Larry Drake - I Know, It Doesn't Suck

 

"People were always coming up to me and treating me like I was slow.  I would have to tell them that I'm not really retarded, the character I play on TV is retarded.  It was actually pretty flattering because it showed that these people thought my acting was really that convincing."

Larry Richard Drake was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma on February 21, 1949.  Like many from the Sooner state, his father was an engineer in the oil industry, while his mother raised the family.  After high school, Larry graduated from the University of Oklahoma.

His first film was a 1971 moonshine flick entitled This Stuff'll Kill Ya.  Over the next 45 years, he'd amass more than 80 credits in film and television, but he is best remembered for his portrayal of Benny Stulwicz, a mentally disabled man, on the hit NBC drama L.A. Law, for which he'd win two Emmy awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.

In the 1990s, Drake made a new name for himself in the horror genre, appearing in the Darkman film series and Dr. Giggles.  He also appeared in the comedy sequel American Pie 2. 

Drake's death was rather sudden.  On March 17, 2016, he was found dead in his home.  His manager later revealed that Drake was in poor health in the months prior his passing.  His final cause of death was listed as blood cancer.  He was 67 years old.

Larry Drake was cremated and his ashes were interred at the famed Hollywood Forever Cemetery, a place where this blogger hopes to one day work.

Location: East Lake View Mausoleum, Niche AD-4

Rest in peace.

Trivia

• The inscription on Larry's marker, "scio, non sugit," is Latin for "I know, it doesn't suck."  This blogger would love to know the backstory for that!
  
  
• In 1992, Drake reprised his role of Durant for a proposed Darkman series on FOX.  It was never picked up by the network, but you can watch the pilot episode on YouTube.
  
  
• In addition to his on-screen work, Drake was a popular voice-over artist as well.  His most notable role was that of "Pops" on the Cartoon Network series Johnny Bravo.  Take a listen on YouTube.
  
  
• Does anyone besides me and his mother remember that Pat Sajak once left Wheel of Fortune to host his own nighttime talk show?  Here's a clip from 1989, in which he interviewed Larry about L.A. Law.  Skip to the 19-minute mark.

Shelley Winters

 

"I think on-stage nudity is disgusting, shameful and damaging to all things American.  But if I were 22 with a great body, it would be artistic, tasteful, patriotic and a progressive religious experience."

Shelley Winters was born Shirley Schrift in St. Louis, Missouri on August 18, 1920. She was the daughter of Austrian-Hungarian immigrants, her mother a singer, her father a clothing designer.  Her parents were in fact, third cousins. 

In 1929, the family moved to Brooklyn.  It was here that she took her first steps towards stardom.  As a young woman, she worked as a model, before embarking on a career on the Broadway stage.  Her first role was in a 1941 production of The Night Before Christmas. 

By the mid-1940s, Winters had relocated to Los Angeles, where she was under contract with Columbia Pictures.  Her career would span more than four decades, and she appeared in nearly 40 films.  She was twice named Best Supporting Actress by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, for The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) and A Patch of Blue (1965).  This blogger could never do her career the justice it deserves.

On October 14, 2005, Winters suffered a heart attack, from which she'd never fully recover.  She ultimately died of heart failure just three months later, on January 14, 2006.  She was 85 years old.

Shelley Winters was laid to rest at Hillside Memorial Park in Culver City, California.

Location: Hillside Slope, Block #11, Plot #358, Grave #8

Rest in peace.

Trivia

• If you want to learn more about Shelley Winters, take a voyage to Amazon.  Its all in books.
  
  
• During a 1975 episode of The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Winters got into a heated debate with fellow guest Oliver Reed.  She walked off stage, retrieved a glass of whiskey, and dumped it on Reed's head, much to the shock of Carson.  Fortunately, you can watch the entire segment on YouTube.
  
  
• Winters donated her Oscar for The Diary of Anne Frank to the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam.
  
  
• In 1966, Winters appeared on the Adam West Batman TV series, playing one-off villain Ma Parker.  Four years later, she'd play the real thing, Ma Barker, in Roger Corman's Bloody Mama.
  
  
• Vlogger and friend to Winters Jordan the Lion shared a video on the 2023 demolition of her Los Angeles home.  You can check it out on YouTube.
  

Loving Couple Goes to Washington

 

Maybe you've never heard of Richard and Mildred Loving, but their's is a fascinating tale.  An interracial couple from Virginia, they were the plaintiffs in a landmark 1967 case, in which the Supreme Court overturned the legal ban on such unions.  More on that later.

They met in their hometown of Central Point, Virginia in 1950, when he was 17, and she was just 11.  They started dating several years later, during Mildred's senior year in high school.  By the time she was 18, Mildred was pregnant with their first child, and after a few years of living together, they decided to make their union official. In June 1958, they drove up to Washington, DC, where they took their vows before God and State.

