The Understated Grave of the Overrated Andy Kaufman

 

"There's no way to describe what I do.  It's just me."

Andrew Geoffrey Kaufman was born in New York City on January 17, 1949.  He was the oldest of three children born to a middle-class family on Long Island.  He was born an entertainer, and by age nine, he was already performing at children's birthday parties.  He spent much of his youth writing poetry, as well as an unpublished novel (at age 16) titled The Hollering Mangoo.

After college, Kaufman went to Las Vegas to meet his idol, Elvis Presley.  Kaufman fans will know that the King became a huge part of his act, as he'd often portray him to near comedic perfection while on stage.

Around this time, Kaufman also developed a character known as "Foreign Man," who was based on his old college roommate.  This character, like Elvis, became a staple of his act, one that would propel him to the NBC sit-com Taxi as Latka Gravas in 1978.  The series lasted for five seasons on two networks.  Other characters during this time included Tony Clifton, his fictitious loud-mouth manager.  Kaufman, who was also a huge fan of wrestling, developed a secret alliance leading to public feud with wrestler Jerry Lawler.

During Thanksgiving 1983, Kaufman was experiencing a severe cough, which he told family members he'd had for over a month. He was subsequently diagnosed with large cell carcinoma of the lung, which is often attributed to smoking.  He underwent palliative radiotherapy, leading to severe weight and hair loss.  When the treatment didn't work, he traveled to the Philippines, where, in a last-ditch effort, he underwent "psychic surgery," a procedure that has since been proven to be fraudulent.  He returned to the U.S. and died shortly thereafter on May 16, 1984.  He was just 35 years old.

Andy Kaufman was laid to rest in the family plot at Beth David Cemetery in Elmont, New York.  His two younger siblings, Michael and Carol, are still very much alive.

Location: Section #1, Block #4
Inscription: Beloved Son, Brother and Grandson
We Love You Very Much

Rest in peace.

Trivia

• If you want to learn more about Andy Kaufman, take a voyage to your public library, or Amazon. It's all in books.
  
  
• In 1977, Kaufman taped a TV special called Andy's Funhouse that didn't air until 1980. Shortly before he died, Kaufman gave permission to Paul Reubens to create a similar program, which we know today as Pee-Wee's Playhouse.
  
  
• Taxi co-star Jeff Conaway punched Kaufman in the face backstage at the 1979 Golden Globe Awards, after Kaufman insulted the cast during the broadcast. 
  
  
• The only time Kaufman ever broke character on screen was during a 1982 appearance on a talk show hosted by Orson Welles.  Check it out on YouTube.
  
  
• In 1992, REM released their Andy Kaufman tribute song Man on the Moon.  The title was later borrowed for the 1999 Kaufman biopic starring Jim Carrey.

Scream Queen Janet Leigh

 

"Psycho gave me very wrinkled skin.  I was in that shower for seven days - 70 setups.  At least he (Hitchcock) made sure the water was warm."

Janet Leigh was born Jeanette Helen Morrison in Merced, California on July 6, 1927.  She came to Hollywood in 1945 via actress Norma Shearer, who spotted a photograph of the teenager as taken by her father. Shearer took the photo to MGM Studios, who quickly signed Janet to a contract.

Her first film was The Romance of Rosey Ridge, a drama set during the Civil War. She played opposite Van Johnson, with whom she'd culminate a long-standing professional career.

By 1960, Leigh was a household name, having appeared in 35 feature films. It was then that director Alfred Hitchcock cast her in her most memorable role, that of murder victim Marion Crane in his classic film Psycho.  The iconic role would cement her legacy as a film scream queen. Check out the infamous scream on YouTube.

When Janet reached her 70s, she was diagnosed with vasculitis, which ultimately took her life on October 3, 2004.  She was 77 years old.  She was cremated, and her ashes were interred at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village in Los Angeles.  Her husband passed away five years later and joined her in the family crypt.

Rest in peace.

Trivia

• If you want to learn more about Janet Leigh, take a voyage to Amazon.  It's all in books.
  
  
• Janet was married four times.  Her third marriage to actor Tony Curtis produced two offspring, including future actress Jamie Lee Curtis.
  
  
• While there is no official Janet Leigh Museum, there is a theatre dedicated in her honor at her alma mater, the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California.  There, you will find an assortment of her memorabilia, donated by Jamie Lee upon her mother's passing.  There is also a Janet Leigh Plaza in downtown Stockton.
  
  
• There are a number of Janet Leigh documentaries available on YouTube, as well as this 1985 episode of The Phil Donahue Show, featuring both Janet and daughter Jamie Lee.
  
