spent the war years performing comedy sketches and playing in bands as an official RAF entertainer.

By war’s end, Peter’s comic and impressionist routines were fine-tuned, and he established himself as a sought-after radio personality. By 1951, he had his own radio comedy show called
The Goon Show
, which enjoyed an eight-year run in his native Britain. The show is now recognized as a significant influence on
Monty Python’s Flying Circus
.

Peter also made his film debut in 1951, and his international reputation was firmly established with 1963’s
Dr. Strangelove
. The following year brought the start of the
Pink Panther
film series, and during his years in the role of the bumbling and incompetent Inspector Clouseau, Peter’s popularity was unrivalled. Five
Pink Panther
films hit pay dirt and, upon Peter’s death, the studio was even able to cash in one last time with a posthumous release made with a collection of outtakes from the previous films combined with new footage of other cast members.

Peter’s most accomplished role was probably in
Being There
, in which he played Chance, the television-watching, childlike gardener mistaken for a political guru. His controlled performance was astonishing and won him an Oscar nomination.

At 54, Peter died of a heart attack and was cremated. At Golders Green Crematorium in London, his ashes are buried under a rosebush near the Chapel of Memory columbarium.

MAY 10, 1899 – JULY 22, 1987

JULY 16, 1911 – APRIL 25, 1995

In the Depression era, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were each relatively successful entertainers. Fred and his sister performed as a Broadway dance team while Ginger was well established in the American movie industry and had appeared in nineteen feature films. In 1933 Fred and Ginger partnered in the film
Flying Down to Rio
and something miraculous occurred: Ginger’s down-to-earth brashness blended with Fred’s airy, man-about-town sophistication. And when they danced, their pleasure in each other was palpable.

Due to the overwhelming and enthusiastic audience response, MGM Studios put them together again in
The Gay Divorcée
and film history was made. The film’s story was flimsy, but the Astaire-Rogers dances were both sublime and revolutionary. Astaire lent the pair an emotional center and Ginger contributed an erotic charge. The couple never kissed on screen until years later, but they were clearly making love on the dance floor, and Astaire’s light voice was the perfect instrument to express his ardor.

The duet evolved into the most beloved and celebrated dance team in the history of the American musical cinema. Ginger represented the down to earth while Fred was the elegant, European in grace. In ten dance musicals, they personified the idiosyncrasy of romance—two people who friends might never match up, but who are drawn together by an inexplicable attraction.

By 1939 though, it was clear that the magic expressed through their dances was waning, and the two amicably went their separate ways. In the decades following, both Ginger and Fred had enviable professional careers, but the charm, grace, and style of their years together would never be surpassed.

Fred died of pneumonia at 88 on July 22, 1987, and Ginger died at 83 on April 25, 1995, of congestive heart failure. They are both buried in Oakwood Memorial Park in Chatsworth, California.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
From Highway 118, follow Topanga Canyon Boulevard south to Lassen Street. Turn right on Lassen and, after 1 mile, the park is in front of you.

DIRECTIONS TO FRED’S GRAVE:
Enter the cemetery, turn at the second right and stop at the left-hand curb marked “G-79.” Count seven markers down the hill and you’ll find Fred’s grave.

DIRECTIONS TO GINGER’S GRAVE:
Enter the cemetery, turn immediately right and, after you pass two drives, stop at the left-hand curb marked “256 E.” Count in fourteen markers and you’ll find Ginger’s grave.

JULY 2, 1908 – MARCH 27, 2002

As Milton Berle’s father was never able to provide for his family very well—they lived in an assortment of crummy flats and brownstones in the Bronx and upper Manhattan—his mother was determined to make one of their progeny a star. She chose Milton, apparently her cutest child. After scoring a tin cup at a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest, Milton became the boy in the Buster Brown shoe ads. With the help of his mother, a tireless promoter, Milton was a veteran of vaudeville by sixteen and had appeared in several silent films.

Through the 1930s and ’40s, Milton was a popular master of ceremonies, performed nightclub comedy routines, was heard on a few radio programs, and appeared 553 times in the Ziegfeld Follies. The radio shows weren’t particularly successful for Milton; his style was too visual: the raised eyebrow, a turned head and a wink, a tap of the ever-present Cuban cigar. But in 1948 he received an offer to do the radio show
Texaco Star Theatre
, and Milton accepted the offer, though he really wanted to break into the new medium of television.