At the time, interracial marriage was still against the law in Virginia.  An anonymous source informed the Caroline County Sheriff's Department, who proceeded to arrest the couple while they slept in their bed. They were charged with "cohabitating as man and wife, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth."  The Lovings pled guilty and were sentenced to a year in prison.  The sentence was suspended however, when the Lovings agreed to leave Virginia for 25 years.

The couple relocated to Washington, but whereas jobs had been plentiful in Central Point, they now faced economic hardships.  They also discovered that the city could be unforgiving as well, when their young son was hit by a car on the busy streets.  In their hearts, they knew it was time to go home.

After a few years of legal wrangling, the case of Loving v. Virginia finally went before the Supreme Court in 1967.  In a ruling passed down on June 12th, the Court overturned their convictions and ruled the ban on interracial marriage as unconstitutional.

The Lovings returned to Virginia, where they began to raise a family.  Their happiness would be short-lived, however.  On June 29, 1975, their car was hit by a drunk driver.  Richard, only 41, died on the scene.  Mildred survived the accident, and would spend the next 40 years living a quiet, secluded life in Virginia, often downplaying her role in history, giving the real credit to God.  She ultimately passed of pneumonia on May 2, 2008.  She was 68 years old.

The Lovings are laid to rest in a quiet church cemetery in Central Point, Virginia.  A historical marker lies just outside the park.

Rest in peace.

Trivia

• If you want to learn more about Richard and Mildred Loving, take a voyage to Amazon.  It's all in books.
  
  
• Following the Supreme Court ruling, the couple discussed their story with ABC News.  You can watch that interview on YouTube.
  
  
• The Loving story has been chronicled in a number of films, with varying degrees of accuracy.  Of 1996's Mr. and Mrs. Loving, Mildred would state "not much of it was very true.  The only part of it right was I had three children."  Other adaptations include the 2011 documentary The Loving Story and 2016's Loving.
  
  
• In 2009, country artist Nanci Griffith released her single The Loving Kind in tribute to the couple.  Take a listen on Amazon.
  
  
• In honor of the landmark case, June 12th is now an unofficial U.S. holiday - Loving Day.

The Forgotten Grave of John Spencer

 

"I've never wanted to do anything but act.  It saved my life, it's the reason I get up in the morning, it's my opiate.  The prize for me was always getting the next gig so I could do this wonderful thing that I love."

John Spencer was born John Speshock, Jr. in New York City on December 20, 1946.  He was interested in the theatre from an early age, much to the chagrin of his parents, who had immigrated to America and settled in Totowa, New Jersey.

Spencer attended a prep school in Manhattan, alongside fellow future celebrity Liza Minnelli, before enrolling in Fairleigh Dickinson College.  He never completed his degree however, moving straight into the world of theatre.

His first role was on The Patty Duke Show, before moving onto the Broadway stage.  His first theatrical role was in the 1983 Matthew Broderick film War Games, playing a silo commander who was told to "turn your key, Sir!"  Later films included the 1990 Harrison Ford thriller Presumed Innocent and 1996's The Rock.

In 1990, he returned to television for the final four seasons of the hit drama L.A. Law, playing grizzled attorney Tommy Mullaney.  It wasn't until 1999 that he assumed the role for which he is most famously known, that of Leo McGarry on the political drama series The West Wing, a role for which he'd win an Emmy Award in 2002.

Well into his West Wing run, Spencer died quite unexpectedly of a heart attack, on December 16, 2005.  He was just four days shy of his 59th birthday.  He was laid to rest in Laurel Grove Memorial Park in his hometown of Totowa. 

The grave appears to be neglected, as this blogger had to clear away shrubbery and bird residue.

Rest in peace.

Trivia

• Like his West Wing character, Spencer was a recovering alcoholic.
  
  
• At the time of his death, Spencer had completed two episodes of The West Wing that were in post-production, each of which featured his character as a candidate for Vice President.  Following his untimely death, the writers gave his character a heart attack as well, having him die on election night. 
  
  
• The episode featuring McGarry's death aired on March 19, 2006.  It came two months after a similar death on the series Smallville, which saw Jonathan Kent, played by John Schneider, die of a heart attack after winning his seat for Kansas State Senate.  
  
  
• Spencer was an avid gardener, who once presented Ellen DeGeneres with a bouquet of flowers on her daytime talk show.  You can watch the clip on YouTube.
  
  
• Spencer was a regular participant in L.A.'s annual AIDS Walk fundraising event.