  
• Janet was quite active politically, joining fellow Hollywood heavyweights Sidney Poiter, Gregory Peck and Kirk Douglas for this 1964 get-out-the-vote commercial.

The Singing Grave of Glen Campbell

 

"I'm not a country singer per se.  I'm a country boy who sings."

I first created this blog to showcase the many graves I have visited in my travels.  From time to time however, friends will send me their photos as well, which I'm only too happy to share.  Today's blog is no different, but it does highlight one of the most unique graves I've ever heard of and hope to one day visit myself.

Glen Travis Campbell was born in Billstown, Arkansas on April 22, 1936.  He was the son of a sharecropper, raised on a farm of potatoes, corn, watermelons and more.  Times were tight, so Campbell pitched in to help the family, picking cotton for as a little as $1 a day.

Campbell came from a musical family, and by age 4, he could already play the guitar.  He had no formal training, having taught himself by listening to radio and records.  When he turned 14, he began performing at fairs, church picnics, and other similar venues.  He formed his first band, the Western Wranglers, when he was just 18.  

His talents took him to Los Angeles in 1960, where he played on recordings for a number of top acts, including the Beach Boys, Doris Day, Frank Sinatra and more.  By 1968, he was hosting The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, a weekly variety series, which ran for three years (see Trivia below).  It wasn't until 1974 that he released Rhinestone Cowboy, which became his signature hit.

In 2011, Campbell announced that he had Alzheimer's disease.  He withdrew from public life, eventually settling in a long-term care facility in Nashville.  He ultimately died on August 8th, 2017.  He was 81 years old. 

Glen Campbell was laid to rest in his family's private cemetery in Billstown, Arkansas.

What makes this grave so unique?  As you pay your respects to the Rhinestone Cowboy, a carefully concealed sound system plays Campbell's rendition of Amazing Grace.  Give it a listen!

Rest in peace.

Trivia

• If you want to learn more about Glen Campbell, take a voyage to Amazon.  Its all in books.
  
  
• In 1994, the Glen Campbell Goodtime Theatre, which borrowed its name from his CBS series, opened its doors in Branson, Missouri.  For the next three years, Campbell headlined the venue himself before it was rechristened in honor of the Oak Ridge Boys.  The facility was demolished in 2016 and is today the site of an emergency clinic.  However, a community of devoted fans still maintains an active Facebook page.
  
  
• In 2020, the Glen Campbell Museum opened in Nashville, featuring more than 4,000 square feet of artifacts and memorabilia from Campbell's life and career.  It closed in 2023 for relocation, but to date, has not yet reopened.  It too has a faithful Facebook following.
  
  
• Campbell was an avid golfer who often hosted the Los Angeles Open, later spending time on the greens in Arizona with fellow singer Alice Cooper.  Here's a clip of Campbell playing the Torrey Pines Tournament in the 1970s.
  
  
• Campbell tried his hand at acting, including the 1969 John Wayne western True Grit, for which he also provided the opening song.  Although the film is considered a classic today, Campbell was unimpressed by his own performance and quickly withdrew to his musical career.  

Dr. Joyce Brothers

 

"I don't give advice.  I can't tell anybody what to do.  Instead, I say this is what we know about this problem at this time.  And here are the consequences of these actions."

Dr. Joyce Brothers was born Joyce Diane Bauer in Brooklyn, New York on October 20, 1927.  Her parents, both attorneys, operated a law practice in Queens, instilling in their children the value of higher education.  To that end, Joyce attended Cornell University, where she double majored in psychology and home economics.  Really.  She later received her doctoral degree in psychology from Columbia University.

Joyce first rose to fame as a contestant on the 1950s game show The $64,000 Question, where her expert category was boxing.  Again, really.  Her popularity on the show ignited her media career, which would continue for the next five decades.

Joyce was a popular media figure who was comfortable playing herself on scripted television shows (Chips, Police Squad!, The Simpsons), as a fictitious character on other shows (JAG, Diagnosis Murder, WKRP in Cincinnati), or as the host of psychology-oriented daytime talk shows (see Trivia below). 

By 2013, Joyce's health was in decline.  She ultimately died of respiratory failure on May 13th of that year.  She was 85 years old.  CBS News broadcast this report following her passing.  She was laid to rest in the Bauer family plot at Beth David Cemetery in Elmont, New York.

Location: Section #4, Path #1, Bauer Plot

Rest in peace.

Trivia

• If you want to learn more about Dr. Joyce Brothers, take a voyage to Amazon.  Its all in books.
  
