“The best way to get praise is to die.”
— Yiddish expression
A GRAVESTONE, HEADSTONE OR TOMBSTONE is a marker, usually stone, that is placed on a grave. Going back to 1565, it was originally the stone lid of a stone coffin, a stone slab laid flat over a grave. Nowadays, many tombstones are set upright.
(One of the resentments I still harbor about my father is his choice, in 1976, of the gravestone for his mother, my beloved grandmother Betty. Taking the easy way — his way — he copied the scripted style, flowery graphic, black granite material and almost identical epitaph from a tombstone already at some stranger’s adjacent grave. Oh, daddy. I think the best tombstones are original tombstones. Whew. Sorry. I had to get that off my chest. Okay. Anyway … ) This column is about two public cemeteries in Los Angeles that celebrate the dead with an extraordinary assortment of gravestones.
My grandmother Betty and my father are buried at Hillside Memorial Park, a Jewish cemetery near the airport in L.A. overlooking the I-405 freeway, along with:
Al Jolson (who has this long, cascading river as part of his memorial),
Michael Landon (born Eugene Maurice Orowitz, his crypt always has flowers and personal notes),
Lorne Green,
Eddie Cantor,
Jack Benny,
Milton Berle,
Cyd Charisse,
Max Factor,
George Jessel,
Moe Howard,
married couple Suzanne Pleshette and Tom Poston,
Jerry Rubin,
Mort Sahl,
Dinah Shore,
Shelley Winters and
the Nussbaum family — people I grew up with and admired. Ruth Nussbaum, one of the most wonderful women who ever drifted across this planet, has this epitaph on her gravestone:
“One must be light,
Light of heart and light of hand
To hold and take hold and let go.”
Hillside Memorial has its share of Tinseltown celebrities, to be sure, but its crosstown rival, the Hollywood Forever Cemetery (6000 Santa Monica Boulevard), has an equally amazing collection of gravestones. Built in 1899, residents of Hollywood Forever include:
Alan Arkin,
Norman Cousins,
Iron Eyes Cody,
Harry and Jack Cohn,
Cecil B. DeMille,
Nelson Eddy,
Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Jr. (buried in the same tomb fronting a reflecting pool)
Peter Finch,
Victor Fleming,
Judy Garland,
Bob Guccione,
Valerie Harper,
Anne Heche,
John Huston,
Bronislaw Kaper,
Peter Lorre,
Jayne Mansfield,
Darren McGavin,
Adolphe Menjou,
Paul Muni,
Tyrone Power,
Johnny and wife Dee Dee Ramone,
Paul Reubens,
Burt Reynolds,
Nelson Riddle,
the Ritz Brothers,
Mickey Rooney,
Joseph Schildkraut,
Bugsy Siegel,
Paul Sorvino,
Rudolph Valentino,
Clifton Webb,
Fay Wray and
my maternal grandmother, Molly Schenkelbach.
Mel Blanc, the voice of Barney Rubble, Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig and other Looney Tune characters, has a tombstone with this epitaph:
“That’s all folks.”
Death has a different kind of meaning at these two Los Angeles cemeteries. It is not spooky or dreary. Death here is almost celebratory. It doesn’t depress; it sparkles. I enjoy visiting them and, as a bonus, my grandmothers are in stellar company.
Next week: More epitaphs
Cemeteries—and tombstones—are fascinating cultural signposts. There are a good number of Facebook pages—several of which I follow—dedicated to both. They’re well worth looking into.