The Luckiest Man in America

 

Last year, Hollywood finally made the documentary that this blogger had been waiting 20 years for - sort of.  The 2024 film The Luckiest Man in America tells the improbable story of an ice cream truck driver named Michael Larson, who in 1984, won more than $110,000 on the TV game show Press Your Luck.  Starring Paul Walter Houser, the film does an adequate albeit fanciful job of showing how Larson beat CBS at its own game, but it failed to delve into his life prior to 1984, nor did it disclose his fate.  Enter Six Feet Under Hollywood.

Paul Michael Larson was born in Lebanon, Ohio on May 10, 1949.  He was the youngest of four children to father Robert, a butcher with a local grocery store chain, and mother Ruth, a stay-at-home mom.  While his older brothers took on great responsibilities, including college, military service, and joining the workforce, Michael leaned more towards get-rich quick schemes, which often blew up in his face.  During the 1970s, he was arrested on three separate occasions for larceny, possession of stolen goods and petty theft.

Larson also had commitment issues, with two failed marriages under his belt, each of which produced a single offspring.  By 1984, he was living with his common-law wife Teresa, with whom he had a third child.

By the 1980s, he had turned to television for the next big thing, amassing twelve sets in his living room, from where he would launch his next attack.  In 1983, he discovered a new game show called Press Your Luck, which featured a supposedly random prize board.  For those who haven't seen the film, and it is worth a watch, Larson used his VCR, a new technology then, to slow down the board's blinking lights. 

He learned that despite the show's claims, the lights did indeed have a pattern, five in fact, all of which he memorized.  He also discovered that two squares on the board never held a "Whammie," the dreaded demon who would steal all of a contestant's earnings.  Armed with this knowledge, Larson made his way to Hollywood, was cast on the show, and took CBS for more than $110,000 in cash and prizes, more than ten times the amount that any previous contestant had ever won.

Larson returned to Ohio with his winnings, quickly losing much of it in a shady real estate scheme.  CBS, embarrassed by the event, aired Larson's episode in two parts, locked them away in a vault for 20 years, and did their part to move on.  Press Your Luck would run for another three years before ultimately being canceled in 1986.

Larson resurfaced in 1994, when he was interviewed by Good America, America.  In a raspy voice, he said that it had taken him six months to memorize all of the patterns, and that he hoped to one day be cast on Jeopardy, as he had figured out a few angles on their board as well.  He'd never get the chance to implement them however, as he died of cancer five years later while living in Florida.  At the time of his death, he was in hiding from the law, the result of another of his get-rich quick schemes.  He was just 49 years old.

Michael Larson was laid to rest in the family plot at Lebanon Cemetery in Lebanon, Ohio.

Rest in peace.

Trivia

• If you want to learn more about Michael Larson, take a voyage to Amazon.  It's all in books.
  
  
• While this blogger missed the initial 1984 broadcast (it was a school day), you can watch it in its entirety (both parts) on YouTube.
  
  
• In 2003, Game Show Network pulled Larson's episodes out of mothballs and incorporated them into an excellent documentary called Big Bucks: The Press Your Luck Scandal.  In this blogger's opinion, the two-hour basic cable presentation does a better job of telling Larson's story than its big brother Hollywood counterpart would do twenty years later.  Check it out on YouTube.
  
  
• As noted above, Larson lost most of his winnings in more get-rich-quick schemes, one of which involved a local radio contest.  Larson withdrew half of his winnings in $1 bills, attempting to match a serial number that the station was looking for.  While he and Teresa were out one evening, their home was robbed, and the bills were never recovered. 
  
  
• To say that the film's producers embellished the story would be an understatement.  Whereas the film shows us Larson driving his ice cream truck from Ohio to Hollywood, he actually flew in coach.  Producer Bill Carruthers is portrayed in the film, but he's joined by executives who simply did not exist, thrown into the film to present a more diverse cast than was present in 1984.  Also, ludicrously, the movie shows Larson stepping out during the taping to appear as a guest on a talk-show hosted by Johnny Knoxville. 

Space Monkey!

 

When I first started this blog, my goal was to showcase the grave photos that I have taken in my travels and to help the reader locate them for themselves.  That said, I do have spies in the field, and, on occasion, I will showcase someone else's photos.  When my friend Neil told me that he had just visited the grave of the first monkey in space, I knew this would be one such exception.

Miss Baker, as she is known, was a squirrel monkey born in Peru in 1957.  She came to the U.S. shortly thereafter, eventually ending up in a Miami pet store.  Around 1958, she was one of 26 monkeys bought and sent to the Naval Aviation Medical School in Pensacola.  

The research team there noted that she was smarter than the other test subjects and was also much more loving.  As a result, she was moved to the head of the pack along with another female.  They were later christened Alpha and Beta by the Army, but just before flight, their names were changed to Able and Baker, in conjunction with the Joint Army/Navy Phonetic Alphabet.