  
• While there is no museum in her name per se, there is an exhibit at Cornell University, her alma mater, entitled Dr. Joyce Brothers, Mother of Media Psychology.  It is located in the Carl A. Kroch Library in Ithaca, New York.  Check out their website.
  
  
• For more than 40 years, Joyce provided a monthly column for the popular magazine Good Housekeeping.  
  
  
• Throughout her career, Joyce hosted a number of self-titled TV talk shows, including The Dr. Joyce Brothers Program on the Disney Channel.  Check out these clips - Promo #1, Promo #2.
  
  
• Not one to take herself too seriously, Joyce filmed a cute commercial for MCI's "Friends and Family" phone plan in 1995, alongside herself.  Check it out on YouTube.  You might also dig this commercial for Old Navy.

Kenny Rogers

 

"Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great."

Kenneth Donald Rogers was born in Houston, Texas on August 21, 1938. He was the fourth of eight children born to Edward and Lucille Rogers, a carpenter and a nurse's assistant, respectively.  Money was always tight for the family.  Although they lived in a public housing project, Rogers would later state that he was never hungry, despite his father's $75 a week salary.

Rogers had an interest in music from an early age, winning his first talent show when he was just ten years old.  Later, after graduating from high school (the first in his family to ever do so), he began his recording career with a Houston area group called The Scholars.  They released their first single, The Poor Little Doggie, in 1956.  He'd perform with a number of groups over the next twenty years before finally going solo in 1976.

That year, Rogers released his first album Love Lifted Me.  It was a modest success, but his self-titled album Kenny Rogers, released just one year later, made him a household name.  He followed it up in 1978 with the album, song, and character that would define his career, The Gambler.  The character became so synonymous with Rogers that Hollywood came a calling, releasing a made-for-TV movie in 1978 with Rogers in his first major acting role.  You can watch the film for free on YouTube.

Throughout his forty-year solo career, Rogers released 65 albums and sold over 165 million records.  He had a score of musical collaborations, with such country artists as Dottie West, and, most famously, Dolly Parton.  He finally retired in 2017.  His final concert, appropriately held in Nashville, included a slew of guest artists, including Lee Greenwood, The Oak Ridge Boys, and Travis Tritt.

By 2020, Rogers was diagnosed with bladder cancer.  It ultimately took his life on March 20.  He was 81 years old.  He was laid to rest in Atlanta Georgia's Oakland Cemetery.

Location: Lot 599, Bobby Jones Neighborhood

Rest in peace.

Trivia

• If you want to learn more about Kenny Rogers, take a voyage to Amazon.  It's all in books.
  
  
• In 1991, Rogers opened a restaurant chain called Kenny Rogers Roasters.  By 2011, the company had closed all of its US locations.  It still thrives today overseas however, with locations throughout Asia.  At its height, the restaurant even served as a plot point in an episode of the classic sit-com Seinfeld.
  
  
• In 1973, Rogers appeared as himself in a commercial for the Quick-Pickin' 'N Fun-Strummin' Home Guitar Course, a name that I most certainly did not make up.  While it was often lampooned for its cheesiness, it is sometimes credited with revitalizing his career.  Check it out on YouTube.
  
  
• In 1986, Rogers established the Athens Area Homeless Shelter in Athens, Georgia.  It's still in operation today, providing services and financial assistance to the local homeless community, as well as their annual "Jammin' in Our Jammies" fundraising event.  Check out their website for more information.
  
  
• Rogers donated his time and talent to two classic awareness-raising music videos, We Are the World and Voices That Care, even snagging a solo bit during the former. 

Louise Brooks - Silent Film Star

 

"Love is a publicity stunt, and making love - after the first curious raptures - is only another petulant way to pass the time waiting for the studio to call."

Mary Louise Brooks was born in Cherryvale, Kansas on November 14, 1906.  Her father, Leonard, was a lawyer who had little time to be a parent, preferring that his wife Myra assume those responsibilities.  An artist herself, she instilled in Louise a love of music and books.

By her late teens, Louise was already a very skilled dancer, having toured with a national company.  She then joined the famed Ziegfeld Follies as a semi-nude dancer in New York City.  Her act caught the attention of a producer at Paramount Pictures, who signed her to a five-year contract.  She made her screen debut in the 1925 silent film The Street of Forgotten Men.

For the next fifteen years, Brooks enjoyed steady work in both America and Europe, becoming an icon of the flapper girl culture.  She starred in a number of silent film classics, including Beggars of Life and Diary of a Lost Girl.  Her most famous film during this time was Pandora's Box (1929), which is often cited as her best work.  Produced and later banned in Germany, the film tells the story of Lulu, an uninhibited and seductive ingenue who brings ruin and shame to those closest to her.  You can watch the film, complete with English subtitles, on YouTube. 

