This Map to Stars’ Homes Is Forever

During its fabled heyday, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios boasted of having “more stars than there are in the heavens.” But MGM has nothing on Margaret Burk and Gary Hudson, whose new book features a star-studded cast of hundreds. It’s the kind of company any Hollywood star would die to join.

Alas, that’s just what they did.

“Final Curtain: Eternal Resting Places of Hundreds of Stars, Celebrities, Moguls, Misers & Misfits” is Burk and Hudson’s guide to the final resting places of nearly 1,000 famous people--everyone from Bud Abbott to Adolph Zukor.

Published by Seven Locks Press of Santa Ana, the illustrated trade paperback takes the reader through 26 Southern California cemeteries.

Burk, co-producer of the monthly Round Table West literary luncheons in Los Angeles and Newport Beach, and Hudson, a writer, director and producer, have done their homework.

The co-authors traversed the grounds of each cemetery, seeking out the sometimes hard-to-find headstones of departed celebrities. And they scoured death certificates, obituaries and show business books to write the accompanying biographical sketches.

“Final Curtain” ($18.95) also includes sections on “death styles of the rich and famous,” “death by mysterious circumstances,” cemetery scandals and assorted oddities. There are also enough famous last lines, celebrity self-epitaphs, movie eulogies and humorous death-related quotations to ensure that the proceedings are more a celebration of life than of death.

As George Bernard Shaw said during his final delirium: “Curtain! Fast music! Lights! Ready for the last finale! Great! The show looks good.”

The bulk of the book is devoted to what Burk and Hudson refer to as “Who’s Who and Where?”

Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale has the biggest celebrity clientele: more than 120, including Walt Disney, Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, Sammy Davis Jr., W.C. Fields, Mary Pickford, Clark Gable, Carole Lombard and George Burns and Gracie Allen.

But Westwood Memorial Park, a tiny cemetery surrounded by tall office buildings and condominiums, is the final resting place for more than 40 celebrities, including one of the most enduring: Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962), whose death is included in the chapter on death by mysterious circumstances.

Monroe can be found in a crypt in the Corridor of Memories in the northeast corner of Westwood Memorial Park.

In the center of the cemetery, “south of Natalie Wood,” is Donna Reed (1921-1977). Not far away, in an outdoor mausoleum, is Heather O’Rourke (1975-1988) whose marker reads, “Star of Poltergeist One, Two and Three.”

In death, as in life, some of the celebrities cited in “Final Curtain” are given the star treatment.

Jayne Mansfield (1933-1967), described by the authors as “an off-the-rack Marilyn Monroe look-alike,” receives eight biographical paragraphs while her Hollywood Memorial Park neighbor Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer (1927-1959) of the Little Rascals is given but one line.

Entertainer Al Jolson (1886-1950) has the distinction of being the celebrity with the largest monument.

The legendary star of “The Jazz Singer” is entombed at Hillside Memorial Park near Culver City beneath a dome supported by six towering marble pillars.

On the ceiling of the monument, which is visible from the San Diego Freeway, is a mosaic of Moses holding the Ten Commandments. Nearby is a full-sized statue of Jolson, down on one knee and with outstretched arms in the singer’s trademark pose. And, cascading down the hill in front of the monument, is a 120-long waterfall.

Errol Flynn, in contrast, is buried beneath an unpretentious ground-level marker at Forest Lawn Glendale.

The Flynn inscription reads, “In memory of our father from his loving children.” But the marker, according to the authors, wasn’t installed until 20 years after the swashbuckling actor (1909-1959) died.

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Burk, a former executive of the Ambassador Hotel and author of “Are the Stars Out Tonight?: The Story of the Famous Ambassador and Cocoanut Grove,” says she has always been fascinated by cemeteries and marker inscriptions.

The history of a place can be found in its cemeteries, Burk says. “There is a connection [with cemeteries] that we’ve kind of lost sight of. With this book we’ve established a general philosophy that these people are gone, but we haven’t forgotten them.”

In writing the book, Burk discovered that “some cemeteries are very liberal about giving you the list of prominent people who are buried there. Some are not. At Forest Lawn I had to walk around with a pad and pencil. It’s easy to miss some of them. People walk right by Errol Flynn’s marker.”

Burk says that visiting the grave site of a familiar celebrity is somewhat like spending time with the personality. Disney’s grave site is one like that, she says, “because you think of all that he created.”

Co-author Hudson, who is married to Burk’s Round Table West partner, Marylin Hudson, agrees.

“When you go to the cemeteries you can sort of feel the spirit of the people that are there,” he says. “There were a lot of really poignant moments--like Charlie Chaplin’s little baby that only lived four days. ‘The little mouse,’ it says on his tombstone.”