On May 28, 1959, the two were packed into a Jupiter rocket and launched from Cape Canaveral.  Their flight lasted for 16 minutes, more than half of which was spent in weightlessness.  They traveled more than 1,500 miles and were recovered off the coast of Puerto Rico.  Able and Baker were the first animals launched into space by the United States who safely returned.

In 1971, Miss Baker moved to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.  There, she was a popular museum exhibit, who welcomed guests to the center on a daily basis.  She also received up to 150 letters a day from schoolchildren all around the world.  Her birthdays were four-star affairs, as were the anniversaries of her historic flight.  Miss Baker ultimately passed of kidney failure on November 29, 1984.  At age 27, she was the oldest living squirrel monkey on record.

Miss Baker was buried on the grounds near the museum.  As seen in the photo below, her grave is often decorated with bananas and some of her other favorite foods.

Rest in peace.

Trivia

• In 1960, author Olive Woolley Burt released a children's book entitled Space Monkey: The True Story of Miss Baker.  You can pick up a copy from Amazon.
  
  
• Upon their return to Earth, Able and Baker attended a NASA press conference, where they addressed a crowd of eager journalists.  You can watch this fantastic news account on YouTube. They also appeared on the cover of Life magazine.
  
  
• Popular podcast The Space Shot devoted a 2017 episode to the pair, entitled Able & Miss Baker: The Monkeynauts.  You can listen wherever you get your podcasts, or you can watch it on YouTube.
  
  
• So what happened to Able?  Her body was taxidermied and later put on display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.  It has since been archived, but you can see a picture of it here.  YouTuber Jacob the Carpetbagger vlogged Able back in 2019 when she was still on display and you can watch that video here.  Fast forward to the 11-minute mark.

Creepy David Carradine

 

"I'm perhaps the most gifted actor of my generation."

David Carradine was born John Arthur Carradine, Jr. in Los Angeles on December 8, 1936.  He was the son of celebrated actor John Carradine and his first wife Ardanelle.  John Sr. would later remarry (again and again).  As a result, John Jr. was brother to a handful of half-siblings, including Bruce, Keith, Christopher and Lewis Skolnick himself, Robert.

After a tour with the army, Carradine decided to follow in his father's footsteps by becoming an actor.  It was at this point that he legally changed his name to David, so as to avoid any confusion between the two.

He had early roles on such TV series as Gunsmoke, Ironside, and Night Gallery.  Then in 1972, he landed the role that would not only define his career but would change his life as well, that of martial arts expert Kwai Chang Caine on Kung Fu.  The series ran for three seasons with reruns continuing for years in syndication.  Although Carradine had no previous experience in the martial arts, he embraced the techniques and the culture into his daily life.  This was evident years after its cancellation, when he was cast by Director Quentin Tarantino as the title character in the martial arts film series Kill Bill.

With his career reinvigorated, Carradine flew to Bangkok in late May 2009, having signed on to appear in the film Stretch.  He was last seen alive on June 3rd.  When he failed to report to the set the next day, investigators went to his hotel room, where he was found dead, hanging in a closet.  While there was no suicide note, authorities did find rope attached to his genitalia, leading them to conclude that he accidentally died by his own hand, a case of auto-erotic asphyxiation.  He was 72 years old.

David Carradine was laid to rest at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills. 

There is a lot of text on this one, which this blogger suspects that Carradine wrote himself.  It reads as follows:

He will ever more be revered as one who popularized the spiritual values of the east in the west.  

Dancer, musician, artist, actor, producer, director, writer, composer, storyteller, poet, philosopher, aesthete, academician, martial artist, master, teacher, Kung Fu.

Devoted and loving brother, husband, father, grandfather, great grandfather, uncle and friend.

"I'm lookin' for a place where the dogs don't bite, and children don't cry and everything always goes just right and brothers don't fight....."   --David Carradine

Rest in peace.

Trivia

• Carradine authored a series of martial arts book as well as an autobiography.  Check out his library of work at Amazon.
  
  
• Five years after his death, Carradine was posthumously inducted into the Martial Arts History Museum in Glendale, California.
  
  
• Unhappy with the relationship of his father and stepmother, Carradine attempted to commit suicide when he was just five years old.  His preferred method?  Hanging.
  
  
• Carradine appeared with his father and two half-brothers, Keith and Robert, in a 1984 episode of The Fall Guy entitled "October the 31st."  Adding further titillation to this Halloween-centric episode is an appearance by TV hostess Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, aka Cassandra Peterson.  You can watch a recording of the 1984 broadcast, complete with commercials, on YouTube.  
  
  
• In 1987, Carradine marketed his own tai chi workout video.  Check out this hilarious commercial for it on YouTube.
  
  
• In 1993, Carradine returned to television in a revival of his signature series, now titled Kung Fu: The Legend Continues.  The series ran for four seasons in first-run syndication, surpassing the original series, which had only lasted for three.