By 1940, her career had run its course, so Louise returned to her native Kansas, where she opened a dance studio.  It didn't last long however, so she returned to the Big Apple, ultimately finding work as a call girl.  Of this time in her life, she would later write "I found that the only well-paying career open to me, as an unsuccessful actress of thirty-six, was that of a call girl...and I began to flirt with the fancies related to little bottles filled with yellow sleeping pills."

Wiser heads prevailed however, and by 1955, she experienced something of a career resurgence, culminating in a Louise Brooks film festival in 1957.  She shied away from interviews, but had special relationships with film historians, and ultimately wrote her memoirs (see Trivia below).

By 1985, her health was in decline, having suffered from emphysema and osteoarthritis of the hip for several years.  She ultimately died of a heart attack on August 8th.  She was 78 years old.  Mary Hart filed a report on her passing for Entertainment Tonight.

Louise Brooks was cremated and her ashes were laid to rest at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Rochester, New York.  Beethoven's Ode to Joy was played during her memorial service while passages from her memoir were read to attendees.

Location: Section #33S, Lot #133F

Rest in peace.

Trivia

• If you want to learn more about Louise Brooks, take a voyage to Amazon.  Its all in books.
  
  
• While there is no Louise Brooks Museum per se, there are a number of exhibits dedicated to her in the United States.  The Cherryvale Historical Museum in her hometown features a permanent exhibit on her life, while the George Eastman Museum in Rochester has an impressive collection of her memorabilia.  Fans are also welcome to visit the Louise Brooks Society online, which has been keeping fans connected since 1995. 
  
  
• The last known interview with Brooks was for the acclaimed 1980 documentary series Hollywood.  Check out this clip on YouTube, wherein she discusses fellow silent film star and close personal friend Clara Bow.
  
  
• In 1991, the British band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark released their single Pandora's Box as a tribute to Brooks.  The music video, available on YouTube, incorporates footage from the 1929 film.
  
  
• As a child, Brooks was good friends with fellow Cherryvale resident Vivian Vance, who would later rise to stardom herself as co-star of I Love Lucy.

The Reverend Billy Graham

 

"I am the greatest failure of all men.  I was too much with men and too little with God.  I was too busy with business meetings and even conducting services.  I should have been more with God, and people would've sensed God's presence about me when they were with me."

William Franklin Graham, Jr. was born in Charlotte, North Carolina on November 7, 1918.  He was the oldest of four children born to a dairy farmer and his wife.  As a young boy, Graham enjoyed reading the Tarzan novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs and echoing the hero's famous jungle call.  Graham's father would later declare that it was this famous yell that led his son to becoming a minister.

As a young man, Graham attended several universities, eventually earning a degree in anthropology from Wheaton College.  He would later write that it was during this time in his life that he decided to become a minister, stating he had answered the call while on the 18th green of a Florida golf course. 

Graham's career was the stuff of legends.  During a period of racial strife in the 1950s, he often preached for integration, even convening a joint crusade with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1957. Through his travels and his broadcast ministry, he is estimated to have preached the word to more than 210 million people worldwide and three presidents called him friend.  He is considered among the most influential Christian leaders of the 20th Century. 

By 2018, Graham's health was in decline.  He ultimately died of natural causes on February 21st at the age of 99.  He received tributes from around the world, with President Trump declaring him "an ambassador for Christ."  He became only the fourth private citizen to lie in honor at the Capitol rotunda in Washington, DC.  

Reverend Graham was laid to rest on the grounds of the Billy Graham Library in his hometown of Charlotte.  His pine coffin was handcrafted by convicted murderers at Louisiana State Penitentiary. While you're there, be sure to visit Bessie, the talking animatronic cow who welcomes the faithful to the site.

Rest in peace.

Trivia

• If you want to learn more about the Reverend Billy Graham, take a voyage to Amazon.  Its all in books.
  
  
• In the early 1950s, Graham founded World Wide Pictures, a production company that produces short, inspirational films for churches.  You can see many of them today on the company's YouTube channel.
  
  
• Graham was the first televangelist to speak behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, sharing his message of peace with the Soviet Union and countries throughout Eastern Europe.
  
  
• Graham founded the magazine Christianity Today.  Pick up a copy now!
  
  
• Graham was the first non-musician to be inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.
  
  
• While you're in Charlotte, be sure to visit Graham's birth marker, located at 4601 Park Road.