Hollywood Endings

You’ve done Disneyland. You’ve done Knott’s, Universal and Magic Mountain. You think there’s nothing left. If you have a taste for the ghoulish, you could be dead wrong.

For $30 per person (reserved seating), Grave Line Tours offers a look at life in Hollywood’s past lane--some of the tragic and bizarre events that have occurred in the film capital.

A plushly renovated 1969 Cadillac hearse carries seven aficionados of murder and mystery on a 30-mile, 2 1/2-hour visit to the death sites of more than 75 Hollywood luminaries, ranging from Jean Harlow to Janis Joplin to Truman Capote; from the telephone pole where Montgomery Clift had his near-fatal crash to “Dead Man’s Curve,” site of the tragic auto accident of Jan Berry of the hit duo Jan and Dean--and, ironically, the title of one of the duo’s biggest hits of the ‘60s.

Greg Smith, 36, owner and operator of Grave Line, grew up in Prairie Village, Kan., before moving to Los Angeles in 1985. He was enrolled in a funeral school--as he refers to it--but after seven months he says he found himself making jokes at inappropriate times, so he dropped out.

Perhaps it was a natural segue that he should leave behind his thoughts of becoming a mortician to found Grave Line Tours. He had been on many standard Hollywood tours, and he was interested in doing something different. Recalling the adage that nothing in life is certain except death and taxes, he reasoned that nobody wanted to see where the stars paid their taxes, so why not visit the scenes of death and tragedy, using a hearse for a touring car?

His company was founded with an investment by his father, a successful businessman, Smith says, who had earlier “bought my sister a potato chip factory.”

The elder Smith’s comment when his son broached the idea was: “The ultimate in bad taste.”

“As soon as I heard that,” Smith said with a grin, “I knew I was onto something.”

Smith said his family has always considered him a little offbeat: “When my mother was dying, she called her children to her bedside to talk with them. She called my sisters in and said: ‘Georgia, you’ve been such a blessing to me.’ ‘Leslie, you’ve been the brightest spot of my life.’ Then she called me in and said: ‘Greg?’ I leaned in real close: ‘Yes, Mother?’ And she said, ‘You’re weird. You’re very weird.’ ”

He said he had to use extortion to get the money from his father to start the tour company. “I told him I’d plaster his name all over the business if he didn’t lend (the money) to me.” The threat worked, and today Grave Line appears to be thriving.

The macabre entrepreneur expected some problems with Grayline because of the similarity of names, but, he said, “They’ve been great. They give my number to anyone who calls looking for us.”

The tour is not the grim undertaking one might expect. Tapes are played of music appropriate to the celebrity (the theme from “Dragnet” as it passes the apartment house where Jack Webb died). And entertaining and surprisingly good-humored commentary on various murders, suicides and scandals is interspersed with outrageous puns as well as anecdotes and trivia that have nothing to do with the dark side of Hollywood. (“Marilyn Monroe had a sixth toe on her left foot surgically removed. You can see where it was airbrushed out of pictures before 1947,” Smith says.)

He also debunked some of the seamier myths that have sprung up over the years and claims to have “the most accurate tour in town.”

Smith said that almost everyone who takes the tour asks the same question: “Are we going to see the Tate house?” The answer is yes, but from far across a canyon.

Despite this microscopic view of the site of the first Charles Manson massacre, there were no visible signs of disappointment on the particular tour this writer took.

Kimberly Major of the Bay Area said she is “fascinated by death” and that very morning had climbed a fence to lay a rose at Jean Harlow’s mausoleum. “This is the best tour I’ve ever taken,” she said.

Bruce and Sue Rowan of Canton, Ill., agreed it was worth extending their vacation an extra day in order to take the tour. They did not go to the traditional tourist sites or visit popular theme parks: “We don’t have kids and we weren’t really interested,” Rowan said, “but this sounded like fun, and it was.”

When the tour returned to its starting point at Hollywood Boulevard and Orchid Avenue, startled passers-by noted the high spirits of those exiting the hearse with their complimentary lilies.

Greg said mournfully: “It’s ghouling work, but somebody’s got to do it.”

Grave Line Tours, daily at noon. Reservations: (213) 392-5501. Alternate times available for private parties. No checks or credit cards.