The show was a hit, and its success led Texaco to sponsor an hourlong television version that fall. While some of his radio competitors were reluctant to risk flopping on the tube, Milton jumped at the opportunity and was the first of the big-name comedians to get his feet wet in television.

The
Texaco Star Theatre
television show was finally renamed
The Milton Berle Show
in 1954. It was basically vaudeville on video (vaudeo, if you will) and it became immensely popular. For eight years the manic energy of “Uncle Miltie” permeated the Tuesday
night airwaves with wacky skits and zany tunes, flying acrobats and full-bosomed showgirls and, of course, the no-holds-barred emcee Miltie, beaming with a Cheshire Cat-grin, dressed in drag and getting pies in the face.

Milton’s success spawned many imitators, the show’s ratings eventually waned, and in 1956 it was cancelled. Milton was all but washed-up as a major television personality, and for the remainder of his years was relegated to guest spots, limited comedy tours, and appearances on talk shows and award programs. With time on his hands, Milton also put his energies into the Friars Club, a high-profile, who’s-who watering hole legendary for its honorary, good-natured “roasts.” As Abbot of the Friars’ Hollywood chapter, Milton presided over its jocular celebrity members for almost 30 years.

The position seemed to fit. “I think laughter is imperative and it’s the important part of my life, making people laugh so they can forget their problems,” Milton said. “A good laugh is better than anything.”

After years of failing health, including colon cancer, Milton died in his living room at 93 while taking a nap. He was buried at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City, California.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
This park borders the east side of I-405 at the Centinela Avenue exit, which is immediately north of the La Tijera Boulevard exit.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Drive straight into the park and loop almost all the way around the hill on which the big mausoleum is located. As you reapproach the park’s entrance, on the left you’ll see a mural of a rabbi officiating at a wedding. Uncle Miltie lies in a crypt immediately to the right of the mural, third row from the bottom.

DECEMBER 25, 1899 – JANUARY 14, 1957

While the images of other cinematic luminaries of Hollywood’s bygone golden era have faded, the legend of Humphrey Bogart still looms large. With a trademark lisp, dangling cigarette, and world-weary cynicism, Humphrey weaved his “Bogie” persona into an untouchable archetype of the reluctant but romantic anti-hero possessing a touching vulnerability.

As Sam Spade in
The Maltese Falcon
, he became a bankable action star, but it was his role opposite Ingrid Bergman in
Casablanca
that made him into a full-fledged leading man. In 1944 he married the twenty-year-old actress Lauren Bacall (it was his fourth marriage) and together they made such memorable features as
To Have and Have Not
and
Key Largo
. In 1951 Humphrey was showcased as an unkempt riverboat captain opposite Katharine Hepburn’s strait-laced missionary role in the universally loved
African Queen
.

Humphrey made his final film in 1956, the gritty boxing drama
The Harder They Fall
, and shortly after its release he underwent surgery to remove a cancerous growth from his esophagus. A few months later in November, he went under the knife again to have some scar tissue in his throat removed, but Humphrey never quite recovered from that surgery. One afternoon, Lauren found him comatose in his wheelchair, and he died the next morning at 57.

Humphrey was cremated and his 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. The park’s entrance is immediately on the right.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Get a map from the information booth and make your way up to the Gardens of Memory. Humphrey’s ashes are in the Columbarium of Eternal Light, which is located within the Garden section just left of the statue of David. However, these gardens are locked and admittance “is restricted to those possessing a Golden Key of Memory, given to each owner at time of purchase.” Still, sometimes you can get lucky and an owner will let you in.

If you’re really determined to get into these gardens but don’t want to hang around until a property owner with a key shows up and you don’t want to jump the wall (which I do not condone, and which would constitute trespassing, besides), here’s what you can do: Go to the park before it officially opens at eight o’clock and, though there may be placards in the driveway stating that its closed, drive past them and proceed up to the Gardens of Memory like you own the place. (You’ll need to have previously secured a park map.) This is the time of day when new guests are being interred and the maintenance staff is scurrying everywhere. The doors to the private sections are
sometimes propped open by work crews or, if that’s not the case, you’ll at least have a good chance of persuading one of the maintenance people that you’ve forgotten your “Golden Key of Memory” and should be allowed entry.