Burk acknowledges that while working on the book, “I expected people to immediately think, ‘Oh, God, it’s going to be macabre.’ But I didn’t get that reaction from anybody. They’d say, ‘How interesting.’ Or, ‘That sounds like fun.’ ”

“The fun of it,” Burk says, “is the various quotations and epitaphs. I love the one [from actress Joan Hackett], ‘Go away, I’m asleep.’ ”

Even the biographical sketches Burk and Hudson have assembled can be mined for quotable nuggets:

Fabled Los Angeles preacher Aimee Semple McPherson, who rests at Forest Lawn in Glendale, would always end her sermons by saying: “Get your offerings ready. I only want folding money. I don’t want to hear the rattle of coins.”

Then there’s this quote from pianist and legendary cynic Oscar Levant: “Strip the phony tinsel off Hollywood and you’ll find the real tinsel underneath.”

Veteran Hollywood reporter James Bacon, who wrote the foreword to the book, provided the authors with several choice anecdotes, including one he observed at Bela Lugosi’s funeral in 1956.

While Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff were viewing the body of their old friend, who had risen out of so many coffins as Count Dracula, Lorre said, “Come now Bela, quit putting us on!”

Burk and Hudson spent seven months researching and writing the book. Finally, Burk says, “it got to the point where we had to cut ourselves off because there was so much interesting material.”

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“Final Curtain” is a departure for Seven Locks Press, whose publishing history has been primarily in the area of political and social affairs.

Seven Locks Press, which is named after the locks on the Potomac River near Cabin John, Md., where the company was founded 25 years ago, has had three owners. The company was purchased five years ago by Minnesota financier Deil Gustafson, who also owns John Wayne’s former yacht, the Wild Goose, which he leases to Hornblower Dining Yachts of Newport Beach for corporate and individual use.

Seven Locks Press moved to Santa Ana in 1994 when Jim Riordan, who was general manager of the Wild Goose Yacht Corp., became publisher.

The publishing company’s biggest sellers include “Parkinson’s” by Sydney Dorros, one of the leading books on Parkinson’s disease; “Waiting for an Army to Die,” an examination of Agent Orange by Fred Wilcox; and two books by Bill Moyers, “The Secret Government” and “Global Dumping Ground.”

More recent titles include “The Media and the Gulf War,” edited by Hedrick Smith; “The Cast of Characters,” by Mary Collins, a look into the people behind National Public Radio; and “On Board With the Duke,” a chronicle of John Wayne’s voyages on the Wild Goose, by his former skipper, Bert Minshall, and writer Clark Sharon.

Fittingly, “Final Curtain” was launched by Seven Locks Press last week at an invitation-only party aboard the Wild Goose in Newport Harbor.

Riordan says “Final Curtain” is one of 15 nonfiction titles Seven Locks Press will publish this year.

Among the 18 books planned for 1997 is one about campaign finance reform, which is being written by former Washington Post reporter Barry Sussman for publication in March.

Orange County lawyers Bill Craig and Mark Roseman are writing “You the Jury,” an analysis of a hypothetical repressed-memory case, which will be published in January. Readers will get to judge of the case. They will cast their votes on ballots, which will be sent to a certified public accounting firm for tabulation. The verdict will be announced at the American Booksellers Assn. convention in late spring.

Riordan says “about half of our work is still in the political affairs arena, and the other is in more general distribution like Margaret’s book.”

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Riordan first met Burk four years ago when she chartered the Wild Goose for one of her Round Table West events. He has since become a regular at the monthly author luncheons at the Balboa Bay Club. Burk, he says, was the key to Seven Locks Press doing “Final Curtain.”

“She knows the Hollywood people; she knows the stories,” he says.

Burk’s Hollywood connections proved invaluable in seeking endorsements for the book.

Book jacket blurbs have been provided by Bob Hope, Ray Bradbury, Steve Allen, Army Archerd, Bob Thomas, Johnny Grant and “celebrity psychic” Kenny Kingston, who calls the book “a delight. It deals with my crowd--the lovely sweet spirits who have gone on to the other side.”

Riordan is banking on the public sharing Kingston’s interest in those celebrities who have responded to their final curtain call.

Riordan says they’ve had interest from major booksellers and book distributors, and they expect to have the book in between 500 and 1,000 bookstores and other outlets in Southern California by the first of December.

“The truth is we wanted to be out a month earlier,” Riordan says. “If Margaret had her way, we’d still be waiting for the obits today to see who we could add.

“I’ve convinced her we’ll do that in ‘Final Curtain II,’ the sequel.”